Hey everyone… I have been slammed for time lately and have just not had a chance to send this out until now, and even so I need to keep it short. Looks like a severe weather event is likely to impact north Texas through the overnight hours into early Thursday morning. Wind shearing is is ‘tremendous’ as noted by the weather service, with an upper level jet stream moving along at about 200 knots, and a low level jet moving from the south at 40-50 knots. Bulk shearing (used to calculate storm severity and tornado potential) will be around 70 knots which is very high and more than enough to support severe thunderstorms. Moisture return is vigorous as well with dew points approaching 70 degrees just after midnight. Convective inhibition will be low (favorable for severe) as well. The only limiting factor here is the amount of atmospheric instability. This cold front will be pushing through the area around 4am to 8am Thursday morning, at that time of day, instability is extremely low as there is no daytime heating yet. However it looks like the other factors especially the extremely strong wind shearing and strong forcing caused by the cold front, will overwhelm the lack of instability and cause a severe storm event anyways.
Again, we are looking at timing from anytime after midnight, but likely between 4 to 8am Thursday. Storms will likely be linear like a squall line, with embedded bow echos and possibly supercells as well. Main threat from this will be severe winds, though hail is a definite possibility as well. The SPC and local forecast offices have mentioned tornados as being possible as well. This is due to the impressive low level jet (40-50knots).
I will send updates later as I have to run for now.
