ILX Severe Thunderstorm Warning

Thus far there have been numerous thunderstorms over the ILX CWA, with a lot of storms likely producing pea sized hail.  The ProbSevere model began to highlight a storm over the far northeastern CWA, reaching probabilities much higher than all surrounding storms.  Figure 1 shows 0.5 degree ILX reflectivity and NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere contours.  The ProbSevere read-out shows the storm is in a moderately sheared environment (~35 knots of effective bulk shear) and the probability increased as the MRMS MESH increased to over 1.00".  The ProbSevere trends along with all radar tilts allowed the forecast team to issue an experimental severe thunderstorm warning at 2159 UTC.

Figure 1.  0.5 degree ILX reflectivity, NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere contours, and experimental severe thunderstorm warning polygons.

The forecasters noted there have been many storms today in the ILX CWA with appropiately low ProbSevere values, but the ProbSevere model did a good job highlighting this isolated storm that became much more intense and required a warning.

UPDATE:  This storm produced 1.00" hail at 2215 UTC in Gibson City, IL.

-Sieglaff