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.
On top of that, modest but just enough 500mb flow given the high instability will be in place with 25-30kt of flow in the mid-levels of the atmosphere.
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.
