Update: Early April Severe Weather Outbreak

Severe weather is currently underway across portions of eastern Colorado, western Kansas, and western Nebraska.  The Storm Prediction Center's latest Day 1 Convective Outlook to the right shows how the convection will spread to the east overnight, affecting areas of northern Kansas and southern Nebraska.  The severe weather threat tonight will include all hazards, with some large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes.

The threat will ramp up more tomorrow as a slightly positively tilted trough continues its push eastward.  The warm sector in front of the associated dry line and cold front will be the main focus for severe weather during this period, which is reflected in the Day 2 Convective Outlook from the SPC to the right.  Once again, all severe weather threats will be possible with large hail, damaging winds, and perhaps a greater tornado threat.



By Wednesday, the trough will remain positively tilted but will continue moving eastward, refocusing the severe weather threat a little further to the east.  The Day 3 Convective Outlook from the SPC is seen to the right.  All severe weather threats will again be possible though the main threat on this day will likely be damaging winds as a large line of thunderstorms should develop.



The animation below shows the 00Z NAM model run depicting composite reflectivity from tomorrow afternoon through Wednesday morning.  I circled areas of severe thunderstorm risk in orange and circled areas with an enhanced risk of tornadoes in red.  Below this is the same thing but for the period running from Wednesday morning to Thursday morning.

A limiting factor to the overall tornado threat during these periods will be a relatively weak low-level jet in most areas.  Additionally, helicity values should remain relatively low in most areas as well.  If these values had been higher the tornado threat could have been much more substantial.  Nevertheless, a strong line of storms will likely produce widespread wind damage reports starting tomorrow evening and continuing into Thursday morning.  Below are my overall threats for tomorrow and Wednesday with the orange area showing where severe thunderstorms could occur and the red area depicting the best threat for tornadoes during each day.

This may end up being the largest severe weather outbreak so far this season, though that is not saying too much given the fairly inactive season so far.  People within these threat regions should pay close attention to their local weather sources and make sure you have a plan in place in case of severe weather, especially tornadoes.