SPC at 11:00am

...NE/KS/OK to north TX...
Water-vapor imagery late this morning shows a potent mid- to
upper-level trough/low over the central Rockies with a speed max
moving through the base of the trough and into the southern and
central High Plains. This negatively tilted mid level trough will
continue northeast to near the Black Hills by this evening while its
southern portion overspreads the KS/OK corridor. The 12z Amarillo,
TX raob showed the leading edge of stronger 700-600 mb southwesterly
flow nosing eastward into the High Plains. A cyclone near the NE
Panhandle this morning will deepen as it moves north-northeast to
the SD/ND border early Tuesday morning. An associated Pacific front
will push east into the High Plains and overtake the northern
portion of the dryline across parts of the central High Plains this
afternoon into this evening. Farther south, a dryline will mix east
into western OK by late this afternoon with a broad moist/unstable
warm sector across the southern Great Plains and becoming
increasingly pinched in spatial width farther north into the
north-central Great Plains. An attendant warm front will advance
northward from OK into the lower MO Valley by early evening and
later into the mid MS Valley.

Visible satellite imagery shows considerable low stratus and
stratocumulus from north TX into the central Great Plains. The 12z
Fort Worth, TX raob sampled the richer low-level moisture (15 g/kg
lowest 100mb mean mixing ratio) compared to areas farther north.
Surface analysis late this morning shows rapid northward transport
of moisture into OK with 65-70 deg F dewpoints advecting northward
through OK to the KS border. This plume of richer moisture will
continue northward today beneath an EML and lead to moderate
destabilization over NE with a very to extremely unstable airmass
forecast to develop farther south over the southern half of KS into
OK and adjacent north TX.

Initial thunderstorm development is likely as the upper forcing
impinges on the northwestern periphery of the moist/unstable sector
across the central High Plains (western KS/NE) and northward into SD
with time. Steep 700-500 mb lapse rates and strengthening flow
becoming more meridional with time will favor organized storms,
including supercells and bands of storms with an associated isolated
to scattered risk for hail/wind and perhaps a few tornadoes.
Farther south, the erosion of the cap is expected initially over the
KS portion of the dryline and perhaps into northwest OK by the mid
afternoon. Strengthening flow through the column combined with
strong to extreme buoyancy (2500-4500 J/kg MLCAPE) --from I-70 in
central KS to I-40 in central OK-- will strongly favor supercell
development. Strong upper-level diffluence across the central Great
Plains and intensifying southwesterly to westerly 250-mb flow, which
will result in very long hodographs, will strongly favor discrete
storm modes, at least initially. Large to giant hail (3-4 inches in
diameter) is possible with the more robust supercells. The LLJ is
forecast to be strongest over KS northward into the north-central
Plains through 21z. During the 21-00z timeframe, the flow
associated with the LLJ will strengthen over OK acting to enlarge
hodographs. Climatologically large combinations of deep-layer
shear, buoyancy, and SRH will result in extreme values of composite
indices (STP 6-12) during the 22z-06z timeframe across the Moderate
to High Risks. Several discrete supercells are expected to traverse
across a large portion of the Moderate and High-Risk equivalent
tornado probabilities. Tornadoes, some of which can be intense
(EF3+), are forecast late this afternoon and well into the evening.
Some model guidance shows regenerative supercell development across
central OK this evening. Have extended the High Risk slightly
farther south to account for this possibility.

Yeah starting to wonder about the cap breaking myself. Heavy cloud cover and cool. I know the parameters are such that it shouldn’t matter, but I feel like heavy cloud cover and cool temperatures reduces the risk more often than not. I dunno. Still lots of time for the clouds to clear out.

Clouds are starting to thin. NWS brought this up also Visible satellite imagery shows considerable low stratus and
stratocumulus from north TX into the central Great Plains. The 12z
Fort Worth, TX raob sampled the richer low-level moisture (15 g/kg
lowest 100mb mean mixing ratio) compared to areas farther north.
Surface analysis late this morning shows rapid northward transport
of moisture into OK with 65-70 deg F dewpoints advecting northward
through OK to the KS border. This plume of richer moisture will
continue northward today beneath an EML and lead to moderate
destabilization over NE with a very to extremely unstable airmass
forecast to develop farther south over the southern half of KS into
OK and adjacent north TX.

First tornado watch for Nebraska/Kansas about ready to be issued. 11:15 central

Is OKC likely to even see rain or hail from this? I've mostly seen this as a northern and NW Oklahoma storm. Has it shifted at all?

Yeah starting to wonder about the cap breaking myself. Heavy cloud cover and cool. I know the parameters are such that it shouldn’t matter, but I feel like heavy cloud cover and cool temperatures reduces the risk more often than not. I dunno. Still lots of time for the clouds to clear out.

Hopefully day staying cloudy means smaller risk for F4 or 5 tornadoes and baseball sized hail. But a F3 tornado is plenty bad.

Is OKC likely to even see rain or hail from this? I've mostly seen this as a northern and NW Oklahoma storm. Has it shifted at all?

Certainly appears so. Worst tornado threat is to the NW of OKC, but the metro will be dodging supercells all night, I think.

Hopefully day staying cloudy means smaller risk for F4 or 5 tornadoes and baseball sized hail. But a F3 tornado is plenty bad.

Right as you all were discussing, it got notably brighter downtown, even through the clouds.

I've noticed in the past 10 minutes it getting sunnier outside my location in Southwest OKC.

Is OKC likely to even see rain or hail from this? I've mostly seen this as a northern and NW Oklahoma storm. Has it shifted at all?

Risk is still there. They just talk about Northern Oklahoma because that will initiate first.

Edit: They actually expanded high risk further south and east in the 11:30 outlook.

Risk is still there. They just talk about Northern Oklahoma because that will initiate first.

Edit: They actually expanded high risk further south and east in the 11:30 outlook.

Part of me wonders if they opted to expand that at least in part because not including Norman in an area affecting/including the Metro might be drawing too fine a line of distinction. I know they also made reference to some other model guidance about other initiation later.

PDS Tornado watch coming this afternoon https://x.com/NWSSPC/status/1787524998804164785

Oklahoma County Courthouse closing at 2 PM today which is pretty unusual.

NWS Norman issued a pre-emptive EMS activation. Never seen that before:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/p.php?pil=LAEOUN&e=202405061658

School districts across the region are announcing early closures and/or canx of all pm activities. Some schools are allowing teachers who live outside their district to leave early. Ugh.

Part of me wonders if they opted to expand that at least in part because not including Norman in an area affecting/including the Metro might be drawing too fine a line of distinction. I know they also made reference to some other model guidance about other initiation later.

Maybe, I think its a good call and would cause too much splitting of hairs to not. There has a been a couple of models showing the worse storm pretty near the metro. Just a little bit further south and a storm pretty much guaranteed to be a right turner would put Norman in the cross hairs.

The state has ordered non-essential offices and services to close at 4.

Yep. OU closing at 3:30pm. During finals week. Very serious now!

Driving back to OKC and clouds burning off quick on the Turner and up to 77 around 57 miles from the 35.

First watch coming out will be [mainly] for potential ahead-of-dryline cells that fire off early afternoon. HRRR has been consistent about these, but kills them off very quickly.

Oklahoma County Courthouse closing at 2 PM today which is pretty unusual.

Come on, really? If the county courthouse is closing at 2 pm with no severe weather coming then that would pretty unusual

Temperatures are in the upper 70's in central Oklahoma. Approaching 80's on the southern sides of the metro.

Come on, really? If the county courthouse is closing at 2 pm with no severe weather coming then that would pretty unusual

Yep, got the email from the Okla.County Bar Assoc.

I’m struggling with this one today. Heavy cloud cover. The air quite literally feels cool outside. This just feels like it’s going to be a north-central ok event with limited impacts on okc.

I’m struggling with this one today. Heavy cloud cover. The air quite literally feels cool outside. This just feels like it’s going to be a north-central ok event with limited impacts on okc.

NWS has made it pretty clear surface cloud cover isn't going to stop this one. In fact, they've kinda gone out of their way to point that out, interestingly enough. Heck it would be great if you were right but it sure seems they're trying to head off that speculation unfortunately

I’m struggling with this one today. Heavy cloud cover. The air quite literally feels cool outside. This just feels like it’s going to be a north-central ok event with limited impacts on okc.

It's almost 80 degrees with a dewpoint of almost 70. Winds are ripping, sheer is high, CAPE is high. The metro area is and will continue to be a high-end parameter space for the next 10-12 hours. Waaaaay too early and kinda irresponsible to call this a bust this early.

Also, PDS Tornado Watch is out, https://x.com/NWStornado/status/1787559249037738382

95/90 probabilities, good lord

Storms and tornados suck but that is Spring for you! Stay safe everyone!

https://twitter.com/mikelevinewx/status/1787549606043128254

It's almost 80 degrees with a dewpoint of almost 70. Winds are ripping, sheer is high, CAPE is high. The metro area is and will continue to be a high-end parameter space for the next 10-12 hours. Waaaaay too early and kinda irresponsible to call this a bust this early.

Also, PDS Tornado Watch is out, https://x.com/NWStornado/status/1787559249037738382

95/90 probabilities, good lord

Sheesh dude. Did I say this is a bust? No. Not once did I type that. I just said it doesn't "feel" like a major weather event out there right now.

Sitting in Clinton at the moment, low cloud cover has completely burned off here. Currently just some fair-weather cumulus but the CU field is more agitated just across the OK/TX border in the eastern TX panhandle. Would expect initiation right around the 100th meridian in the next 1-2 hours.

Sheesh dude. Did I say this is a bust? No. Not once did I type that. I just said it doesn't "feel" like a major weather event out there right now.

The keyword is "right now" the major weather event has not started yet!

It's almost 80 degrees with a dewpoint of almost 70. Winds are ripping, sheer is high, CAPE is high. The metro area is and will continue to be a high-end parameter space for the next 10-12 hours. Waaaaay too early and kinda irresponsible to call this a bust this early.

Also, PDS Tornado Watch is out, https://x.com/NWStornado/status/1787559249037738382

95/90 probabilities, good lord

Yeah even with the overcast skies, it's felt cool when the wind is whipping around but pretty hot and muggy when it settles down (for all 2 seconds at a time). And the sun is starting to break through the clouds more often.

Watch parameters:

Tornadoes
Probability of 2 or more tornadoes
High (>95%)
Probability of 1 or more strong (EF2-EF5) tornadoes
High (90%)

Wind
Probability of 10 or more severe wind events
High (70%)
Probability of 1 or more wind events > 65 knots
Mod (60%)

Hail
Probability of 10 or more severe hail events
High (80%)
Probability of 1 or more hailstones > 2 inches
High (80%)

Combined Severe Hail/Wind
Probability of 6 or more combined severe hail/wind events
High (>95%)

It's interesting how different the NAM high res and the HRRR right now.

Any news on the sounding this afternoon? Is it at 2:30?

Yeah even with the overcast skies, it's felt cool when the wind is whipping around but pretty hot and muggy when it settles down (for all 2 seconds at a time). And the sun is starting to break through the clouds more often.

The sun will be out fairly constantly here in about 30 minutes to an hour looking at the satellite loops. I don't think cap will help us. Its like last week all over again where the greatest risk is at night.

Norman did a special sounding at 18z (1 p.m.), I believe they have plans to do another special one at 4 p.m. and then the usual one at 7 p.m. provided there aren’t storms in the area by then.

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/soundings/

Just went back outside (haven't been out much due to injury) and it was noticeably muggier than it was a bit ago.

Towers starting to go up west of woodward. These look to be close or right on the dryline. Nothing developing ahead of the dry line quite yet.

2:45PM: It looks like initiation is starting south of Shattuck. Several cells along the TX/OK border.

One of the HRRR models is interesting to me, it is firing a lone supercell in Oklahoma County around 6pm or so and sending it through Luther and points northeast of there. Definitely bears watching.

Here’s another special sounding from just before 1:00. With that cap, would think it will be difficult (but not impossible) for anything to initiate via the confluence zone ahead of the dryline as the HRRR has suggested. If anything does happen, it should be isolated and less of a threat than whatever initiates along the dryline.

https://twitter.com/MesonetMan/status/1787552971993030715

Yeah, I feel like the HRRR is already behind schedule in regards to things firing ahead of the dryline. This particular model has struggled with this phenomenon all spring it seems.

Looks like the Ellis County storm is just about ready to go, though no lightning strikes as of right now.

Here’s another special sounding from just before 1:00. With that cap, would think it will be difficult (but not impossible) for anything to initiate via the confluence zone ahead of the dryline as the HRRR has suggested. If anything does happen, it should be isolated and less of a threat than whatever initiates along the dryline.

https://twitter.com/MesonetMan/status/1787552971993030715

That's good in the sense that there won't be any confusion about what is the 'main event'.

Think it’s safe to say that initiation has occurred just SW of Arnett. Tend to think that it might be a pretty slow ramp up in terms of intensification over the next 2-3 hours, but that things could really get serious in a hurry thereafter. We shall see.

I’m struggling with this one today. Heavy cloud cover. The air quite literally feels cool outside. This just feels like it’s going to be a north-central ok event with limited impacts on okc.
The sun is out over by my place, which is at Wilshire and Kilpatrick.

@BaronWeather’s spin model:

https://x.com/HuffmanHeadsUp/status/1787564750043218080

@BaronWeather’s spin model:

https://x.com/HuffmanHeadsUp/status/1787564750043218080

"Highly credible" is stretching it, dude is trying to upsell his premium products. You can get similar results from CAMS' helicity tracks

We are really doing wall-to-wall coverage already for one thunderstorm warning. People are going to be burned out before the big action really starts. No other tv media would be wall-to-wall coverage for a Thunderstorm warning

We are really doing wall-to-wall coverage already for one thunderstorm warning. People are going to be burned out before the big action really starts. No other tv media would be wall-to-wall coverage for a Thunderstorm warning

Well, in all honesty, all KWTV is covering up is something like an eight year old Dr Phil rerun, so it's no great loss.

It's probably just a proprietary deal by Barron. I've never seen this model, but Baron is behind some of the best weather apps that companies and some TV stations put a skin over and call it their own -- News9 weather, ATs Weather To GO, etc.

BTW, I'm in no way blessing this model, but thought I'd share what I knew about it.

New Mesoscale Discussion for NW OK: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0655.html

Not sure I have ever seen a MD mentioning strong tornados possible for storms that have just developed, or have not even developed. Very strong wording from NWS to mention an extreme solution before storms have even materialized.

Another cell going up NW of Sayre. Dryline doesn't seem to have a problem 'unzipping'.

Not sure I have ever seen a MD mentioning strong tornados possible for storms that have just developed, or have not even developed. Very strong wording from NWS to mention an extreme solution before storms have even materialized.

Same. It’s very strange given the lack of agreement on models today too. Im sure there will be storms later but this is all very strange.

Sheesh dude. Did I say this is a bust? No. Not once did I type that. I just said it doesn't "feel" like a major weather event out there right now.

Have you been outside in the last 15 minutes? It definitely "feels" like it now.

Same. It’s very strange given the lack of agreement on models today too. Im sure there will be storms later but this is all very strange.

With a high-end parameter space like this, it really is a matter of when and where, not if. This just seems strange because the atmosphere is so primed today.

Tornado watch in yellow until 11 pm.
https://forecast.weather.gov/wwamap/png/oun.png

Radar that updates:

https://data.prod.mesonet.org/data/nids/maps/realtime/Oklahoma.MosaicBREF.png?cache_bust=169147945989

Latest short-range models suggesting cluster of supercells N of I-40 will track ENE, with 1-2 primary cells tracking more E closer to I-40. Even suggesting they will track over the same areas as they get into C OK. So an increase threat of flash flooding for those under the train.

Darn. Not looking like much for the metro, at least not for a while. Kind of makes it crazy that places closed at 2pm.

Same. It’s very strange given the lack of agreement on models today too. Im sure there will be storms later but this is all very strange.

I haven't studied the models, but there seems to be near unanimous consensus that this is the right atmosphere for a high-end outbreak of large, long-track tornadoes.

Darn. Not looking like much for the metro, at least not for a while. Kind of makes it crazy that places closed at 2pm.

Hopefully that comment is directed at closing things down early and not wishing for storms that will probably be producing destructive tornados.

As for the closing down things down early, it has been known for awhile this was going to be an late evening event, don't know why everyone pulled the trigger so early. I'm seeing another cell form south of Sayre so North OKC and Edmond will be under the gun later tonight.

Hopefully that comment is directed at closing things down early and not wishing for storms that will probably be producing destructive tornados.

As for the closing down things down early, it has been known for awhile this was going to be an late evening event. I'm seeing another cell form south of Sayre so North OKC and Edmond will be under the gun later tonight.

The Oklahoma County Courthouse closed at 2 pm today.