Once again the Lubbock NWS folks have provided an excellent graphic of the expected weather synopsis for late this afternoon.
Essentially, we have a similar situation as we did on Wednesday, but this time with less moisture to work with and the wind fields will be weaker.
Expecting a triple point late this afternoon across west Texas with a warm front and dryline intersection somewhere to the southwest of Lubbock. Moisture currently is slowly returning in the wake of the cold front that blew through yesterday, with what appears to be a narrow tongue of moisture coming up the Mexico side of the Rio Grand and then up between Midland and Big Spring, TX. Leading edge of 50F dewpoints now showing up on the West Texas Mesonet in Dawson County south of Lubbock. This is expected to strengthen later in the day which will increasingly aid in moisture advecting northward into our target area.
The wind profiles as we go up through the atmosphere are directionally favorable for supercells, with excellent directional sheer between the lower and mid levels in excess of 45 degrees! They aren’t however expected to be particularly strong, but with that much directional sheer it can make up for some lack of speed shear.
Currently skies are completely completely clear per visible satellite image across the entire area, allowing ample sunshine to work on getting the instability going.
Right now I will be watching that moisture return carefully, and since this is very close to home, I can hold out to the last minute before heading out once I start seeing some cumulus clouds developing which I expect will visually tell me exactly where that triple point is. I am expecting high based supercells, which would probably preclude and tornadoes of any significance, and possibly some pretty good sized hail. I suspect the big prize today might be in some awesome storm structure due to the directional sheer and perhaps some good lightning after dark (which I haven’t really had a chance to try out my new Canon Digital camera on this year).
However… should moisture return be a little more robust, tornado chances would increase as well. Even that said, if something were to latch on to the warm front, which would be laying on an east/west line, I wouldn’t rule out one there either. In fact, I have seen past setups like this where a storm found a boundary and produced some excellent landspout type tornadoes. In my own personal experience, one you get supercell storms, you can’t completely rule out a tornado, high based storm or otherwise.
Current expected target is Plains, TX, to be adjusted as needed as the day wears on. The LIVE ChaseCam will be active once I hit the road. I plan to post an update before I head out, but will have limited opportunities one storms get going as I expect I will be chasing solo today and being in the KCBD viewing area, they usually keep me quite busy as well. My chase partner Graham may head out in Chase Unit 2 later, but I haven’t spoken with him yet.
