HUN Mesoanalysis 5/12/16

Soggy environment in place in HUN this afternoon as almost 1.5 inches of PW is in place and LAP layered PW shows that this pretty much extends through the entire column but the wettest levels below 700 mb. This is confirmed on both a RAP sounding in the area and the NUCAPS sounding. After modification...NUCAPS did very well despite the amount of moisture in the column. A comparison of the NUCAPS and the RAP soundings are below.

Looking at a wide angle of 1-minute satellite data...a cold front can be seen pushing through Arkansas with the wind shift ahead of it approaching the Mississippi border. This line should be the focus of convection later this afternoon with a more linear structure as this is where the highest shear values are. Further east...storms firing are more instability driven at this time with almost 3000 J/kg of cape across the area. That being said...low level lapse rates are very strong but mid levels are very weak and storms are having a hard time gaining any height. With the freezing level around 11 kft...severe hail will be hard to get in this scenario.

Looking at storms on the radar now...a storm over north central Alabama has had a flash density of 60 flashes / 2 min. Short term models have this first batch of convection exiting the area after 21z and then another line with the front coming through after 23z. Main threat of the day will be wet microbursts with some small hail possible. Not much shear in place at the moment so any kind of tornadic activity seems unlikely.
-Jason Bourne