Thursday, May 20, 2010

Chances of severe weather increase this afternoon

Yesterday’s conditional severe weather threat turned out to be nothing more than a few clouds thanks to the warm front moving farther into Oklahoma. Storms that erupted on this front rapidly became severe producing many tornadoes and large hail to our north.
Today most of East Texas is under a slight risk of severe thunderstorms this afternoon. After looking over this morning data, it appears much of East Texas is under the risk for large hail, possibly up to golfball size and strong gusty winds. A very unstable atmosphere is in place across East Texas with a weak cap, or layer of warm air just of the surface. As we warm up this afternoon the cap will weaken allowing for thunderstorms to develop. Storms will be scattered in nature so everyone will not see them but any storm that develops could become severe. We are also noticing an outflow boundary from yesterday’s storms between the I-20 and I-30 corridor. We will have to watch this boundary very closely because if any severe storm were to attach itself to this boundary, low level rotation could increase and we could see an isolated tornado or two if this occurs. The greatest risk of severe weather across East Texas is along and south of an Emory to Quitman to Jefferson line and north of a Crockett to Lufkin to Hemphill line.
Storms should begin to move out of East Texas late tonight into the pre-dawn hours tomorrow. This will set the stage for a very warm and humid weekend. Highs will reach the lower 90s in most areas but could approach the middle 90s from Crockett to Lufkin to Hemphill. In these same areas the Heat Index could approach 100 degrees.

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