ANOTHER ROUND OF STRONG STORMS WEDNESDAY

AN UPDATE ON TERRY'S HEALTH, MORE SEVERE WEATHER AGAIN WEDNESDAY

Howdy everyone! While Terry takes care of his health, I wanted to pop in quickly with an update on the ongoing severe weather concerns across the region this week. We had numerous tornadoes and destructive hail events on Tuesday with severe weather. and we have yet another risk taking shape for Wednesday and Friday of this week.

Above you can see the latest HRRR run for Wednesday evening showing more scattered thunderstorms in the area. The good news is this appears to be a little lower on the risk level and less potential for supercells with storms expected to be more linear.

WEDNESDAY

Currently a Level 2 of 5 Risk, a Slight Risk, extends from southern Wisconsin through the Southern Plains. There's some potential this could be increased, however given the lesser confidence with overnight and morning convection potentially inhibiting the evening threat, I do not expect this in the short term.

The axis of strongest storms will reside along the warm front. The positioning of this warm front will be dependent on overnight and morning storms. The HRRR has the warm front extending across south-central Iowa towards the Quad Cities. This could move north or south so the entire risk area needs to be watched.

Above you can also see the instability which will be moderate to high for this time of year. That's a log of fuel for strong storms!

Low-level winds just above the surface will be fairly strong out of the southwest increasing the low-level wind shear, however the surface winds will be also out of the southwest. This limited change in wind direction between the surface and about a mile aloft likely dampens the tornado threat - however there will be some increased concern along the warm front which again could set up along/south of I-80 based on current modeling, but this could change.

With the storms comes even more heavy rain, certainly we are reaching the point of too much of a good thing. We need some dry time and we will get a brief reprieve Thursday before we have yet another threat for storms and heavy rain come Friday.

FRIDAY

Friday we already have a Level 3 of 5 Risk, an Enhanced Risk across the region with yet another threat of severe weather including large hail, damaging wind gusts and tornadoes.

A fairly large warm sector will extend from the Twin Cities southward. Dewpoint values will once again push into 60s which will fuel heavy rain and increase the instability for the next severe weather threat. This event will be a bit more progressive in nature with a cold front blasting through after the storms putting an end to the active pattern, at least for now.

CAPE (instability) values will once again be more than suffient for strong storms Friday with CAPES onces again well over 2,000j/kg. A large warm sector is ripe for the widespread severe weather.

A strong trough will provide the wind shear for strong storms as it ejects overhead. It's forecast to the positively tilted therefore not the most exceptional setup for a higher-end outbreak, but it should at lease be sufficient. We will watch how the trends evolve, especially once the higher-resolution models get in range.

LONG-TERM OUTLOOK

Following Friday we should have some time to catch our breath and dry out aside from some showers Saturday. We are watching our next storm system late next week in the Friday/Saturday time frame. Ensemble guidance indicates once again widespread rain and storm potential but the details at this point are too opaque to get too fancy with the forecast. Just know Sunday looks will be a cooler, calmer day at last in the region. Thanks everyone. Nick Stewart!

A "CHANCE" AT GOOD HEALTH....AN UPDATE

Tuesday was a day under the microscope for yours truly, as the struggle continues to uncover the reason for bacteria in my blood and bacterial vegetation that has attached to my Aortic valve. Both of these scenarios could produce dangerous results for me physically.

To help find and pin-point pockets of infection I underwent a CAT Scan Tuesday evening where radioactive medicine loaded with sugar was injected into my body following two days of fasting with only minimal amounts of protein to eat. I weighed in before the scan at 143 pounds. (That's nearly 17 pounds Iighter than I was before getting sick 3 weeks ago). Anyway, the medicine went in and was furiously attacked by the bacteria leaving two significant "hot spots". One was expected, on the heart valve, and the other was not at the base of my neck in the 6th vertebra.

Chase Larrson a Medical student out of Cedar Rapids and an active member of the team investigating my case told me the neck spot was not that surprising due to the amount of pain I had been indicating there over the past 3 weeks. Larson also said I should prepare for another MRI to confirm the infection in the vertebra. He also indicated the need to get rid of the infection by drawing the infected fluid out through the use off a needle. That's something fun I have to look forward to in an another procedure coming up soon.

After that, Chase expects a full on assault to get rid of all infections entirely and he and his team are looking at a way of removing the vegetation (infection) from the heart valve so it stops leaking into my brain causeing bleeding and a serious stroke threat. Chase admits heart specialists are still wrestling with what to do. If the bacteria can't be eliminated or has damaged the heart valve, I most likely will face open heart surgery to replace the valve. Not the news I hoped to end the day on but it's better than the alternative. As Chase says, there's a lot of patients living with replacements and I would not be patient zero.

Chase did bring up a comment I was quite proud of saying, "you kind of ruined other patients for me, you're very lively, chatty, and pleasant, what you might call, out of the box". And then I said, what about yourself, this is a pretty prestigious place to be working at such a young age. What to you think about that? His response was classic: Terry, I'm going to tell you the truth, I'm pretty happy to be here"! Laughing, I said, are you sure you want to do this, these 12 hour days have got to be a grind? Chase never faltered and said," a lot of the advice you hear from people who are not in medical school yet, but are still working towards it is, "if you can see yourself doing something else, do it instead".

Fortunately, many men and women like Chance have chosen the hard road, and rest assured, places like the University of Iowa and the people it serves, are far better off for the "chance" they took. Roll weather...TS