Not much change in thinking since yesterday concerning today's severe weather outbreak. An unusually powerful storm system for this late in the season is on track to bring a variety of dangerous weather to a large section of the southern Plains through tonight.
We have maintained our moderate risk area through the night and into this morning, and it is depicted in a graphic on our enhanced web page. We expect the most intense storms to be in and close to this area, although severe storms may happen over almost all of Oklahoma and western north Texas.
SPC has a high risk from the Kansas-Oklahoma border all the way to Minnesota, where they expect the highest number of reports to be. As we've said before, a high risk somewhere else does not mean the storms we see will not be as significant. This is a situation you should be watching very closely.
The main question today will be how long storms can remain isolated supercells before turning into a squall line. Either way, we're going to have a busy afternoon and evening, and we anticipate issuing lots of warnings. As long as storms remain isolated supercells, we'll have an increasing risk of tornadoes and damaging hail, especially toward evening as the storms approach the I-35 corridor. Once a line forms, damaging wind potential will increase, and some of the winds may be over 70-80 mph.
We have a new multimedia briefing on our website, and it will updated as we go through the day. We will be launching a weather balloon around 230 pm today to get a better handle on the cap, wind shear and moisture profiles across central Oklahoma.
I would expect a tornado watch to be issued by mid afternoon for a large part of the area.Storms will be moving quickly - 40 to 50 mph - so early deployment, positioning and safety of spotters will be a concern this afternoon and this evening.
As a side note, CNN will be broadcasting live from the Storm Prediction Center all day today, and I expect they will be in our office once warnings begin.
Thanks, and let us know if you have any questions.
Rick Smith
Warning Coordination Meteorologist National Weather Service - Norman Forecast OfficeNational Weather Center
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