While a snowstorm is currently striking the Central Plains, the Southern Plains and the Gulf will be dealing with the warm sector of this same low-pressure system. Strong to severe thunderstorms will ignite in the region ahead of a cold front which will sweep through Texas and Oklahoma today and tonight before continuing through Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama tomorrow. Current surface analysis shows this cold front back across western Texas and Oklahoma with dew points ahead of the front in the low to mid 60s across Texas and Louisiana. In addition to these dew points, a nice southerly breeze is occurring across most of central and eastern Texas as well as Louisiana with some southeast winds helping to add to the chances of some tornadoes across this area. However, with no well defined jet streaks and limited shear due to the alignment of the winds aloft, tornado risk should remain low.

The current Day 1 Convective Outlook issued by the SPC shows a fairly large area highlighted under slight risk for today. The main threat across this area is damaging winds, however large hail and tornadoes are also possible. The threat of large hail and tornadoes will be most likely across an area from Oklahoma City south into the Dallas area.



Storms will be aided by the presence of rising air due to some warm air advection occurring across the risk area today as shown in the image below for the GFS model depicting the conditions around lunchtime today. This will continue to be the case tonight with the main area of warm air advection moving slightly to the east, keeping in front of the cold front. The map also shows an ample amount of moisture across the area.


Currently, radar imagery is showing some storms firing up across Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma but most are remaining below severe criteria right now. The SPC has recently issued a tornado watch for parts of Texas and Oklahoma across the threat area talked about above for tornadoes and large hail today so storms will likely increase in number and intensity here over the next couple of hours.



While this storm system will not produce a major severe weather outbreak, it is important to remain alert for storms across this area today and tomorrow as a few storms should create for at least some damaging wind reports of which a couple have already been reported in Mississippi and Alabama. Spring is only just beginning across the southern U.S., despite what Punxsutawney Phil sees, so be sure to keep up to date on all the current watches and discussion by visiting the Storm Prediction Center’s site.