Blog Article

St. Louis Weather: Dodgers vs Cardinals Severe Storm Risk

A Marginal Risk for severe thunderstorms threatens Sunday's Dodgers vs Cardinals game in St. Louis. Learn how cold air aloft creates a hail threat.

Baseball, Hail, and a Midwest Marginal Risk

Hey y'all. The Los Angeles Dodgers are in St. Louis this weekend taking on the Cardinals. Busch Stadium is packed for this series. But if you have tickets for Sunday's game, you need to keep one eye on the diamond and one eye on the sky.

The Storm Prediction Center has outlined a Marginal Risk for severe thunderstorms across Missouri and Illinois for Sunday. That is a Level 1 out of 5. The main threats are large hail and damaging wind gusts. Cities like St. Louis, Kansas City, and Springfield are all in the mix.

Why are we seeing this? It comes down to some unusually cold air high up in the atmosphere.

Meteorologists look at something called lapse rates. That is just a term for how fast the temperature drops as you go up in the sky. When you have warm air near the ground and very cold air aloft, that warm air wants to rise fast. Fast rising air builds tall clouds. Tall clouds make big hail.

St. Louis usually sees highs around 76 degrees in early May. We will be right around there Sunday. The moisture is a bit limited, but that cold pocket of air aloft is the wild card that could trigger some isolated supercells.

From Baseballs to Snowballs

Speaking of baseball and wild weather, the Atlanta Braves are in Denver playing the Rockies. Denver is beautiful right now. The normal high is 71 degrees. But we are tracking a massive pattern shift for the Front Range.

By Tuesday and Wednesday, an upper-level trough is going to dive out of the Southwest. The latest winter outlook shows a 15 percent chance of accumulating snow for the Colorado Front Range. Yes, accumulating snow in May. The transition from 70-degree baseball weather to winter driving conditions is going to be incredibly sharp for folks in Denver and Fort Collins.

We saw a measured 119 mph wind gust down in coastal Texas yesterday. The atmosphere is highly dynamic across the country right now. Keep your weather app handy if you are heading out to Busch Stadium tomorrow. The data shows those storms could pop up right around the late innings.

https://ryanhallyall.com/blog/baseball-hail-and-a-midwest-marginal-risk