Sunday, May 8, 2011

Will The Cap Hold in OK/TX this Afternoon/Evening?

...that's the $64,000 question of the moment.


***Updated 6:00 PM CDT:


The answer is "No"...


Recent image from the Frederick, OK radar.

Same as above, zoomed-in on severe storm in Caddo County


------Remainder of Original Post from 4:30 PM CDT is below:


The image below shows a visible satellite image just taken of the southern Plains.  The location of the surface dryline has been noted by the yellowish-brown line.



Towering cumulus clouds are developing along a portion of the dryline from southwest Oklahoma into northwest and west-central Texas, as noted by the red encircled region on the next image:


A very strong capping inversion is in place along and ahead of the dryline in both Oklahoma & Texas.  The question is:  Will any of the towering cumulus be able to break through the cap and explode into a thunderstorm?  

Any thunderstorm that does manage to break the cap and develop will become severe very rapidly.  Very large hail, damaging winds and even a tornado will be possible with any such storm.

The risk (albeit low) of development will be the greatest over the next 2 hours.

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