Severe Storm Risk - Breckenridge, TX

• Severe Storm Risk

  Sun 10:30 AM - Mon 06:00 AM

  There is a Slight Severe Storm Risk for your location. Continue reading for today's outlook from the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center. -------------------- National Severe Storm Outlook THERE IS A SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS PARTS OF THE SOUTHERN PLAINS SUMMARY Scattered severe thunderstorms are expected to develop across parts of west/northwest Texas into southwest Oklahoma this evening and continuing through daybreak on Monday, posing a risk for severe wind gusts and a few tornadoes. Synopsis Water-vapor imagery this morning shows a potent mid-level low/trough over northwest Mexico with a downstream ridge centered over the eastern Gulf of Mexico. A mid-level vorticity maximum near the middle part of the Gulf of California will pivot east into Chihuahua by mid evening while the larger-scale trough becomes negatively tilted and moves northeastward into the southern High Plains. In the low levels, cyclogenesis over northern Mexico will gradually evolve today before the surface low deepens tonight reaching the northwest TX/western OK vicinity at the end of the period. Seasonably moist air via southeasterly flow from the western Gulf will advect into west TX before a Pacific front sweeps eastward across the Chihuahuan Desert and portions of the southern High Plains tonight. An attendant warm frontal zone will advance northward from north TX into OK late. Southern Great Plains The 12 UTC Fort Worth, TX observed sounding showed an adequately moist/deep moist layer featuring a mean mixing ratio of 12.6 g/kg. The richer low-level moisture, featuring dewpoints in the mid-upper 60s as of late morning, is currently near the I-35 corridor from the Metroplex and areas south/southeast. Moisture advection will contribute to gradual destabilization through this evening across parts of west TX northeastward into southwest OK despite considerable cloud cover through the day. As an intense 100-kt 500-mb speed max moves from Chihuahua into west TX overnight, large-scale ascent will favor the development of scattered thunderstorms initially developing near the Permian Basin vicinity and becoming more widespread as very strong low-level warm advection attendant to an intensifying LLJ develops tonight. Model guidance indicates 250-1000 J/kg MLCAPE across the destabilizing warm sector. A forced band of storms will likely evolve tonight across west TX and rapidly move northeast in the area southeast of the surface low track. As the squall line matures, the propensity for severe gusts will probably increase despite relatively poor lapse given the intense flow expected to develop. It remains uncertain if cellular development will occur either ahead of the line or be loosely maintained in parts of the larger band of storms. Nonetheless, elongated and enlarged hodographs will favor a risk for scattered severe gusts and possibly a tornado risk, especially as the squall line encounters greater moisture from west-central TX northeastward into southwest OK late.