Northern Plains lighting up!
Sorry I have not been updating the blog recently.. We were driven into the ground during this storm season and I dropped the ball on my consistent blog updates, but the plan from here on out is to resume the near daily updates as weather permits. If the weather is quiet, then I'll present case studies of past big tornado events. Today though, the focus will be on the first REAL trough of the season ejecting across the Northern Plains over the next few days.
![](http://www.tornadovideos.net/images/stories/2009/july/07july2009_500mb1.jpg)
Based on the last few GFS and NAM model runs, it looks like extreme eastern Montana and western North Dakota/Northwest South Dakota will be prime for tornadic supercells tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon and evening as a massive trough impinges on the Northern Plains and 40+ knot low level jet develops during evening across the warm sector. Last night's NAM depicted the dominating tornado event of the year up there, but this morning's NAM and GFS are not quite as favorable - at least before 00z. Still though, I would not be surprised to see several tornado reports if there will be any spotters/chasers up in that area, as the LLJ really cranks up just after 00z...which can be seen in the 00z vs 03z 0-1 km EHI's from the the 12z NAM below:
![](http://www.tornadovideos.net/images/stories/2009/july/07july2009_ehi2.jpg)