I don’t want to spend too much time on this forecast today because I don’t think the risk is very high and there’s no need to oversell it. But, if a supercell or two can get going, some big hail and a brief tornado are possible today in Texas.
A dryline will set up across portions of Central Texas into Southeast Oklahoma today, with the best odds of a rogue storm forming coming across portions of Texas. The convergence along this boundary is weak to moderate and there doesn’t appear to be much lift overall in the mid-upper levels — so a storm forming would have to be from some pretty localized processes.
A look at a sounding from Texas today at peak heating reveals a very warm atmosphere, but the SRH is pretty modest despite very solid 0-6km shear. There is quite a bit of CINH throughout much of the day and instability is in the 1000-1500 range. This is a modest, but supportive, environment for severe weather.
Overall, there has been a noticeable downtrend on some CAMs this morning on the possibilities of storm initiation. If a storm does fire, it’ll probably be 4-6 p.m. along that dryline. It’s life span will be relatively short-lived though. If a mature supercell can get going, some large (2-inches or greater) hail is possible and a brief tornado window could occur at/just after sunset.
I think the most likely area that a storm will break through the CINH and go for a couple of hours will be in the Central Texas zone surrounding Waco and Killeen/Temple.
We’ll have a blog on tomorrow’s more substantial setup late today.
Leave a Reply