How wind shear drives storm intensification

Just yesterday we talked about C.A.P.E. ( Convective, Available, Potential, Energy) and how it's one of many ingredients needed to make storms happen. Cape is basically the energy for the storms, or the fuel.

Another ingredient that's going to be much needed is going to be wind shear, and we actually have two types.

We have vertical and we also have horizontal (directional). The difference between the two is going to be one is going to be based off the speed. The second is going to be the wind direction.

What you can see above is a kind of diagram of what winds look like in our atmosphere. If you imagine the base of this model as the surface of the Earth, you can notice how winds are a little bit weaker. This is going to be the speed. The longer these strands get, the higher the speed is. As you get a little higher in the atmosphere, away from the Earth's surface, that's going to be the increase in speed which is going to give us vertical wind shear.

Horizontal wind shear is going to be the changing of the wind direction as you go higher in the atmosphere. In this model, the wind direction continues to spin going higher into the atmosphere. That is going to be a horizontal wind shear, and this will actually help lead to the churning of the winds needed to have that rotation to produce storms that will give us hail and even the opportunity to produce tornadoes.

It's important to stay up to date and alert heading into Friday afternoon as the wind shear in the atmosphere is primed to lead to all three severe threats being possible of winds up to 75+ mph, hail 1-2", and even a few strong tornadoes.

For updates on the timing and track you can go to https://abc17news.com/news/2025/03/12/weather-alert-day-damaging-winds-and-tornadoes-possible-with-storms-friday-afternoon/