Noise

November in the southern plains

After an extended period of peace and quiet, a few features are coming together that make this afternoon and evening look interesting for western Oklahoma and northwestern Texas. 

A surface front extends from southeastern Kansas through central Oklahoma to a low that has not really consolidated near Childress. The OUN and FWD soundings look good as far as moisture is concerned and this has been a problem over the past couple of storm systems. Thunderstorms are racing into southern Kansas, well north of the front, and there is a steady clearing trend over far western Texas at mid-morning. 

The HRRR shows new development in western Oklahoma extending southwestward into northwestern Texas after 21z. The RUC doesn't look so great; precipitation is widespread over southern Oklahoma from 14z onward. The NAM is likewise wet over the entire state from spin-up, with increasing 3-hourly totals beginning after 21z for Oklahoma just east of the panhandle border, extending southwestward in to west Texas after 03z. Finally, the GFS has rain all over the state, too, especially in the north and west. Why do I look at this stuff?

Dynamically, everything is fine to very fine. No real bulls-eyes, I would focus on the west end of the deep moisture east of the surface low, wherever that ends up at mid-afternoon. Most of the models stamp the surface low in either eastern New Mexico to the southern plains of west Texas. It is kind of a baggy isobar pattern. I think the low will be around Childress or extreme southwestern Oklahoma today.

Lowest lcls are begin in western Oklahoma during the mid-afternoon. My area straddles the Red River, as I expect everyone else's does. 0-1km helicities are better up north, the HRRR storm motion vectors are out of the southwest, at around 240. I don't really know how that model computes storm motion so a right-mover birthed south of the river could stay south of the river. 

The vortmax appears to be in eastern Arizona, which looks a bit west to really have an effect during daylight. The models show the vorticity to be channeled. It might not matter with all the moisture that's waiting. It might really be good shortly after sunset. Too far for the Carnivorous Storm Team to go for night time tornadoes. Good luck to the more ambitious and geographically-favored.