Today looks to be a HUGE day for tornadoes across parts of south-central KS and north-central OK. A very potent shortwave trough will plow through the warm sector with the perfect timing to initiate supercells along the dryline. Seasonably high dew points (65+) are being advected northward and, with strong surface heating and steep mid-level lapse rates, should result in very strong instability along the I-35 corridor and eastward. The wind fields today are going to be outrageous... with a very strong westerly jet streak juxtaposed with a strong southerly low level jet you'll get rotating storms. When that happens in a very unstable and moist environment, like today, you have the perfect ingredients for a tornado outbreak. Hence the HIGH risk just issued from the SPC. The image below is the NAM's output for the Significant Tornado Index for 7pm tomorrow, as you can see it is completely maxed out!
My target is around Enid, OK. Storms should fire around 3pm and will move east rather quickly. The live stream will be up once we hit the road. Tune in for what promises to be a day to remember!
Great Plains trip 1 summary and logs
2 days ago