Severe Weather Risk/NE and N Central Oklahoma

** Severe weather risk today across northwest and north-central Oklahoma **
** Those chasing should be in northwest Oklahoma by 3:00 pm and check in **

0Z GFS and NAM in good agreement. I was trying to figure out why they had storms blowing up in eastern OK away from the fronts yesterday and it turns out it appears that may have been a bad model run. Storms should fire near the triple point across far northwest Oklahoma during the afternoon. According to analysis from OU's OWL weather website, it appears there may be enough helicity in northwest and north central Oklahoma for a risk of isolated tornados. Latest SPC outlook appears to have missed the mark and doesn't even cover the area of greatest risk, while covering a broad area in eastern OK where nothing may happen. CAPE around 1200 j/kg should be present during peak heating around Alva-Fairview or possibly farther west. I suspect the actual triple point may travel from north of Gage to Fairview by evening.

Latest high resolution WRF shows supercells developing by 4 p.m., with one north of Woodward and one north of Cherokee (model's best guess). Interestingly enough, WRF shows the Woodward storm on a northeast course into Kansas while the one near Cherokee takes an easterly track. Not to say any of this will actually pan out, but we definately need to be aware of storms that move northeast (hailer) and southeast (tornado potential). We had a tornadic storm in Pushmataha county on Thursday that finally dropped a tornado in a rural area. That storm had occasionally turned right and moved east-southeast.

Appears a few storms may develop south of the triple point possibly down towards Dewey or Custer counties during the evening. These would generally move east possibly towards central OK. The area of greatest concern are the two rows of counties bordering Kansas from Ponca City west before dark, and after dark from north-central into northeast OK and southeast KS.

The storms may become a threat to our western Arkansas meteorologists by around 11 p.m. A second wrap-around area may approach far northwest Arkansas by 7 a.m. Saturday.

In addition to the severe weather risk, a warm front with dryline like properties will be nudging through western Oklahoma. Unfortunately this could mean no rain for an area which is already starting to be in a drought. Also, with dropping humidities and strong winds, there will be an elevated risk of wildfires across the western counties that border Texas.

On a side note, model guidance on Thursday was much too cool. 0Z has come around to what I was thinking. I have noticed KFOR has caught onto the trend for the guidance to be too cold as well.

A Canadian cold front drops through the area in the early hours of Saturday, bringing drier air and cooler temperatures. It may be somewhat breezy for a while behind the front. Temperatures should be in the 50s.

Massive pressure falls along the lee of the rockies will cause a very strong pressure gradient across Oklahoma by Sunday evening. The winds will be very strong with perhaps a high wind watch needed in the Texas panhandle. Models are indicating a large high helicity area developing in the panhandles on Sunday with a narrow axis of instability near the New Mexico border. It would be possible to get some storms going across the western Panhandles on Sunday but most of these should die before reaching western Oklahoma.

On Monday, a large upper storm across the southwest US will begin to approach the area. Ahead of it, a dryline will set up across far western Oklahoma. A low pressure area will likely be in the Texas panhandle, with an attendant warm front draped across southern Oklahoma by sunrise Monday which should quickly lift north to the Kansas border by mid-day. Severe storms could form along or north of the warm front across far northern Oklahoma or southern Kansas. This will likely happen by mid-afternoon. The dryline may wait until close to sunset before firing off a round of thunderstorms that should march across the state. At this time it appears there will be tornado potential with these as well. The triple point should be near Gage, with a second low west of Abilene.

By Tuesday afternoon the first low is across northeast Oklahoma, with the second low centered near Wichita Falls. The cold front would be draped between the two, just south of I-44. The north side of the front would be favored for more storm development. Very heavy rains and some flooding could occur. Models have been outputing several inches of rain with this system. Severe weather cannot be ruled out either. It appears a squall line may form and move over western Arkansas and eastern Texas on Tuesday. A wrap-around precip area may be back over the Texas panhandle behind low #2. This area of rain will probably track across Oklahoma Tuesday night overnight but probably won't be heavy enough to aggrivate flash flooding. Since most floods occur at night we need to keep this one in mind anyway.

Beyond this system, March 22nd-24th still needs to be monitored closely as previously mentioned. There is potential for a widespread freeze in this time frame with a significant amount of arctic air coming down. It is too early to pinpoint winter precip potential but this cannot be ruled out as well.

Greg Whitworth/Fox 25 Used with permission