Saturday, April 13, 2013

Severe Weather Outbreak Possible Next Week

A severe weather outbreak looks possible on Tuesday and Wednesday across a wide portion of the Southern Plains.

A storm system looks to drop across the Rocky Mountains and sweep eastwards, forming a low pressure system in the southern Plains. This low pressure system will form a dry line in western Texas. As the storm system lifts northeast, the dry line will expand north and east in accordance with the motion of the storm. This will place Tuesday's severe weather risk in the vicinity of the center of the storm system. Storm initiation on Tuesday should occur overnight, as lower level winds ramp up and the jet stream inches further east as the storm system drags northeast. Storm formation should begin as individual cells that begin to cluster into multiple-cell storms. Tornadoes do not appear to be favorable- despite sufficient instability, lower level capping issues may hinder extreme supercell growth. Additionally, cloud bases are not as low as they could be to foster tornado development. Best chance for tornadoes is likely to be in central Oklahoma and into eastern Oklahoma in coordination with overnight strengthening of lower level wind speeds.

Andrew