Heavy Great Lakes Snow through Friday; Extreme Cold and Potential for Major Winter Storm Late Week into this Weekend

Multiple clipper systems will bring cold temperatures and enhance lake-effect snow downwind of the Great Lakes. An arctic blast will bring frigid temperatures accompanied with gusty winds that may lead to dangerous wind chills beginning in the Northern Plains Thursday before expanding to the South and East. An expansive winter storm will start Friday in the Southern Rockies/Plains and Mid-South. Read More >

March 23rd, 2011
Severe Weather - Hail and Wind

An upper level jet stream tracking through the Ohio Valley combined with low pressure at the surface to produce severe thunderstorms during the afternoon of March 23rd. Several supercells developed with hail to golf ball size (1.75" in diameter). There were also a few thunderstorm line segments with damaging wind gusts ahead of drier air rapidly advancing from the west. Later in the afternoon, the surface low pressure over northern Ohio pushed a reinforced cold front through eastern parts of the area in the wake of the storms, resulting in some non-thunderstorm wind gusts to 55 mph.

A second round of thunderstorms occurred closer to the main cold front during the evening of March 23rd to just after midnight on March 24th. These storms contained primarily hail with diameters of 0.75"-1".