SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ERUPT OFF THE DRYLINE

As the day progressed, ingredients mixed together nicely to kick off a large batch of storms to our west. By early afternoon, much of western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas were nearing CT or Convective Temperature. Convection is a word for rising motion and CT is just the temperature at which air will rise unimpeded by a surrounding colder environment. Think of a bar of ivory soap brought down to the deep end of swimming pool. When let go the soap goes shooting to the top. In this case air goes shooting to the top of troposphere, where the temperature of the atmosphere warms. The air will rise until it is cooler than its surrounding environment. This is the general concept of stability, or in today’s case, instability. The atmosphere was very unstable. Storms fired off of the dry line, where air of different densities and very different moisture content meet. It is often the first place storms will develop. To the east dewpoints were in the upper 50s and to the west of it, values were in the mid 30s. The wind profile, associated with an impressive upper level storm system, helped churn the atmosphere up, and like clockwork around the hottest time of the day, the storms went off! Thus far, there have been 12 reports of Tornados.

Presently, single cell thunderstorm activity is melding together into a batch of thunderstorms that is linear in nature. Such features are capable of and indicative of damaging winds, especially if the line begins to bow. The tornado threat is lessening, though south of the batch of thunderstorms, there still is the possibility of single cells forming. This cluster is sending clouds as far east as Oklahoma City and precipitation extends to Clinton, OK which is about 85 miles to Ok City’s west. General movement with this storm system is too the North Northeast. We may get a lingering shower or thunderstorm early, though the activity will have significantly lessened at that point. There may be an outflow barrier or two lingering over our north western area that may provide a focus for a few thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon.

Posted by Ted Zarras at 9:45 PM