Thunderbird12
(Meteorologist)
Sun Oct 23 2005 09:09 PM
Re: Shear

SPC has upgraded the severe weather risk from "Slight" to "Moderate" over about the southern half of the peninsula. While that may not sound too bad, keep in mind that they only use three risk levels (slight, moderate, high), with "High" risk generally reserved for big tornado outbreak-type days in the Plains. A Moderate Risk is pretty rare for a landfalling hurricane scenario, so the risk of tornadoes is considered to be somewhat greater than normal for a tropical cyclone:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html


FRONTAL ZONE HAS BECOME QUASI-STATIONARY ACROSS THE CENTRAL FLORIDA
PENINSULA...ROUGHLY ALONG/NORTH OF A TAMPA/MELBOURNE LINE. THROUGH
EARLY EVENING...ENHANCED CONVERGENCE JUST SOUTH OF THIS FEATURE HAS
PROVIDE MAIN FORCING/FOCUS FOR VIGOROUS CONVECTIVE DEVELOPMENT IN
ENVIRONMENT WITH MIXED BOUNDARY LAYER CAPE OF 1000 TO 2000 J/KG.
DEEP LAYER SHEAR HAS BEEN SUFFICIENT FOR UPDRAFT ROTATION...AND
ISOLATED TORNADOES HAVE ALREADY BEEN REPORTED IN TROPICAL BOUNDARY
LAYER WITH SURFACE DEW POINTS IN THE MID/UPPER 70S.

AS AMPLIFICATION OF CENTRAL/EASTERN U.S. LARGE-SCALE TROUGH
CONTINUES TONIGHT...IN ASSOCIATION WITH STRONG SHORT WAVE DIGGING
INTO THE LOWER OHIO/TENNESSEE AND LOWER MISSISSIPPI
VALLEYS...NORTHEASTWARD ACCELERATION OF HURRICANE WILMA INTO
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COASTAL AREAS WILL OCCUR BY 12Z MONDAY. AS OUTER
CONVECTIVE BANDS BEGIN TO SPREAD INLAND LATER THIS EVENING...AND
LOW-LEVEL WIND FIELDS/SHEAR STRENGTHEN WITH APPROACH OF TROPICAL
SYSTEM...TORNADIC POTENTIAL IS EXPECTED TO INCREASE ACROSS MUCH OF
SOUTHERN FLORIDA. GIVEN MAGNITUDE OF POTENTIAL INSTABILITY EVIDENT
IN LATEST SOUNDINGS...THIS RISK APPEARS RELATIVELY SUBSTANTIAL.
POTENTIAL FOR ISOLATED STRONG TORNADOES
EXISTS...PARTICULARLY LATE TONIGHT IN OUTER BANDS EAST/NORTHEAST OF
LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION CENTER AS IT APPROACHES LANDFALL.



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