Severe Weather

[Thomas F. Giella NZ4O]

We had quite a busy weather day yesterday. Heavy rainfall totals fell in downtown Lakeland with CoCoRaH's rain gauge totals of 2.50" and 2.68" respectively. In the Kathleen area CoCoRaH's rain gauge totals were 3.41" and 4.01" respectively. On the west side of town towards KLAL and County Line Road .50" diameter hail covered the ground. On the NE side of Lakeland and EF-0 tornado touched down around 5:00 pm. See LSR report below.

Here on the south side of town in the Highlands area I measured 0.81". Other nearby CoCoRaH's rain gauges measured 0.77", 0.93" and 1.18" respectively.

We could see another round of heavy thunderstorms later this afternoon. With cold and dry air in the mid levels once again, severe weather in the form of strong (60+ mph) down bursting winds, large hail > .50" in diameter and torrential rainfall > 2.00" is probable. A tornado is also possible where the east coast, west coast and outflow boundaries collide. Lightning is not a severe weather parameter but with mid level cold air (-10 deg. C at 500 mb) numerous lightning strikes are probable.

With a bit more steering flow from the east the heaviest weather could be on the west side of the county.

498   
NWUS52 KTBW 130106  
LSRTBW  
  
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT  
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAMPA BAY AREA - RUSKIN FL  
906 PM EDT TUE MAY 12 2009  
   
.TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON  
   
.DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE.  
  
            ..REMARKS..  
  
0500 PM     TORNADO          4 ENE LAKELAND          28.07N 81.91W   
05/12/2009                   POLK               FL   LAW ENFORCEMENT   
  
            NEAR INTERSECTION OF SMITHTOWN DR AND TERRY ROAD. 4-5   
            FOOT OAK TREE UPROOTED AND FELL ON CARPORT AND PART OF   
            HOUSE. ALSO HAD STURDY WOOD CARPORT LIFTED AND THROWN   
            INTO AN ALUMINUM CARPORT NEXT DOOR. REPORT RELAYED BY   
            POLK COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE. DEPUTY REPORTED A WITNESS   
            SAW THE POSSIBLE TORNADO BOUNCING UP AND DOWN ACROSS AREA  
            AND DAMAGE PATH CONFIRMS. TIME IS ESTIMATED BASED ON   
            RADAR.  
  

73 & GUD DX,
Thomas F. Giella, NZ4O
Lakeland, FL, USA
nz4o at arrl.net
John 3:16 <><

NZ4O Amateur & SWL Radio Autobiography: http://www.nz4o.com  

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas F. Giella NZ4O" <nz4o at verizon.net>
To: "a LARC eGroup" <LakelandARC at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 11:23 AM
Subject: Rain Coming?!

The GFS model continues to predict decent rainfall chances for the peninsula 
for the next seven days.

Hopefully the rainfall will put out current wild fires and prevent others. 
Hopefully lightning will not start any new ones.

http://weather.cod.edu/loops/gfsUS.precip.html
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/mos/getmex.pl?sta=KVDF

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