Quincy

Some shades of two days ago, obviously a bit different synoptically, but there will be a surface low moving east across Oklahoma with CI ahead of a dryline/cold front. Roughly 100 miles farther east. This time, CI seems more probable with southward extent, with more of a linear mode evolving north of the surface low into NE Oklahoma. The thing that jumps out to me the most are lapse rates. They look quite steep from SE Oklahoma into NE Texas. Storms may be more prolific hail producers than Wednesday was. The tornado threat is most apparent near and south of the surface low.

A bit late to the game, but chased the Springer, OK tornado from start to finish today. It lasted close to 10 minutes. It was near a wooded area and I think that’s why we didn’t see a lot of streams or close footage. I had to drive a few miles east before I found an acceptable clearing. There were zero roads going north... Quick note about streaming and bandwidth. I’ve had really bad issues with cell service lately, probably and combination of throttling and heavy usage due to the virus. Anyway, I had a “strong” signal, but had major issues with internet with this storm. Maybe it was all of the chasers around, but it was really frustrating and worse than usual during my chases in Oklahoma.

They outflow boundary from Duncan to Pauls Valley, OK continues to drop south. Temps are averaging near 63F on the immediate cool side. Looks like the focus area is getting more narrowed down to the Red River.

Initiation down south of the Red River will probably be delayed. That does allow more time for the downstream clouds to push away, which they’re starting to do.

Went from overcast to partly/mostly sunny here in Ardmore in the past 10 minutes. Can feel it heating up quick.

Deepening cu field NW of Fort Worth as well. Probably going to initiate within the next hour or so.

Looks like the low has passed FDR. For reference:

Disclaimer: a Still expecting a couple of intense supercells on either side of the Red River... Cloudiness is socked in near and east of I-35. The HRRR has been trending somewhat narrower and a tick SW with the narrow warm sector for this afternoon. The best low-level shear is where there is dense cloud cover, while the cap is eroding farther west. An outflow boundary south of Norman is drifting south, which should keep the OKC metro area away from any intense storms. With that said, seasonably rich boundary layer moisture (dews of 68-71F) has advected to about the Red River with a narrow tongue of strong instability. Deep layer wind profiles are favorable and low-level winds are backed to SSE along the I-35 corridor. Two areas to watch: 1. Near the surface low/triple point. Concern here is a semi-discrete or clustered storm mode, but as @andyhb mentioned, they’re on target to approach multiple outflow boundaries, so there should be a notable tornado threat. Residence time for something photogenic may be tempered a bit due to storm modes and the narrow width of the warm sector, but we’ll see. 2. An intense supercell or two will likely develop near or just north of DFW. Here, there will be large buoyancy and likelihood that the cap will break by 21-22z. I’d suspect large to very large hail will be likely here. Although low-level shear may be modestly less impressive, it will still be favorable for tornadoes. You could still get a storm between these two areas, but if I had to narrow it down to two targets, there you go.

I chased that thing, mainly the 30 minutes prior to touchdown. Couldn’t see anything conclusive. Even when it did start, there was not much of a visual due to grunge factor, very dark (almost pitch black before sunset) and trees. Almost certainly rain-wrapped unless you were unsafely close. The mesocyclone reminded me of the Bonner Springs EF-4 from last year. By the time it crossed MS-35 south of Columbia it was dark and there was no way of keeping up. The damage south of Columbia (from what I saw) was really bad. Trees shredded and uprooted, virtually every road in the area was blocked by trees. A reminder that storm chasing in Dixie is rarely fun.

No shortage of moisture sampled at LIX/Baton Rogue: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/soundings/20041912_OBS/LIX.gif Dews around 72-73F along I-10 across Louisiana.

Similar to the HRRR depictions. With regard to the western half of the risk area, pay close attention to how convection in East Texas evolves over the next 1-3 hours as it approaches western Louisiana. Even with a messy storm mode, you can get embedded tornadic supercells, but it may temper the threat somewhat.

The environment from southern AL into southern GA rapidly becomes very favorable for tornadoes in the morning. If early convection can latch onto the warm front and ingest surface-based parcels, it could get ugly in a hurry. Storm motions suggest that storms could ride along the front right to the GA coast. Time sensitive:

A few quick thoughts... Elevated storms are likely in the morning across Alabama (like last Sunday) and Georgia as well. The warm front could eventually reach these storms and if they do, the severe threat would increase there as early as late morning. Round 1 could focus across AL/GA into early afternoon before the western part of the risk area heats up. Out west, the trend may be just slightly slower an a tick SW, which was the trend last week as well. Expect storms to initiate in East Texas during the morning and spread into central/northern Louisiana during the afternoon. These storms, in vicinity of the warm front and surface low, will be the ones to watch for the most widespread severe weather. They'll eventually move into central Mississippi. It's still unclear if there is much warm sector activity south of the warm front and early day complex of storms coming out of Texas. Even if there is not, expect several tornadoes. The storm mode looks mixed and clustered, which will be challenging from both a chasing and preparation standpoint. I wouldn't rule out some warm sector activity as well. It's hard to say how this will verify compared to last week, but I would not be surprised if it is a higher end (but not historic) outbreak. The three things to look for in terms of how high the ceiling could be: 1. Do early day storms in AL/GA become severe and if they do, does the tornado outbreak start there? If this happens, then the tornado count will be off to a quick start and remember that this area might see a second round Sunday night. 2. Watch the storms coming out of East Texas and Louisiana. If it's a broken line of storms with embedded supercells, that's going to lead to quite an outbreak. Even if it's just a squall line with QLCS tornadoes, that would still result in several tornadoes. 3. Is there much, if any warm sector activity? Even just one rogue storm down by I-10/south of the warm front could have long residence time to produce significant severe, assuming such a storm or storms can initiate. P.S. the large/very large hail threat seemed to be a bit overdone last week. That tends to happen in these parts, especially when storm modes are mixed. I think we'll see some hail reports, especially across TX/LA/AR, but not as many farther east. There, lapse rates will be somewhat less steep. If anyone is interested, I toyed with a live discussion on this threat about an hour ago:

MDT risk:

It helps to post thermodynamic profiles too. It’s one thing if there’s a large hodograph, but are thermodynamics favorable too?

Not a whole lot has changed. The model consensus seems to focus from northern LA into central MS for the most likely daytime severe threat. Similarly to last Sunday, storms initiate early in the day in East Texas and track eastward into northern Louisiana. Here, the tornado threat could once again get going early as a sufficiently unstable airmass advects north. The upper level pattern is progressive with a more westerly component to the upper level winds. The surface front is likely to lie W-E near or just north of I-20 from LA-AL. Note that even if surface winds tend to “veer” to SSW, hodographs will still be quite large with a robust SW low-level jet and W/WSW flow at 500mb. Storms near the surface low and riding along the warm front should pose the greatest, most widespread tornado threat. I would not be surprised if SPC upgrades this area to MDT risk. Storm mode looks mixed/messy in this zone, but like last Sunday, a swath of damaging winds and tornadoes looks probable from northern LA into central MS. Eastward from there, the threat should continue into central AL and possibly central/southern GA into the evening and overnight. The wildcard will be the warm sector... do we get any isolated storms south of I-20 from LA to AL? If we do, all severe hazards would be possible, with the potential for strong tornadoes.

Some of the longer range mesoscale models show an evolution not all that much different than last week. Just a tick farther south and west. If taking the HRRRv4/4km NAM verbatim, a complex of storms evolves in East Texas and tracks across northern Louisiana into central Mississippi along the warm front. NSSL WRF is somewhat farther south. I think given the expected larger scale pattern, the warm front is more likely to verify near or south of current progs, as opposed to farther north. I also don’t see a rapidly surging warm front like last Sunday, meaning northern MS/northern AL and almost certainly TN will probably not be in the crosshairs. There also seems to be support for modest capping to leave the broad warm sector largely uncontaminated through midday. Any time you see 2000-3000 J/kg CAPEs with substantial shear in the Deep South, that’s not good. There is still time for this to evolve, but I’d say it’s not looking any less severe at this point.

This... meaning a broad warm sector, spells trouble, assuming you have discrete/semi-discrete convective initiation. Whether that happens on an isolated or more widespread basis remains to be seen.

Looking at forecast soundings, the setup looks similar to last Sunday. If we were to nitpick, wind speeds may be slightly less impressive, although still favorable, along with modestly less steep mid-level lapse rates. On the flip side, relatively large 0-3km instability is progged, particularly south of I-20. The warm front should end up verifying farther south than last week as well, which is evident in model progs and the SPC enhanced risk area. Analog data is tempered slightly compared to last Sunday as well, but still supports at least an ENH and possibly another MDT risk outlook.

About to fall asleep... but I’ll leave this here

More than ample instability and virtually no surface based convective inhibition across the western half of GA. It’s going to be a rough night. The warm front is roughly bisecting South Carolina east to west, FWIW.

Scooba got hit by a long track sig tor on 2/2/16...

Damage width SW of Soso is probably about one mile...

Unfortunately based on radar imagery and the amount of emergency responders, I’m sure there is. Once I saw damage and road blocks I got out of the way.