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Winter Hazards Across the North; Heavy Rainfall Across the Gulf Coast; Severe Weather Outlook

Moisture across the northern Plains, upper Great Lakes into northern New England will likely bring a period of snow, sleet and freezing rain through this weekend. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall continues along the Gulf Coast with areas of flooding. Fire weather conditions continue for the areas of the Plains, southern Appalachians into portions of Florida. Severe thunderstorm potential increasing. Read More >

Overview

On September 17, 2024, an off-season (mid-September) severe weather event affected portions of southeastern Colorado. A negatively tilted trough was ejecting to the north-northeast throughout the day, with the southern fringes of the system pushing over south central and southeastern Colorado, bringing strong dynamic lift to the region. In addition, while this pattern allowed for greater moisture to advect into the area, CAPE (instability) remained relatively modest given hot and well above seasonal temperatures, though this did allow for steep low/mid level lapse rates and large DCAPE values, particularly along and east of the I-25 corridor. With that all said, the combination of strong dynamics with the trough, steep lapse rates, and large DCAPE values helped to compensate for the lackluster CAPE (and modest shear), and allowed for a volatile atmosphere conducive of severe thunderstorms capable of producing strong to severe winds to materialize. Initially, a broken line of sub-severe/marginally severe thunderstorms blossomed along the higher terrain around midday and tracked eastward across the mountains and valleys. As this line of storms reached the I- 25 corridor region, it quickly took advantage of the environment along and east of the interstate, and went on to produce widespread severe wind gusts across the plains, with the strongest gust from the day being a 75 mph wind gust from eastern El Paso County. In total, there were 16 storm reports this day, with 15 severe wind gusts from across the plains and 1 report of damage north of Lamar, Colorado.
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