CYS: The cap is eroding…but storms are still sub-severe. Looking at CI products

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Working the Cheyenne CWA, we have been waiting for the cap to erode, and it has started to during the past hour.  So far, though, the storms have been tame.  Monitoring the CI products reinforces that thought.  The upper right panel in the image below shows the instantaneous cooling rate at cloud top.  Most of these have been at the rate of -10C per 15 minutes.  This is roughly half of the typical rate that one might see as a precursor to severe storms.  While the convection is weak so far, we have potential for more interesting rotating storms later.

CI products: UAH strength of signal scheme in upper left, instantaneous cloud top cooling rate in upper right, accumulated cooling rate in lower left, ice cloud mask in lower right.