Thursday, May 22, 2008

Severe weather outbreak

A very dangerous severe weather outbreak possible late this afternoon and evening from southern Nebraska south to west central Oklahoma. Strong south winds have continued to bring in deep moisture from the gulf as a potent upper level piece of energy swings northeast from the Southwest. This will help spark off super cells as early as mid afternoon across north Kansas into Nebraska. Then along the dry line by late afternoon and evening as far south as Southwest Oklahoma possibly. Now for southwest Oklahoma its a little more up in the air as the question is will there be enough convergence along the dryline to break through the cap. Currently at Noon it is very windy and warm with winds gusting over 35mph from the south. Dryline is slowly working its way east across the eastern counties of the Tx Panhandle. My thinking right now is that will likely be one or two large supercells across nw and west central OK by dusk. If one goes there will likely be one or two more that develop. As the atmosphere is so primed that the first one will be so explosive that it will be a cap breaker. Like last night there will be a small window for maximum intensity before the cap strengthens back up. Right now it looks like from 5pm-10pm will be the time for severe weather in west central Oklahoma. Pros are the very high helicity values (turning of the winds), High EHI values over 4 and CAPE values exceeding 2500-3500 j/kg. Cons are limited convergence along dryline, strong Cap overhead and Low pressure pretty far north that the winds might not back enough to the southeast(currently south). So there is a brief analysis on the situation this afternoon but the potential is pretty high. My current plans are to head out from the station around 2pm. I plan on heading to Altus and look over conditions there are hopefully find some hotel that has free wireless Internet then go from there. Today's chase will be tricky with Internet as looking at the At&t data network map there are alot of holes in their services out there. So I'm trying to stay in places we have Internet until we know exactly where to go and then its just watching the storm and its surrounding environment no technology needed then. Map above is where I think intial storms will develop in our viewing area.
EDIT: BUST as cap and lack of convergence along dryline couldn't get anything organized. Supercells with tornadoes did form but was in far northwest Oklahoma into Kansas. So the slow times continue for us in southwest Oklahoma.

1 comment:

Katie! said...

Just got a CNN update about a tornado in OK and came DIRECTLY to your blog to find out if you'd be there...

My hubby and I really enjoy following your chasing adventures! Hope you're well and safe!