Saturday, May 21, 2011

Severe Weather Update - Southern Plains


The above visible satellite image was taken just a few moments ago.  Surface data shows a dryline extending from the western part of central Oklahoma, southward into southwest Texas.  

As you can see, cumulus clouds, some already towering, are developing along and ahead of the dryline across portions of west-central and southwest Texas (red outlined area).  The atmosphere is becoming very unstable along and ahead of the dryline in this part of Texas, and organized thunderstorm development is likely by 3pm.

Once developed, this activity will move East/Northeast with very large hail (some could be baseball size or larger) the greatest threat.  Localized damaging winds and isolated tornadoes also cannot be ruled out, although the hail will be the primary threat.

Additional development may take place further East across parts of east-central Texas, where various outflow boundaries exist from last night's thunderstorm activity.  

In Oklahoma, the atmosphere is slowly destabilizing East of the dryline at early afternoon.  Outflow boundaries from last night's thunderstorm activity in east-central Texas have limited the rapid return of instability to parts of central and eastern Oklahoma so far, but a band of southerly winds just above the surface is strengthening from east Texas into eastern Oklahoma, and this will result in a more rapid destabilization over the next several hours.


Isolated to scattered severe thunderstorm development still appears likely along the dryline in central Oklahoma later this afternoon, which would then move into adjacent portions of eastern Oklahoma by evening.  Large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes would be possible with any storm that developes in this region.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for your updates! I live in Austin and I must say our NWS office here is horrible. They weren't even forecasting storms this morning and now we're in a severe thunderstorm watch!