If there ever was a time for “that escalated quickly” in gif form, this day would probably be it. The Storm Prediction Center has outlined an enhanced area for severe storm activity today across Northern and Central Texas. Let’s take a look.

The Setup
A small, compact shortwave trough embedded in a broader area of SW flow aloft will overspread the dryline this afternoon, which is 100% going to cause numerous storms in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma.
- The 850mb winds are reasonably strong but they are more out of the southwest, which is less common with tornadoes on the Southern Plains but more common with giant hail events.
- 500mb winds are creating vey elongated hodographs, coming in at 60kts or more.
- Dewpoints are very rich for this time of year, in the mid and even upper 60s.


Timing/Evolution
With a powerful but compact shortwave arriving, the conditions in the atmosphere will rapidly improve throughout the day. As storms initially form in the early-mid afternoon, the environment will not be very supportive of supercells, but will rapidly evolve into an atmosphere that will support very powerful supercells by sunset.






Overall Thoughts
Today is a day that SCREAMS giant hail. North and Central Texas is a hotbed for giant hail in early April it seems. I’ve intercepted numerous supercells flinging baseballs or larger this time of year in this part of the country.
The tornado risk is something else entirely. The SPC has an enhanced area of tornado risk outlined in North/Central Texas, but I don’t think that risk materializes until 5-8 p.m. or so — but only if storm mode is cooperative.
- Storms will form 1-3 p.m. with an initial big hail risk.
- A few supercells will likely evolve in a quickly upscale growing cluster in a rapidly improving environment in the first couple of hours after storm initiation. Expect giant hail in the afternoon/early evening.
- If you can keep a dominant supercell mode with clean inflow, a tornado risk is going to materialize in the evening with just enough you could convince me a strong tornado or two (EF2+) are very possible.
- The likely convective evolution will be all roads lead to messy along and north of the DFW metroplex with time.
- The most likely area for any tornado threat will likely be on the south end of the convective mess, probably along and south of the DFW metroplex.
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