Quincy

Chasing this currently. It’s elevated and the initial updraft is shriveling. It looked interesting for a bit:

Quick overview including 15z surface analysis. Can’t overlook the wildfire threat across the plains, but evening and overnight tornadoes will arguably be the most dangerous hazard.

Looking rather ominous between about 11 PM and maybe 5-6 AM. Just a terrible time for this sort of tornado threat.

Three main areas of concern: 1. Warm sector/near the warm front from Missouri toward the Iowa/Illinois border area. Pretty good model agreement that either a cluster or perhaps just a renegade storm or two initiates. A significant severe threat would likely accompany any storms, with large CAPE, supercell wind profiles and low level hodograph enlargement. 2. Dryline from eastern Kansas into Oklahoma. With slower trough ejection modeled, convective initiation seems unlikely. Should a storm manage to form, it would very likely be severe. I think this is the least likely of the three scenarios, especially if the model trend continues. 3. A more widespread severe threat may materialize after dark as the trough ejects and the low level jet ramps up. We could see a broken line of storms move across eastern Kansas, along with cellular warm sector activity possible across the Ozarks. The only thing perhaps limiting this threat is that the main line of storms may grow upscale due to nearly boundary-parallel shear and pre-frontal activity is a bit more uncertain.

I think most of us can agree that states in the South that are in the central time zone should be added here.

Strong synoptic signal, but not sure I’d be calling for a high risk this far out.

Due to mesoscale uncertainties, I understand not delineating a high risk at this time. Either way, a very broad area looks primed for tornadic supercells today.

It’s also very close to the radar site, so we’re getting lower scans that we don’t often see with intense tornadoes. Undoubtedly EF-3+.

Terrifying.

Friday looks potentially potent. Tomorrow looks like a sloppy mess with nearly front-parallel shear, cold front undercutting storms and relatively weak low level wind fields. I may be dragged out to chase since it’s local, but OKC should stay out of the main threat, as the target area trends farther south.

It might be latching onto the residual outflow boundary… still looks like a grungy HP supercell with mainly a hail threat in the short term.

Surface analysis last hour:

True. Then there are times when all of the ingredients are off the charts and nothing happens. Severe weather is so complex.

Wonder if this may affect the tornado potential a bit around the DFW area:

Early convection quickly weakened and seems to be elevated. It is reinforcing the baroclinic zone. The cap should hold on until at least early to mid afternoon. Could see an intense supercell or two over southern Arkansas later. I wonder if today will end up having more discrete storms than tomorrow. It’s certainly possible.

Have to wonder if this early convection lays down an outflow boundary for renewed storm development this afternoon in northeast Texas. At the very least, it will reinforce the frontal boundary and probably keep afternoon storms a bit further SE than some earlier progs were showing. Tomorrow, the models looks increasingly like an I-35 mega QLCS as the main show, although isolated warm sector activity cannot be completely ruled out.

The potentially alarming thing about Thursday in Arkansas is the placement of a warm front/boundary along the Arkansas Valley. This is a locally specific setup that results in geographically enhanced channeling of backed low level flow near I-40 from Fort Smith to Little Rock. Such setups have produced some significant, long track tornadoes. Think 75-100 knot, SW 500mb flow backing to SE near-surface winds, along with a southerly LLJ increasing to over 50 knots with sufficient instability. Yikes.

Storms developing near I-35 in Texas.

Another potent, compact shortwave, this time with better quality moisture (than yesterday). Forecast soundings from GFS and the Euro pretty alarming across parts of central/east Texas. The signal has been fairly consistent. This will likely trigger another moderate risk from SPC, unless something drastic changes.

Wild 03z special sounding from OUN. Despite huge CIN, a tornado evolved just moments later.

Have had some time to take a deeper look at the setup. Seems like damaging winds will be the main threat and despite substantial surface-based convective inhibition, QLCS spin ups seem inevitable. 100 knot 0-6km shear? 75 knot LLJ? 500mb jet streak of 125 knots? Pretty wacky wind fields, bordering on historic. I think it leads to complex storm modes with embedded, hybrid supercells possible. Not favorable for storm chasing, but favorable to produce damage. Whether it’s 70 mph straight line winds or brief tornadoes, it almost doesn’t make a difference with it happening at night. Hopefully the threat wanes before reaching the more populated areas along I-44 and I-35 in Oklahoma.

I’m in Oklahoma and I’m not even sure I’m going out. There may be a small window near the Caprock around sunset, but storm motions will be fast. Of course there’s always the potential for fluky, brief tornado farther north, but models show very little MLCAPE north of I-40. Where they do some marginal instability (generally less than 500 J/kg), it seems like a capping is an issue. Wind fields may be near climatological records, so it won’t take much. Even if we’re just talking QLCS circulations.

NAM 12km and high res look very marginal with poor moisture return. Euro and GFS are more aggressive with dew points approaching 60 in western Oklahoma at 00z Monday. I’m not sold yet, especially with antecedent cold, dry air in place. Average T/Td in the ENH area this morning are 18/5.