Spring!

   It may finally be springtime on the plains of Oklahoma.  I chased a dying hailstorm near El Reno, OK, on 3/29, then showed up late to the Medicine Park-Walters hailer the following day with a couple friends from SoM.  Not a lot to show from either day.  Norman got run over by a beast of a severe thunderstorm about 4 a.m. on Easter morning, 3/31.  Our apartment complex got plenty of hail, quarters and smaller, while golf balls fell farther south.  Video:

   The GFS and ECMWF are in agreement that an upper trough will dig into the Southwest early next week.  As is often the case, the Euro slows things down a bit.  The latest GFS (00z 4/2) is the fifth consecutive run to indicate a significant severe weather event in W OK and/or NW TX on Monday, April 8.  It has the highest potential of any run yet, with 3000 J/kg CAPE, 50-60 kt shear, and the enormous sickle-shaped hodographs of a violent tornado outbreak.  I don't like to trust models at this range, but these last several runs are hard to ignore.  Based on the consistency of the GFS, even with some doubts about exact timing and location, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Day 7 area highlighted in the SPC's next Day 4-8 outlook.

   Even less certain is the setup for the following day, Tuesday, April 10.  A couple older GFS runs hinted at a major event in AR.  The most recent has 3000-3500 J/kg CAPE across most of E/C TX, with tantalizing wind profiles up around the DFW metro.  The Euro solution might lend itself even more to multiple days of severe weather in the Southern Plains if the system stalls.  I think it's safe to say Monday and Tuesday are worth watching...and I'll be wrapping up homework by this weekend.  I wasn't in the TX Panhandle for today's surprise tornado, in part because I was doing Matlab at 3:30 in the morning and couldn't consider making a 3+ hour one-way drive.  That isn't going to happen again!