Azor anticyclone dominating weather in Europe

Most of Europe is currently under the influence of a major Azor anticyclone which does not allow any trough to pass through central and southern Europe. It does not look like the pattern will change in the next 7-10 days, but GFS was offering some hope yesterday when it forecast a nice trough with serious setup potential. We will see how that develops. Meanwhile the SSTs in the Mediterranean sea are currently somewhat stagnant but will rise during this pattern of warm weather.

A lot of CAPE will be available for the storms is next days across most of Europe but given the basically non-existent shear there is no severe weather threat at least 7-10 days ahead. Azor anticyclone is just too strong currently. There could be some nice lightning displays though.

Weak supercells possible tommorow across Serbia

Some marginal CAPE buildup on March 17th (up to 500 J/kg MUCAPE is forecast) in front of the cold front with the surface low somewhere above N-Austria. Potential for rotating storms exists in the central and eastern Serbia where SREH3 gets up to about 200 m2/s2. DLS is about 20 m/s. Main threat will be hail. CIN will be low so the storms will fire up fairly quickly. I usually wouldn't care for this type of setup, but in the early spring (late winter) every semi-severe convective weather is a welcome change.

August 13th 2010 - Cold front passing in Medvedje Brdo, W-Slovenia

The front arrived in the morning. Wasn't expecting much, but got surprised! A morning shelf cloud and what a spectacular one!

August 5th 2010 - Possible supercell near Novo Mesto

Got run over at home with a nice cell in the line. I liked the moist east wind on the ground before the storm. Veering was pretty good in combination with the jet from the south. A nice wall cloud. Could not really tell if the thing was rotating because it was too far away. Pretty dynamic. Higher CAPE would definitely help.

August 3rd 2010 - HP supercell in Slovenia

I had to core punch this supercell but I never got a good look at it. It was really rain-wrapped. A high precipitation supercell with bad structure.

June 17th 2010 - High end LVL1 event in Slovenia

Wasn't expecting much from this day but it went really well. My first sight of the supercell was near Trebnje. It took awile to get on the highway ... Missed the first supercell but bagged the next one, crazy driving saved me! :) These storms dropped large hail near Grosuplje and made a lot of damage.

From Trebnje.

Still very unorganized but very active. I was right under all the action. Crazy lift and inflow. A lot of CGs also, was kinda scared to stand outside of the car! Was dropping hail already.

Crazy inflow. Mesocyclone occlusion began here already with rain on the levt. I was moving practially all the time. It was fast.

A few kilometers ahead. Nice wall cloud. RFD really close, wall cloud already a bit in the rain. Not showing the structure very well.

On the road back along Trebnje. RFD on the left, not looking very good.

I still got one more look on the meso once I got ahead of the storm. Really crappy roads here, impossible to track anything here for long period of time.

On the road back at Krško.