Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Heavy Rain Event Instore Southern Plains/MS Valley; Some Threat of Severe Weather As Well...

An area of low pressure in the middle and upper atmosphere will move from the Great Basin region into the southern Rockies by Thursday, and the move out into the Plains where it is expected to stall out by the end of the week and into the coming weekend.

Wideespread rainfall, some of which will be heavy, is the primary threat with this system.  Below is the latest 5 day rainfall outlook from the National Weather Service's HPC:


As you can see, 3.5+ inches of rain are currently forecast for a large swath extending from central Texas into southern Arkansas, northern Louisiana and northwestern Mississippi.  Locally heavier amounts are possible in these areas, with some locations (particularly in the orange shaded areas) picking up as much as 6-8 inches of rain, mainly during the period Thursday through Sunday.

Some thunderstorms may produce hail to near severe limits (but mainly below that level) within the green shaded areas in Kansas and Oklahoma on the image below, mainly late Wednesday into Wednesday night:


On Thursday afternoon and evening, thunderstorms are expected to become better organized over portions of southern Oklahoma and northwest Texas, as shown by the yellow-orange shaded area on the image below:


Thunderstorms in this area may produce large hail, damaging wind gusts and possibly an isolated tornado or two.

Folks across this region should watch for additional updates on this weather situation over the coming days...


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2 comments:

Anthill_Goddess said...

Told hubby today that I was really surprised that we *didn't* have a severe risk for Wednesday since we're so abnormally warm today (75 in Iowa in very early March...really???). I'm trying to keep an eye on the SPC explainations...but they're getting well ahead of what I understand even earlier today! LOL Hoping all will be well and safe!

Rob White said...

Anthill,

Thanks for the comment. This is kind of a tricky situation for your area, so I can certainly understand your concern/confusion.

For your area, its all to do with the timing. The cold front will move through before the upper level system (and hence uplift, support for t-storms, etc.), arrives, which will tend to limit the chances for thunderstorm development (of any kind, much less severe).

So, no worries for severe weather for you this time around...