Mesoscale Discussion
Valid: Tue 05 May 2015 10:00 to Tue 05 May 2015 14:00 UTC
Issued: Tue 05 May 2015 10:21
Forecaster: PUCIK

... Severe wind gust and tornado threat increasing over the next few hours over Netherlands, N Belgium and NW Germany ...

DISCUSSION

Thunderstorm activity is increasing over the region, while part of it being outside the denoted Lvl 1 area. Satellite loops reveal that ahead of the developing storms, surface heating will continue to destabise the lower troposphere with several hundreds J/kg of MLCAPE available. Models are consistent in showing strong low level shear given over 20 - 25 m/s of 850 hPa flow. Nordholz wind profiler is also showing strengthening of the low-level wind field with 20 m/s observed already at 1 km. However, wind profiles are rather unidirectional, limiting SREH values.

Several high resolution models show development of both linear and cellular convective structures in the next few hours, so both severe wind gust and tornado threats will be present. Severe wind gust threat could become especially pronounced if developing convective system oriented itself perpendicular to the low-level flow, which is not the case atm.