Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Indianapolis, IN

Home |  Current Version |  Previous Version |  Text Only |  Print | Product List |  Glossary On
Versions: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
036
FXUS63 KIND 290704
AFDIND

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Indianapolis IN
304 AM EDT Mon Apr 29 2024

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Mostly Cloudy with scattered showers and isolated Thunderstorms
Today

- Mostly Cloudy Tonight with showers ending

- Warmer than normal conditions continue through the week.

- Additional thunderstorms expected late Thursday into the weekend.

&&

.SHORT TERM (Today and tonight)...
Issued at 304 AM EDT Mon Apr 29 2024

Synopsis:

Surface analysis early this morning shows strong low pressure over
MN and IA with a cool front stretching south across western MO to
eastern Arkansas. High pressure was found across the Carolina`s.
This was resulting in continued warm southerly flow across central
Indiana. Convection was found ahead of the cold front over MO and
Arkansas, drifting northeast within the SW flow aloft. Aloft the
upper flow showed ridging in place over the east coast, while an
upper low was found over the Dakotas, pushing northeast over the
ridge. Dew points across the area remained moist, in the upper 50s
and lower 60s, and GOES16 shows convective debris blow off pushing
into the Wabash Valley.

Today...

The upper low to the northwest is expected to continue to advance
northeast toward Ontario. As this occurs an associated short wave
trough with weak forcing is expected to push across Central Indiana
through the course of the day. This upper forcing will be well ahead
of the advancing cool front, which will not arrive until late
tonight. Models are showing that as the precipitation advances
toward and across Central Indiana through the course of the morning
and afternoon, that returns become rather light and scattered. This
is somewhat due to the LLJ that is depicted to weaken as the morning
progresses into the afternoon. Forecast soundings fail to show a
consistent surge of deep saturation, but do show enough saturation
with very moist pwats over 1.4 inches that pops will still be
necessary.

Confidence remains high for early morning precipitation in the
Wabash valley as the ongoing convection should easily advect there
but continue to diminish with eastward progress through the morning.
Models then hint at another area of showers arriving in the mid to
late afternoon, pushing across the forecast area. Here, confidence
on this feature is much lower. Nonetheless, enough ingredients
remain in play today to use high pops this morning in the Wabash
valley followed by lesser pops through the day due to low confidence
in coverage, timing and amounts. Given the day will be spent with
the warm sector once again, highs in the low to middle 70s will be
expected.

Tonight...

Surface low pressure over WI is expected to push northeast to Lake
Superior and drag a weak associated cold front across Central
Indiana. Best upper support with this feature will have passed
already to the east through the course of the day. However forecast
soundings do not show an intrusion of dry air until after the
frontal  passage overnight. Pwats remain very high during the
evening hours ahead of the front. Thus some rain is still expected
along and ahead of the front within the first few hours after 00Z
Tuesday, especially across the eastern parts of the forecast area.
Thus will hold onto higher pops there in the evening before tapering
to a dry forecast overnight in the wake of the front.

Given the arrival of weak cold air advection, overnight lows in the
upper 50s will be expected.

&&

.LONG TERM (Tuesday through Sunday)...
Issued at 304 AM EDT Mon Apr 29 2024

The long term continues to be warm and periodically stormy.
Temperatures will be above normal with Thursday being the warmest
day ahead of an approaching system, pulling in even more WAA.

The period will start off with rain exiting the area Tuesday morning
to midday. A quick upper ridge will allow for dry weather through
Wednesday before another large upper trough sets back up over much
of the U.S. and an embedded upper low makes its way through the
northern Plains to north of the Great Lakes for the end of the week.
This will bring another round of rain and thunderstorm chances
beginning late Thursday and lasting to the end of the week. At this
time we can`t rule out a chance of severe weather with the system,
but there is no clear signal at this time. Models show a hint of
broad negative tilting but solutions are still noisy and much could
change before then. Machine learning also shows better severe
potential signals well to the west of the area. While there isn`t
much concern at this time, it will be something to watch for.

With the noisy solutions, keeping the low PoPs given by guidance for
the weekend but wouldn`t be surprised if the surface high global
models show behind the end of week system brings at least one dry
day this weekend.

&&

.AVIATION (06Z TAF Issuance)...
Issued at 1256 AM EDT Mon Apr 29 2024

Impacts:

- Showers after 09z in the Wabash Valley, thunderstorms also possible

- MVFR and very brief IFR conditions possible in convection; MVFR
CIGs tomorrow

Discussion:

Convection over western IL and eastern MO is expected to advance to
the Wabash valley, including LAF and HUF near 10-12Z. However upon
approach weakening features appear in play as the LLJ appears to
exit and diminish with the approaching trough. HRRR also shows a
diminishing trend for precipitation across the area through the
morning hours and into the afternoon as the weak trough aloft
lingers across Indiana. Thus have used a vcsh mention for much of
Monday across the TAF sites as the weak features will likely produce
some light rain showers or even a stray thunderstorm, but confidence
on timing and location is too low.

Better confidence exists for precip arriving in the Wabash valley
near 10-12Z, and we have used a tempo group to account for that.

As weak high pressure build across the area tonight some MVFR cigs
may return overnight at IND along with some MVFR Fog.


&&

.IND WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.
&&

$$

SHORT TERM...Puma
LONG TERM...KF
AVIATION...Puma