CAPE LAP helped with confidence

Here is an example where having the hourly CAPE LAP data helped with environmental awareness. Some storms were forming to the SW of the main storms and at first glance, you may think they will go severe since all the other storms have as well. This is especially true if you weren’t really looking at the current environment.

Take a look here at the 21z analysis and specifically at the lightning that is circle. There was a line of moderately strong thunderstorms developing here. You can see it is clearly outside of any CAPE analysis. I was fairly confident with this that the storms wouldn’t go severe. To note, the dry line was also to the east at this time.

At 22Z, the CAPE has continued moving east and the convection is still there but not severe.

Between about 2222z-2232z the ProbSvr did increase to the 60-70% range but nothing higher than that and that was in two different cells. Again, looking at this hourly LAP data helped confirm to me that these storms likely wouldn’t amount to much.



Lauren