Thank you. I have a better understanding of these now. Also, it would've been good to mention that US Central Time is 6 hours behind UTC/Zulu until Daylight Saving Time kicks in and it goes to 5 hours behind.
just for a reference, CAPE is measured in Joules per Kilogram (J/Kg) and these are some basic parameters for what severe threat to expect with what values of CAPE: 500: usual threshold to produce an isolated severe storm 500-1000: if high wind shear is percent, you can have a significant wind event occur. October 7, 2020 had this much CAPE present which resulted in a serial derecho in the Northeast which produced winds of 100mph in some places 1000: usual threshold for tornadic activity. 1000-1500: can have a decent outbreak if conditions are right. On December 1, 2018 conditions with this much CAPE were present over Illinois and resulted in 29 tornadoes touching down including an EF-3 3000-4000: Large, violent tornado outbreak can occur with this much energy. some areas had this much CAPE on April 27, 2011 and we all know what happened then. 5000: A significant derecho can occur with this much CAPE and can cause very destructive winds. Across Ohio Southeast into Virginia on June 29, 2012 there was plenty of this amount of CAPE present and it resulted in massive derecho which was so bad, 3 states (Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia) declared States of Emergency after the event. 6000: an astronomical and very rare amount of CAPE that will guarantee you a large, violent tornado outbreak with many long track super cells. on May 31, 2018 over 6000 CAPE was present over Oklahoma and that afternoon, the El Reno tornado touched down which would become the largest tornado in world history measuring 2.7 miles in diameter at its peak 8000: This will probably be the most amount one could theoretically see in a severe weather setup, don't know if any environment has gotten this high, though.
Awesome explanation - much clearer than many of the videos I've seen on this subject! Would love to hear more if you ever get a chance to make more videos. Information like this is hard to come by for us non-professionals. ;)
You should try OBS Studio for capturing desktop footage, free, extremely customizable, great for performance. That being said, I've watched countless videos on skew-T charts, not sure how exactly, but your video is the first that made it _click_ for me. Thanks!
So, just a correction - not EVERY NWS station launches balloons. There are actually several stations that do not do this> GRR in Michigan is one of them.
Hi Matthew. I know it has been a while since you created this video but if you're still open to answering questions, I have one pertaining to breaking the cap. In your video (between 9 and 10 minutes) you mention that the cap may be broken by cooling off the mid layers. I am just seeking some clarity on this. Are you saying that as thunderstorms attempt to get started (but fail to break through the cap), that the generation of clouds (parcel saturation) leads to cooling of the environment at the capping level, which contributes to the cooling off of the capped layer? If I am understanding you right, then if we get enough towers trying to form (though unsuccessfully) within a somewhat near proximity to each other, there might be enough cooling at this level to lower convective inhibition?I know that in real world situations we have heating of surface layer below the cap which is one method of breaking the cap; another would be cooling aloft as the trough ushers in colder air which eats away at the cap from above, but might this be a third method? Any insights you can provide would be awesome. Thanks!
