Stability Assessment » Lifted Index (LI) Strengths and Limitations
LI is relatively easy to determine with the aid of a skew-T diagram. It is limited because it relies on only 3 sounding inputs: temperature and dewpoint of the boundary layer and the temperature at 500 hPa. Thus, important sounding features may be obscured, such as dry layers and/or inversions. LI also does not take into account vertical wind shear, which is often an important element in the severe convective environment.