257
FXUS63 KFGF 040822
AFDFGF

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Grand Forks ND
322 AM CDT Sat May 4 2024

.KEY MESSAGES...

- First chance of the season for organized thunderstorms arrives
  Monday/Tuesday.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 321 AM CDT Sat May 4 2024

Shortwave trough rotating around the bottom of the Hudson Bay
low through ND will swing further east into MN, bringing some
scattered rain showers mostly to our northern counties today.
Instability looks lower than yesterday so think our chances for
pea hail and lightning are less. Upper ridging will briefly move
into the region for tomorrow, bringing our break in the active
pattern. Sunday should see increasing southeasterly winds as a
surface low develops to our west, along with sunshine and
temperatures climbing into the 60s.

The ridge will be short lived as a strong negatively tilted
trough starts to move into the Plains on Monday. The main upper
low will be over eastern MT/western ND into Tuesday, but there
is good agreement in the ensemble members in the lead shortwave
ejecting out Monday night. While timing is less than ideal for
severe convection over our CWA as there will be very little
instability to work with as the main forcing comes out, CIPS
analogs do show some isolated severe reports possible as far
north as our southern counties in these type of patterns.
Ensemble means have instability improving a little bit to around
500 J/kg by Tuesday afternoon, although deep layer bulk shear
goes down. Confidence is not high enough to start messaging
severe at this point, but could see some organized storms early
next week, and we will definitely see more rainfall with the wet
signal in the R and M climate continuing.

Predictability goes downhill for the end of the week with models
struggling with how to handle the exiting of the upper low off
to the east. Most show some sort of split flow at least in the
short term, with cool and wet pattern continuing.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SUNDAY/...
Issued at 1142 PM CDT Fri May 3 2024

VFR ceilings area over the area with mix of mid/high clouds
southeast 1/2 of the fcst area and some mix of high end MVFR/low
VFR clouds near the Canadian border. Some of these clouds in the
north will sink south and ceilings may lower into more
consistent MVFR range DVL-TVF zone and maybe GFK for a time late
tonight or Sat morning. West or northwest wind 5 to 15 kts thru
the pd.

&&

.FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
ND...None.
MN...None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...JR
AVIATION...DTR