An ongoing line of storms will continue to move south and east with damaging winds, large hail, and a tornado threat through the rest of the day in Kansas. Further west, more storms could form with a large hail and damaging winds threat later this afternoon. Overall, the severe weather threat is enhanced ahead of the MCS in Kansas.
The location of the line in Kansas at 12:30 CT this afternoon.
The line itself will probably continue to strengthen as it moves south and east into a more unstable airmass. A couple of tornadoes are possible, these will most likely be of the QLCS variety embedded within the line.
Further West
A few marginally severe storms could try to get going across SW Kansas into Colorado this afternoon, but ingredients here are pretty low-end in every category.
Models try to form some storms west of the ongoing MCS in SW KS into the Texas Panhandle this afternoon.
Dewpoints are pretty marginal here (40s and low 50s). But the hot temperatures and dry adiabatic lapse rates below 500mb will lead to weak instability which could support a storm or two. The main threat with these will almost certainly be damaging winds with very large DCAPE values (1700+). Some shear (25-30kt effective) could lead to slight storm rotation and large hail potential as well.
I’m also watching far north and northeast Colorado and bordering areas of Wyoming and Nebraska for supercell potential today too. The thermodynamic environment is very limited and honestly, any small change could make severe threats near 0, but there is just enough moisture and more than enough wind shear to organize a storm if it can get going. I’m not that excited about 500 MLCAPE any time, but its something to monitor.
The Bottom Line
Not much to report today honestly. This is a pretty low end day for storm chasing I think, with the main event already ongoing across Kansas. The shelf could be ‘pretty’ as it comes through, but I’m not sure of much else beyond that.
Looking ahead to tomorrow and Thursday, a powerful system will approach the Plains and widespread storms are likely. I think some severe weather is too, but I’m becoming somewhat convinced that forcing will overwhelm most storm chasing target areas, resulting in sloppy storm modes which won’t be that photogenic and may limit the upper ends of possible severe weather threats.
But rain? Rain will be happening for a lot of folks who need it.
There’s some good news.
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