Amos Magliocco
EF5
The winds along the I-35 corridor in north central Texas will probably veer by 18z and I doubt initiation will accompany that wind shift along the surface trough. As for chasing near Bonham or Paris, been there & done that. I grew up in Bonham, racing around the Leonard Hills as a teenager, barfing at keg parties in the Fannin County woods. This is not chase country. Out by Texarkana, there are a few gaps in the trees, but it's a not a consideration at the distance I live now.
An analysis of morning obs shows the system is stacked and more neutrally tilted than the last few models showed, so directional shear will deteriorate rapidly as surface to 850 veers south and southeast of the low. I agree with SPC that the morning showers speed out ahead of the dryline to open clear skies for insolation, but so too does the helicity, since the wind shift/sfc trough is *not* the dryline today and the actual boundary lags well behind. Pre-frontal troughs suck--they steal your 0-1k shear while leaving you waiting for the dryline, meanwhile scouring moisture east of the boundary so that there's nothing left when the dryline finally mixes your way. This was the most striking feature of this setup when I first saw it a few days ago, and it's panning out that way.
So what will serve to focus convergence and convection in the high-dollar targets of southeast OK and northeast Texas? I'm not sure. Boundaries left over from the morning's convection? I don't know. I'm certain storms will fire there, but less sure about how you would arrange to meet them. All I see in my mind are trees when I try to imagine the setup for that area. LOL. It's like the forest even interferes with forecasting. Another possibility is that the weak CIN erodes completely and the WAA regime simply explodes all sorts of showers and storms, with supercells embedded in that activity. That's a typical March grungefest and another argument for staying in northern Oklahoma.
A very telling indice today for those staying home is the 0-1k EHI value, which measures SRH and CAPE (SB, I believe) and has proven effective at discriminating between tornadic and non-tornadic supercells. Despite the boffo moisture in east Texas, I expect EHI values will be approximately similar for east Texas as for the cold-core target in northern Oklahoma since helicities up north will hold longer. The values will be much more impressive in east Texas the longer the surface flow remains backed, however.
Purely for visibility purposes, I'd play the OKC cold-core target. Might be some beautiful structure with those and a tornado or two can't be ruled out.
An analysis of morning obs shows the system is stacked and more neutrally tilted than the last few models showed, so directional shear will deteriorate rapidly as surface to 850 veers south and southeast of the low. I agree with SPC that the morning showers speed out ahead of the dryline to open clear skies for insolation, but so too does the helicity, since the wind shift/sfc trough is *not* the dryline today and the actual boundary lags well behind. Pre-frontal troughs suck--they steal your 0-1k shear while leaving you waiting for the dryline, meanwhile scouring moisture east of the boundary so that there's nothing left when the dryline finally mixes your way. This was the most striking feature of this setup when I first saw it a few days ago, and it's panning out that way.
So what will serve to focus convergence and convection in the high-dollar targets of southeast OK and northeast Texas? I'm not sure. Boundaries left over from the morning's convection? I don't know. I'm certain storms will fire there, but less sure about how you would arrange to meet them. All I see in my mind are trees when I try to imagine the setup for that area. LOL. It's like the forest even interferes with forecasting. Another possibility is that the weak CIN erodes completely and the WAA regime simply explodes all sorts of showers and storms, with supercells embedded in that activity. That's a typical March grungefest and another argument for staying in northern Oklahoma.
A very telling indice today for those staying home is the 0-1k EHI value, which measures SRH and CAPE (SB, I believe) and has proven effective at discriminating between tornadic and non-tornadic supercells. Despite the boffo moisture in east Texas, I expect EHI values will be approximately similar for east Texas as for the cold-core target in northern Oklahoma since helicities up north will hold longer. The values will be much more impressive in east Texas the longer the surface flow remains backed, however.
Purely for visibility purposes, I'd play the OKC cold-core target. Might be some beautiful structure with those and a tornado or two can't be ruled out.
