SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK?!?

Saturday into Sunday looks like we might be in for a big event. Every variable seems to be coming together. A strong upper level trough will be bottoming out in the southwest United States with abundant vorticity. The trough will begin its movement to the east/northeast, pushing small areas of vorticity towards western TX/OK/KS and NM. A strong upper level jet max will be swinging around the base of the trough during the morning and day of Saturday, placing it over the TX/OK/KS region it the afternoon. A region of strong diffluence will also be centered over this area. On top of this, a 500 mb shortwave trough will eject out of the base of the large scale trough in the afternoon, pushing through this same region.

A strong southerly to south-southeasterly jet at 850 mb will be in place, with great backing of the winds all the way from southwestern TX into western KS. Helicity will be plenty with areas of 500-750 in KS and 200-400 in TX. Instability will be the main mitigating factor, however the models are placing a bulls-eye of 1000 J/kg in western TX, with 500-1000 stretching up into southwestern KS. Of course, any areas of clearing will allow for these values to be easily reached or exceeded as dewpoints increase into the mid 60s throughout this region. The warm front looks to be situated on the northern border of KS. I wouldn't be surprised to see a tornado risk zone in western KS due to the high helicity.

The one factor that makes me feel like Saturday might be not at big as Sunday is that the trough will only have started to shift to the east in the afternoon of Saturday. By Sunday afternoon the main vort max will start to shift more into the TX/OK area, likely with the risk reduced in western KS as cold air advection commences. Never does the trough actually go negative, but rather pulls out staying positive the entire time as the main 500 mb low tracking through the Dakotas into Canada.

This event is also a perfect example of a SCEPT (Synoptically-Forced Convective Extreme Precipitation Training) event where a Closed Upper-Level Low is present(...from my thesis). I woudn't be surprised to see areas of heavy, flooding rainfall caused by training cells nearest the region of greatest moisture convergence in the warm sector of the mid-latitude cyclone. Western Kansas looks like the most likely location, stretching into the panhandle of TX. Watch for areas of 2-4 inches in just 2-3 hours.

Basically, I think we are in for a decent size severe weather event on Saturday and Sunday. The SPC already has a slight risk for southwestern TX on Saturday, but I would not be surprised to see them extend that further north. They even have a risk area circled on Sunday in western TX as well (4 days out). A risk area circled 4-8 days out is required to be considered as a moderate risk day for the SPC to include it. I am thinking they will end up going with a moderate risk both days.

On top of all this we have the snow forecasted in the inter-mountain west and a possible tropical cyclone developing later in the week in the western Caribbean. The weather is definitely about to get interesting.