At last count, yesterday’s severe weather reports climbed to 557 including 187 hail damage messages of which many included 2-inch (or more) sized hailstones. A similar outbreak is forecast for the East U.S. today most focused on the Mid-Atlantic region where the primary issue is damaging wind gusts.

Medium-range forecasts across the Midwest U.S. drought area during the past 30 days are too wet especially by the GFS ENS and to a lesser extent by the ECM ENS. The ECM ENS 6-10-day verification is reasonable otherwise a strong wet bias is indicated.

The Midwest States have dried-out rapidly as D2/D3 drought has developed. Meanwhile, wet soil moisture trend in the Southeast U.S. is accelerating due to the recent heavy rainfall. The latest 15-day forecast maintains soaking rains in the Southeast States expanding northward throughout the East while the Midwest stays dry.

Although a couple days old, the clear trend of relative humidity anomalies in the mid-troposphere is wetter east of the Bahamas to the central North Atlantic subtropics plus across the central and eastern North Atlantic tropics. In this zone, any tropical feature is likely to develop given ample mid-tropospheric moisture.