Air mass thunderstorms can often produce locally heavy rainfall over a short period of time. Why? Typically, winds aloft and at the surface are very light. These thunderstorms will “bubble” up during peak heating of the day then with little to no winds aloft to “steer” them along, they park over one general area and rain themselves out before additional ones will “bubble” up and provide more heavy rain over a different area.
Areas of West Fargo picked up 1-4″ of rain over a very small area in about 1/2 hour time frame while other areas of Fargo didn’t record anything at all!! That’s what air mass storms can do. We can expect more of the same late today into the evening hours.
Chief Meteorologist,
Dean Wysocki
