Day 4-8 Outlook
Day 4-8 Convective Outlook
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
0355 AM CDT Thu Mar 21 2024
Valid 241200Z - 291200Z
...DISCUSSION...
Medium-range guidance continues to indicate that large-scale
mid-level troughing, digging inland of the U.S. Pacific coast this
coming weekend with at least a couple of significant embedded short
wave perturbations, will progress through much of the Great Plains
and Mississippi Valley through early next week. As the lead short
wave trough emerges from the Southwest on Sunday, rather strong
surface cyclogenesis is forecast to proceed from the lee of the
Front Range into the adjacent high plains. Although it still
appears that low-level moisture return to the developing warm sector
will be on the lower margins for severe thunderstorm development,
steepening lapse rates will probably compensate, in the presence of
intensifying wind fields and strong forcing for ascent to the east
of the deepening low. As a mid/upper jet streak, perhaps including
southwesterly winds increasing to 90-100 kt, crosses the southern
Texas Panhandle through western Oklahoma by Sunday evening, it
appears that the environment may become conducive to organized
convective development. This probably will include a few supercells
initially, then a narrow evolving squall line posing increasing risk
for severe winds, in addition to large hail and couple of tornadoes,
before weakening late Sunday evening.
The deep, but perhaps weakening cyclone, is then forecast to migrate
through the lower Missouri Valley into Upper Midwest on Monday, but
the primary severe weather potential seems likely to shift into the
lower Mississippi Valley late Monday into Monday night. This is
where forcing near a secondary frontal wave, as a trailing mid-level
short wave emerges from the Southwest, may interact with better
low-level moisture return from the Gulf of Mexico and support
renewed vigorous thunderstorm development. By Monday evening, if
not earlier, this probably will again include a risk for supercells,
and a developing squall line, which may maintain strength through
the evening before weakening overnight.
Thereafter, pattern developments become more unclear, but a strong
mid/upper jet emanating from the mid-latitude Pacific, with a number
of amplifying waves, is forecast to spread across the southern
mid-latitudes of the U.S., and one or two may be accompanied by
renewed cyclogenesis to the east of the Rockies.
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