The busy week of severe weather continues today with what looks to be a near certain widespread severe weather event across North Texas into Southern Oklahoma. A rich low-level airmass along with just enough wind shear will combine to create an environment ripe for powerful storms this afternoon and evening. Let’s dive in.
Rich low-level moisture with dewpoints in the mid-upper 60s will be surging north and west today with slightly backed flow across North Texas into Southern Oklahoma today.
As that is ongoing, the low-level jet will strengthen to 25-30kt in the early evening.
Model soundings from today feature effective shear values of 35-40kt with 0-1km SRH generally near 100. The 0-3km CAPE values are modest but come in near 50 j/kg. These are all right on the edge where I’d think tornadoes are plausible. If a supercell turns right like yesterday, they become even more so.
Models form a lot of storms once again. These storms form along a dryline from the Red River back to near Ft. Stockton in West Texas. Like yesterday, models are trying to kill storms early which probably won’t happen. I suspect a pretty robust line will fully take shape by sunset across Texas and march East and South.
The Bottom Line
I’m expecting lots of severe weather today, with storms forming 2-4 p.m. along the dryline.
- The main threats today will be giant hail (baseball size or larger) and damaging winds.
- The tornado threat is not zero. I would classify it as very low, but it is clearly in the ‘can’t rule it out’ area of the spectrum.
- It is very possible storms might sculpt up a bit in the evening, maybe with a pronounced shelf cloud at the very least.
- I suspect we’ll see some damaging wind reports that are on the higher end (70-80mph+) this evening.
It’s going to be a busy day. As always, subscribe to us on YouTube. We’ll be live from the field in the mid-late Afternoon.