Severe weather outbreak and bow echo.

May 9th 2009 was forecasted a few days ago to actually be a severe weather day for the red river vallery and central plains. Due to model inconsistencys and mesoscale uncertaintys a moderate risk was issued by the storm prediction center for the red river valley, then taken away the night of May 8th. Then the morning of Fri may 9th a moderate was reissued for portions of the ohio valley!? Partly due to an on going derecho and forecasted severe indices ahead of the on going system lead to a reissue of moderate risk.

Below is an incredible image of the bow echos book end vorticy/comma head. Also rooted in the upper levels it gets called an MCV or mesoscale convective vortex. This thing is extreme though an extreme case. With a gust measured at or around 100 mph its more like a hurricane! It also has an eye type feature if you look closey.

Below is the RUC analysis for 21z and it shows an area of max CAPE and 0-1km helicity values at or around 250-300, which is incredible. It should be noted however that, that area is in the appalachians. Not chase friendly country I might add. But none the less thats concernedly high and would be prime for supercells if not tornadic supercells.

Below are the same areas right around 21z and oh look, several supercells with probable tornadoes on the ground, not good! That area is in the mountains and so visibility can be obstructed, so warnings are all speculative until someone either confirms damage or a sightning takes place. It was a very dangerous situation situation today. The image below shows two main supercells in TN.

Showing the cells to the north of the previous image, several tornado warnings were issued at the time of this image.