This is a cool picture from Michael Shumate taken around ODU on Monday.  It’s a great example of a Microburst.  This is when a cold pool of air drops from a thunderstorm and creates severe winds.  It also creates torrential downpours in most cases.  We’ve had a lot of humidity lately.  The stationary front has sat around the region for the past few days as predicted. We’ll see more downpours like this today, but not necessarily microbursts.  There is a Tornado Watch out for a good chunk of the area until 9pm tonight as well.   There’s not a huge amount of rotation in the atmosphere, but the storms are very low to the ground.  All you need is a little spin to get a weak-short lived tornado to form.  There is a lot of instability too.  So there will be a good amount of lightning along with the drenching rain. 

   I’m a little concerned about tomorrow.  From what I’m seeing in the models and the setup I think we’ll see a better chance for severe weather.  The orientation of the cold/stationary front will be a little more North to South.  Think we’ll see some stronger winds upstairs and a little more instability.  Meteorologist Cheryl Nelson noticed a little more instability on Bufkit for tomorrow too.  Jon Cash will be in with the update in the morning.  I’m not downplaying tonight. We do have a watch, but I think we’ll be busier tomorrow.  Hopefully, I’m wrong!  Well at least a little wrong.  Thanks to everyone for sending us your reports/photos.  Everyone Be safe out there!

Meteorologist:  Jeremy Wheeler