Since the weekend, the computer models have become more in line with each other. The first being the system will come in a little faster which should focus the severe weather more east of I-35 and the second that there will definitely be a major severe weather outbreak.
As the system starts to move into the southern rockies, the dry line will set up along the OK/TX panhandle by tomorrow afternoon. After a round of morning showers and storms, there should be enough clearing to allow daytime heating to destabilize that area of the state so that more storms will form. These would be isolated in nature and exhibit supercell characteristics with large hail and damaging winds the primary threat. The area of concern would be from around Woodward south to Altus by 5pm. If the computer models underestimate the amount of moisture present, then a low tornado threat could occur with lower cloud bases.
Thursday is still a complicated day. Although the system looks like it will come in quicker, that doesn’t mean we are out of the woods as far as severe weather goes across the metro. In addition, a slew of other factors could complicate things, such as will there be morning storms that limit our instability for the afternoon or will those storms move off to the NE and limit the instability over NE OK, SW MO, where better dynamics will be located for severe storms. A lot of these factors will become clear Thursday morning. If the model consensus is correct and the highest risk of severe weather is NE of us, we would still have the possibility to see storm initiation overhead. It’s not often the dryline makes it to or even past I-35. It usually stops somewhere across western parts of the state, but in any event, it will likely be in a position to which storms will fire very close if not overhead Thursday afternoon and then race northeast at 40+ mph. So our window for severe weather would be small.
AT
