Sydney Claridge

Even though the one to the south is the tornado producer, that storm to the north of Streator (near Ottawa) still bears watching as it is moving straight for the Chicago metro area.

Aside from the risk for hail, tornadoes, and wind, I am getting very concerned about flooding potential near and west of Bowie, TX. These storms have stalled over this area for quite some time, with heavy precipitation, and they may only now be starting to increase their forward motion. There are also other storms behind this complex as well. The big question is whether this complex will take a right turn and impact the northern areas of the Metroplex.

I wonder if that is an MCV associated with that activity near Bowie, TX? Storm motions seem to be rotating around a point near Bowie.

Storm over Wichita Falls looks to be developing rotation. It looks as if that storm has caught up to the outflow boundary ahead of it and is latching onto that OFB.

I'm starting to wonder if SPC overestimated the effects of the outflow boundary with respect to their re-positioning of the ENH risk earlier. The significant hail is currently materializing north of the ENH risk and the hatching, but that storm SW of Bellevue, TX still bears watching, especially if it becomes a right-mover. That storm has just taken on supercellular characteristics (including a hook), so it may take a right turn pretty soon. EDIT: couplet SW of Bellevue:

Tornado warning also issued for that storm just northwest of Wichita Falls. Radar indicated at this time. EDIT: confirmed tornado west of Burkburnett according to livestream from Channel 6 in Wichita Falls.

Looks like there is a major hail storm ongoing northwest of Wichita Falls now, it is warned for up to 3-inch hail. There may be some additional attempts at convective initation in the Graham/Jacksboro area per radar and satellite imagery; some of the ingredients there seem better for severe weather (supercell composite, SigTor, EHI, etc.), compared with southern OK, although that Red River storm is in a perfect position to produce large hail.

Attempts at convective initiation around Graham and Jacksboro seem to be struggling at this moment. Some light radar returns are present there, although nothing significant has formed yet.

Looks like some attempts at convective initiation may be occurring near Jacksboro, TX.

Enhanced risk is now centered over north Texas, including the Metroplex, and has been trimmed away from southern OK. OFB is now over the Metroplex, albeit with strong heating on the immediate north side of the boundary based on observations and SPC outlook.

The question will be how much further south the OFB gets before storms initiate (which will be a while). Though not the most current, satellite imagery clearly shows the OFB location just south of the Red River. SPC thinks that the boundary will eventually stall; needless to say I'm going to get a bit concerned about severe storms particularly if the OFB stalls out near the Metroplex, since the OFB may very well be the focal point for afternoon severe storms.

Yep, the 10% with SigTor hatching was just removed and the ENH was shifted southwards somewhat. On the flip side, the hatching for significant hail now covers much of the Metroplex (30% hatched), with a 5% tornado probability on top of that.

That storm is moving straight for the Columbus metro area. Fortunately the ingredients today are not the most favorable for anything more than brief tornadoes, but it is always something to watch when a major metropolitan area is downstream from a potentially tornadic thunderstorm.

Have definitely seen what seem to be some supercell structures on radar there, but overall the storm mode in Iowa seems messy right now. Obviously today is not a slam-dunk severe weather day, being only a slight risk, but if anything the most intense storm near New Virginia, IA looks to be a possible HP supercell given its radar signature.

Southwest Tarrant County looks to get hammered should this storm continue to hold together.

Those storms are definitely outflow-dominant now. The outflow boundary has surged well ahead of the storms, and is currently over central Dallas County and southern Tarrant County (and is just north of the KFWS radar site). If these storms had maintained unimpeded inflow at or near the surface we would probably be having a major hailstorm over DFW right now, but fortunately that outflow surged out ahead of the storms.

Interestingly enough there might be some outflow out ahead of this storm, from west of Thackerville over to Muenster and Bowie (which is evident on the KFWS radar). Might be a sign of a possible weakening trend, but this does not appear ahead of the lead storm over Thackerville.

Hopefully the hail potential winds down somewhat before then, but you can never count on that (the cap is one finicky beast at times). Collapsing storms can also produce damaging wind gusts on occasion, so even if the hail threat diminishes, there is that risk (although this storm is already capable of damaging wind as it is). I would not be surprised to see a local extension of the severe thunderstorm watch into Tarrant and Dallas counties.

There is now a hailstorm capable of significant hail (2"+) about to move from southern Oklahoma into Montague and Cooke counties in north-central Texas. Could even be some rotation trying to form on this storm. If the current motion continues it may try to move towards Denton County (and the northern portions of the Metroplex) if it can hold together that long. EDIT: severe thunderstorm warning for eastern Montague and all of Cooke County. It is warned for 2-inch hail and 65 mph wind gusts (OK warning included concern for 3-inch hail). Steve McCauley (on his Facebook page) is saying that the storms should be able to survive into (at least) the northern DFW area.

It will be interesting to see if the cap kills off those severe storms in southern Oklahoma in the next few hours. If not, they are headed straight down I-35 for DFW.

This pattern would have been good for winter in the Northeast, too bad it came too late. At the same time however, western ridging in the winter would have meant reduced mountain snowpacks and worse drought. A return of the Pacific "blob" would be good for big-time Northeastern snowstorms but very bad for western water supplies, especially outside of the coastal Pacific Northwest where the warmer water can serve to increase the amount of moisture available to a storm system. Eastern troughing and western ridging has killed severe weather seasons in many recent years. If I recall correctly, 2013 had somewhat of a late start to the Plains severe weather season, but once it got going in May, we had some very powerful tornadoes in Oklahoma, including the most recent EF5 on record (Moore, OK), not to mention the El Reno tornado (that would also have been an EF5 if it had it hit structures). There have been strong and violent tornadoes in Dixie Alley so far, and a persistence of the eastern troughing pattern would lead me to believe that areas on the southern and eastern flanks of the trough, namely Dixie and the Carolinas, would remain prone to potential tornado events through May, especially with warmer-than-average Gulf of Mexico water temperatures. Perhaps with some northward shifts into the Ohio Valley and southern Great Lakes region as warmer air gains a foothold in that region. The Plains might very well be stuck with northwest flow in this pattern. Provided sufficient moisture, severe thunderstorms (and possible derechos) on the rim of the building western heat are a possibility, particularly if this western ridging/eastern troughing pattern continues into summer. I would also watch to see if the High Plains EML gets advected further east into any regions favorable for severe weather that are on the southern and eastern rim of the troughing. Western ridging that affects the Rocky Mountains and High Plains could be favorable for making a stronger EML, but this might also kill severe weather events as well, if the cap is too strong.

Definitely an area of strong winds southwest of Gainesville, moving towards the Metroplex. I’m also wondering if that might be some rotation near Valley View?

90%/70% severe wind probabilities on that new severe thunderstorm watch, high odds but not enough for PDS. If those odds were slightly higher (let's say >95/80) then I think they would have gone PDS.

There has already been a significant wind report out of Tulsa (65-75 mph wind gust at 51st/Harvard; listed as a 75 mph significant wind report by SPC). If we get a derecho that might be where it starts, so I would expect areas to the east of DFW to be at the highest risk for getting a derecho today (the OK/AR/MO border region is also a climatological hotspot for derecho activity per SPC). Remember that severe winds have to extend for at least 250 miles to get a derecho; that said, you can have an MCS with destructive winds that does not persist long enough to meet derecho criteria. DFW itself will be impacted by the activity (either ongoing or yet to form) over central Oklahoma. So far this activity has remained more discrete than that over northeastern Oklahoma (which has formed into a solid line). Also note that helicity may increase between 01z and 03z based on RAP guidance (as seen on the SPC Mesoanalysis page), which also forecasts effective SigTor values as high as 9 over the DFW area as the storms arrive. I'm not saying that there will be tornadoes (it seems unlikely, and SPC has only put DFW and much of north-central Texas in a 2% contour after all), but it might be a possibility with any discrete or semi-discrete cells once that helicity ramps up in a few hours.

I wonder what the odds of getting a tornado are for north-central Texas if there happen to be discrete storms around? I know the supercell composite, helicity, and significant tornado values often do go up in the evening and at night (RAP on SPC Mesoanalysis shows this happening over north-central TX prior to the arrival of storms), but that storms often become more elevated at night as well. The HRRR model also has the DFW area at the tail-end of the line of storms. It always concerns me to see forecast values that high over a highly-populated area (DFW) with what could be some semi-discrete activity, but I have seen this happen before in the late spring and summer with few-to-no tornado reports. This is also a northwest-flow scenario and there tend to be fewer tornadoes with that. That said, I do wonder if we will see a derecho this evening.