jojo762

Not a whole lot of model agreement or high predictability, but mid/late next week was pretty interesting on the 12z Euro, especially Thursday. Obviously slightly veered SFC winds aren’t exactly preferred in the plains, but it’s a start. P.S. Highly recommend getting Pivotal Weather Premium, at least for severe season; it’s not that expensive, and being able to get high quality ECMWF soundings is fantastic.

Not looking like too amazing of a setup right now. Obs show upper 70s temperatures with ~50 d/Tds across SW OK, and it’s not much better to the west in Texas. Likewise, most models show 60 to low 60s dewpoints advecting into the area by go time. Seems like a relatively high probability that a highly photogenic, high-based supercell goes up somewhere in W TX/SW OK this afternoon/evening. Giant hail will be the main risk with any isolated supercell before a large MCS forms along the cold front late tonight; might be a small non-zero risk of a tornado, which would also probably be photogenic thanks to high LCLs if one were to occur. FWIW, forecast soundings do indicate massive CINH across most of W TX/SW OK, so I’m not exactly sure how any convection is going to explode or even sustain.

And if this were the case... I would say that that time frame would end up being equal chances for both... maybe slightly below normal chances? Not sure yet, because it’s so far out that it is almost pointless to try to predict severe weather given the various intricacies of a severe weather forecast. Bleak forecast for storms, or even just tranquil weather the next week.

Ironically Pineville is where I turned around sometime after 7ish to hop on I-49 for the three hours back home. Make that two awful chases in the SE KS/NE OK/SW MO area in back to back weeks... See everybody in a week or two when things maybe start to turn around on the plains..

Interesting day to say the least. Chased two supercells that developed near Welch OK. First produced a huge wall cloud but didn’t have much rotation and must’ve gotten ^slightly^ north of the boundary shortly after as the wall cloudy quickly dissipated, and storm became elevated. The second supercell developed as soon as the original storm went elevated... this one had an interesting initial life-cycle, as it quickly produced a gust-front and was seemingly outflow dominant before re-acquiring surface-based status. This storm looked impressive on radar but never really acquired any notable low-level meso... chased it to just past Anderson, MO, but gave up because it wasn’t doing much and the road network/trees get unbearable in far SW MO. Baseball to Softball-sized hail per the SVR warning along with the ESE movement made this one not very fun to chase.

Sitting in Miami OK right now, ample N/S/E/W road options... might meander down to Vinita soon. Tons of CAPE and SRH today, but a slight cap probably remains in place and LLVL lapse rates are bleh. Might have a storm go ballistic INVOF the boundary.

SPC upgraded to 10% hatched TOR risk across SE KS/NE OK/SW MO. Ingredients appear to be coming together for a potentially significant day across this region.

00z RAP verbatim show a high-end parameter space developing across SE KS/NE OK by as early as 20z tomorrow. CAMs provide a mixed bag of results for tomorrow, most which do not exactly show a high-end setup like the RAP -- especially with regard to convective evolution during the morning/afternoon and into the evening... but we'll have to see. 00z NAM also shows a higher-end parameter space developing, but with more capping in the afternoon prior to 00z... Somewhat concerned about lackluster low-level lapse rates, but we'll see how that evolves.

Monday is looking like a classic boom or bust triple point day... should be noted that there is a pretty wide disparity between the ECMWF/UKMET/CMC and the GFS/NAM though... GFS and NAM show what would be a pretty upper-crust supercell environment (with some caveats/possible weak points).

So maybe some severe activity with an isolated tornado threat somewhere in the plains this weekend into early next week. Might get a day with some more concentrated tornado potential (looking at you Monday), but veered LLVL winds and capping could be an issue. LLVL winds being weak or veered and 700/850mb temps being quite warm will be an issue every one of the days more likely than not. Beyond that it’s looking like a large ridge, or at least higher-than-normal 500mb heights will setup across most of the western CONUS and into the plains — some uncertainty as to how this ends up exactly, but probably looking at a lull with some beautiful/warmer weather in the mid to extended period.

Nailed the MDT risk location. And yeah, I guess it’s just because it’ll probably be more of a hail/damaging wind event, and maybe that just does not interest people much. I think it’s been mentioned, but it’s a bit of an odd setup for late April for the plains. Reminds me more of a June setup that you’d see in N KS/S NEB. Going out somewhere east of ICT tomorrow, totally ready for the awful road network in that area to screw me over. Besides, only expecting about two or maybe three hours of chasing before the line starts to accelerate too far south for me to want to chase it.

A lot of 00z guidance develops a secondary SFC low across S KS/ N OK tomorrow morning/afternoon. This results in locally backed winds across southeastern KS and parts of northern Oklahoma, while low-level winds are still pretty lax, this leads to a much better looking hodograph -- and with ample 0-3km CAPE in place INVOF of the quasi triple-point, this could lead to a localized region of higher tornado potential with early discrete cells across the area. Something of note to me is that SHIPS guidance is pretty ridiculous tomorrow for this same region... Could see some "gorilla" hail tomorrow for sure. Honestly would not be totally surprised to a MDT risk tomorrow for destructive hail and/or damaging winds given that every model shows widespread severe storms across S KS/N OK. Could even be a small 10% TOR risk across the area I mentioned above to account for an obviously higher potential for tornadoes with the initial discrete storms; but as I already stated, a big mitigating factor for tornadoes will be the lack of stronger low-level flow... so they probably wont introduce a 10% area. Initial target/starting point for tomorrow would be in a triangle from Wichita, KS to Ponca City, OK to Independence, KS..

FWIW, there seems to be quite a bit of volatility in the 200+ hr range recently... Shifting from ridge fest to trough fest back to ridge fest.

Summer-like threat tomorrow, only shifted a bit further south than we would normally see in the summer. Strong NW flow atop meager/meh low-level winds, but abundant CAPE and moisture. Should be some pretty hefty hail tomorrow afternoon with the initial discrete convection across SE KS and into OK, developing into a mean squall line by evening. Considering meandering my way down to SE KS tomorrow just for some hail and hopefully a beautiful shelf cloud, always a chance for an isolated tornado as well given ample low-level cape — but storm interactions/updraft seeding will probably mitigate that potential quite a bit.

Operational models really did a 180 overnight on the large western CONUS ridge in the mid to long-term... Might be able to anticipate several chaseable/watchable plains severe days in 7 to 10 days.

Looking like SFC d/Tds are going to be pretty sub-par across most or all of the ENH risk area...

Was thinking the same thing. CAMs are in consensus that SE OK/ S AR/ NE TX will feature an area of enhanced severe potential, probably for all severe hazards. Might make the drive down there to chase, looks like the last opportunity for at least a week... or two...? Terrain is very sub-par/god awful down there for chasing though; and looking at google maps, the road network looks pretty sub-par as well.

00z RAP and NAM indicate a substantial severe weather event tomorrow afternoon and evening across S OK and N TX... Given low-level moisture, instability, and wind profiles in forecast soundings am very concerned about the possibility of strong tornadoes. 00z hi-res guidance was a bit all over the place with regard to convective evolution INVOF the dryline though... BUT the environment along and east of the dryline looks very impressive -- along with minimal to no CINH, throwing into question the models.

Ope... and Elk City, OK storm just went TOR warned.

Impressed with the amount of supercells that popped up across OK this evening, even some exhibiting weak rotation... Not exactly how I anticipated the evening would go. Considered driving the 7/8 hours down to the TX panhandle today, but thought CAPE, etc. looked too marginal to warrant that.

Pretty black and white to me here. The Bad (more likely) Morning MCS limits any potential threat substantially, owing to meh instability... But so could veered low-levels, or both. Probably both. Likewise, if the morning MCS is limited in scope or southern extent... Then things could get pretty crazy, but again, probably not. Though a strong tornado could occur with some rogue storm, like we saw on Sunday (4/19). The Good (wish-casting/not as likely) The low-levels are not as veered as currently modeled (aka, the 00z NAM from last night or the 12z UKMET)... AND the MCS is more lackluster than currently modeled by 12z CAMs... The result is likely tornado galore across several states, yet again... Pretty bearish about Thursday... But even if the MCS diminishes the threat spatially -- as it looks like all of us expect at this point -- it is important to remember that weird, less-than-ideal profiles (especially compared to what you think of as a "classic," plains tornado VWP) can still produce isolated sigtors in Dixie. Probably going to get quoted a million times for raining on the train... but oh well.

-94mph/+97mph G2G on Radarscope... uh oh.

TDS now...

EM in Walthall Co confirmed tornado in progress.

Looks like it is about to produce, if it hasn't already...