Courtesy of thewatchers.com
However, this April we will likely being seeing more of a threat across areas that are more likely to see their tornado occurrences peak in the month of May. This will be especially true this week as parts of the Southern and Central Great Plains gear up for severe weather. Some areas will even see the threat of severe weather multiple days in a row which is something that does not typically happen in this region until May also. So where can this severe weather be expected this week?

Let’s start with today’s storms which have just begun to fire up across parts of the Southern Plains. The latest SPC Day 1 Outlook is below with a small area I have circled in black depicting where there is a 5% chance of a tornado within 25 miles of a point today based on SPC predictions.

Let’s take a look at where the NAM model predicts conditions may be best for tornadoes today and tonight now. General things I will note first before getting to a couple graphics are that these storms will be aided by some strong winds aloft, particularly a nice area of 50 knots or greater wind speeds at the jet stream level. However, only a weak 850 mb low-level jet will be present. Warm air advection will be present in some areas to aid in rising air, but overall it will not be that impressive. What will be more impressive however, are CAPE values which are predicted to reach above 2000 in some spots this evening, as shown below. This means there will be lots of unstable air to aid in thunderstorm development in these regions.
These areas with higher CAPE values will also benefit from low lifted condensation levels this evening and throughout the overnight hours. This means that rain, hail, and tornadoes have an easier time making it to the ground because the cloud bases are lower to the ground. However, the best shear values will not occur until later tonight around the midnight hour and into the early morning hours according to the NAM model. Below is the predicted 0-3 km helicity values for tonight around midnight. The best threat area will likely be the reds across southeast Oklahoma and into Texas.
Coupling this with the surface to 500 mb shear values, we see the highest shear values take place in about this same area. I would expect this area to have the highest risk of tornadoes tonight.
Outside of the tornado threat, large hail and some damaging winds will be the main concerns this evening and tonight. Already this afternoon 4.25″ hail was reported in Woodward, OK which caused at least some window damage according to the storm report. So where does the threat appear to be for the rest of the week?
Well, it will be the same story as today basically, with a dry line off to the west and some kind of cold/stationary front to the north, a warm sector will be created that will be favorable for storms. The only difference from day to day will be the locations of these features as they will tend to move back and forth a bit. The Day 2 Probabilistic Outlook from the SPC is below, I have circled in black the area I think has the highest threat of tornadoes during this period.
While storms should benefit from some warm air advection tomorrow, shear will be low for most of the time, limiting the tornado threat. My circled area has some better bulk shear values as well as helicity during the first part of the overnight and therefore this is where I would look for tornadoes to potentially form, though as I said the overall threat is fairly low. Outside of tornadoes there will likely be some more large hail and damaging winds though it appears tomorrow and the next day may be the least active day for severe weather this week.
Moving onto the Day 3 Probabilistic Outlook from the SPC now, I have once again added my black circle for the area with the greatest risk of tornado threat in my opinion which is only a little better than the chances on Day 2.
Warm air advection will not play a large part in helping storms form this day. Rather storms will be mainly initiated by the frontal movements. Shear values appear slightly better than the day before and therefore I think the tornado threat will be slightly more than the previous day but still nowhere near an outbreak type scenario.
Now this is when things could get a little more interesting. The SPC has highlighted areas for Day 4, Day 5, and Day 6 which they consider to have a 30% or greater probability of severe weather within 25 miles of a point on that day, shown below.
The threat over these days could be much greater for tornadoes as shear values tend to look much better, granted these events are quite a ways away yet. As of right now I would say the best times for tornadoes would be Thursday night, Friday afternoon and night, and again on Saturday afternoon and night as shear values seem to get better as this week progresses. The weather models begin to diverge more on a solution after this but it appears severe storms could continue on Sunday slightly to the east of the Day 6 area and then again on Monday across a large area around the Mississippi River valley. In fact, it is possible severe weather could continue all the way until Thursday as this storm system pushes off the east coast after swinging through the southeast.
April is going to start bringing the severe weather this week and into next week. Please remain weather aware and check out the latest ZoomRadar radar image to see where the storms are at and where the storm chasers are chasing live!