2/23/07 FCST: OK / TX / KS

[Trey Atterbury]

lessee........leave Denton at 5:00pm............hmmmm....................

nah, can't make that work. Crap.

Your in Denton? Im in Gainesville but I think I'll pass on this nighttime event.

 

[Jeff Miller]

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0177.html

Initiation is likely around 4 to 5:00, however SPC saying tornadic threat exists, but the BEST threat for tornadoes will be after 7:00 PM. Isolated supercells appear likely. Weather watch will likely be issued shortly. Here we go folks, good luck, I am hoping that there will be some magic and some daytime tornadic activity will be possible.

Very impressed with moisture return and the setup is looking very good for at least isolated supercellular activity. My target is just north of Wichita Falls, TX for any tornadic activity.

 

[Angie Norris]

I'd love to be headed toward Childress. However, I'm waiting for my physics class to start.
Been monitoring the RUC, looks like Tds may approach upper 50s by later this afternoon, but I think that's going to be marginal to get storms firing. Shear looks more than adequate, but moisture's going to be the problem. I'm still not convinced that we'll have initiation before dark.
I'll just sit this one out and wait for the storms to come to me. The drive to work in the morning (6am) should be interesting, however...vid will be rolling
Everybody who is on this today and tonight, BE CAREFUL and keep a good head's up.

 

[Donald Giuliano]

Has anyone else noticed that there is still snow on the ground in western KS and SE CO? As a matter of fact, the surface temperature at LAA (Lamar, CO) is currently 35F, and just a couple counties away in the OK panhandle, the temperature is 73F! I wonder what kind of impact this will have the track of the surface low...I noticed the 18z NAM was all of a sudden trying to track it through the TX panhandle near AMA...maybe that's a bit extreme, but the presence of such a strong surface baroclinic zone would certainly argue for it tracking through the DDC area just SE of the snow pack, instead of through Goodland, KS, where the temperature is currently in the low-mid-40s with snow on the ground.

 

[Donald Giuliano]

Nice enhanced area of Cu on visible satellite right now with a few echoes starting to appear between AMA and LBB, but unfortunately the moisture situation in the TX panhandle is abysmal at present due to the strong mixing which has taken place this afternoon under sunny skies, and dewpoint depressions are in the 20-30F range. This almost certainly will limit the threat of tornadic activity until after dark, when some of the better moisture which has not been mixed out farther east can creep back towards the dryline. Combining this with nocturnal cooling will allow the dewpoint depressions to fall dramatically, but to kill the cap which would obviously form we then also simultaneously need the colder air aloft to work its way east to both destabilize and uncap the then low-dewpoint depression warm sector. The timing on all this has been and continues to be forecast to be nearly perfect for some nighttime action, but it still has to verify.

As things stand, Western OK is looking great as it is, it's just a waiting game now as we need the cold air aloft to move over that region to destabilize the atmosphere and kill the cap.