It is the day of love! Or otherwise known as a arbitrary day that has been chosen by people to mark a time of significance that oftentimes leaves people wondering the point of it all.

With that said, Meteorological Spring begins on March 1! But today and tomorrow, it will certainly feel like Spring across the region.

Today

A few strong to marginally severe storms are possible across Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri today. Instability rooted in the lower levels of the atmosphere may lead to conditions that lead to some marginally severe hail, an isolated severe wind gust, and perhaps a brief tornado.

  • Strong cooling of temperatures aloft will combine with a bit of surface heating to lead to modest but weak instability across this region.
  • Temperatures should be in the lower 50s and dewpoints in the 40s.
  • The setup overall isn’t very robust, but a storm or two could organize into supercells briefly and all hazards would be possible if so.

The Bottom Line: This is a low end threat today with a non-zero risk of a tornado, some large hail, and damaging winds. The threat window will be short lived (late afternoon) and should go to near 0 just after sunset.

A very small plume of instability should develop across eastern Kansas into Western Missouri this afternoon.
Simulated radar shows small storms taking shape and moving north and east quickly this afternoon.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a bit of a different story as strong moisture return commences in earnest in the wake of today’s system but ahead of a larger system coming out tomorrow night. The timing and mode of storms is in question, but the environment will favor storm rotation with any more isolated cells.

  • There will probably be a magical crossover zone of just enough instability combined with just enough lift to overcome some capping and dry air entrainment along the dry line tomorrow in the very late afternoon. Likely in far Southern Oklahoma.
  • Instability wanes quickly north of the Red River on models, but lift should be much higher closer to the upper system the further north you go on the dryline.
  • Shear is quite pronounced to the east of the dryline, but slightly less impressive to the west closer to the dryline. This probably points to a slow but gradual uptick in storm intensity after storms form.
  • More storms should form to the east of the dryline in the warm sector. Instability is weaker but shear is pretty strong here.

The Bottom Line: Tomorrow should present a mixed mode of storms with some supercells possible. The bulk of severe reports should occur after dark, with a low risk of tornadoes.

Most high-resolution models don’t produce much instability north of the Red River tomorrow. This likely limits the northern extent of tomorrow’s severe weather risk.
Some models begin developing storms as soon as 4 p.m. tomorrow afternoon in Southern Oklahoma. That is far from a consensus though. I’d still probably bet on a couple of daytime storms.
The main energy from the upper-storm system will remain N and W through the daylight hours — but any subtle lead shortwave or a slightly quicker ejection would mean more storms before sunset. It’s something to watch.
I think the FV3 is probably closet to the dryline environment tomorrow with some deeper mixing, warm-advection use above 850, and mid-level clouds. This probably keeps the cap somewhat strong until about sunset when upper support arrives.
There is curvature in the low-level hodographs but they are somewhat veered due to the 850mb winds being SSW. This is less of a problem further west, but on the Plains this is not a favored low-level wind profile for tornadoes.
The dryline is pretty diffuse in Texas and Southern Oklahoma until the upper system gets a bit closer in the late afternoon. I would suspect if you are going to get daytime storms they will form shortly after 4 somewhere in S. Oklahoma or far N. Texas.
There should be scattered storms along the front/dryline in Eastern Oklahoma, perhaps linear segments that should weaken with time after dark. Supercells may take shape further east in Arkansas with a tornado threat after dark.