Day 3 Convective Outlook
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
0231 PM CDT Fri Apr 10 2026
Valid 121200Z - 131200Z
...THERE IS A SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS SOUTHERN
KANSAS...WESTERN AND CENTRAL OKLAHOMA...AND NORTHWEST TEXAS INTO
CENTRAL TEXAS....
...SUMMARY...
Isolated severe thunderstorms are possible from the southern and
central Plains into the Upper Midwest on Sunday.
...Synopsis...
On Sunday, a ridge will become established across the eastern CONUS
with a trough advancing slowly inland across the West. A weak
mid-level shortwave trough will move from the central Plains to the
Great Lakes during the period. Persistent mid-level flow across the
Rockies will continue lee troughing and northward moisture transport
across the Plains.
...Central/Southern Plains...
A large area of precipitation is expected to be ongoing Sunday
morning from central Oklahoma to central Texas. This is expected to
move slowly northeast through the day. Subsidence in the wake of the
morning shortwave trough associated with this activity should allow
for recovery ahead of the dryline from West Texas to central Kansas.
In addition, southwesterly to west-southwesterly flow aloft and a
well-established EML should assist in erosion of cloud cover across
this region by late morning. Therefore, by late Sunday afternoon,
moderate to strong instability is forecast to develop ahead of the
dryline.
Forcing across the warm sector remains weak and casts considerable
conditionality to the forecast. Guidance shows mostly neutral
heights across the dryline during the day. In addition, the dryline
remains relatively diffuse which would not support the strong
convergent circulations necessary for convective initiation.
However, it is worth noting that much of the guidance has a dryline
orientation oriented somewhat northeast to southwest. Therefore, any
convection which develops within this zone may have a long enough
residence time to mature before moving off of the dryline. Given the
expectation for minimal inhibition during the afternoon, this may
favor storm development along particular mesoscale corridors along
the dryline Sunday afternoon/early evening in an otherwise weakly
forced environment. Given moderate to potentially strong instability
and moderate shear, large hail (including the potential for 2+ inch
hail) will likely be the primary hazard with any supercells that
develop.
...Central/South Texas...
12Z guidance is fairly consistent with the depiction of a mid-level
shortwave trough moving across northern Mexico during the day
Sunday. Given the strong instability across northern Mexico and
south Texas, it would seem likely for storms to develop along the
higher terrain of northern Mexico during the afternoon/evening ahead
of this trough. Strong instability downstream could maintain these
storms through the evening with some potential for upscale growth
(such as shown by the RRFS). However, significant inhibition on
forecast soundings and minimal QPF signal from the global guidance,
combined with minimal convection over the higher terrain in Mexico
from the other CAM guidance out through 00Z casts some doubt on this
scenario.
An additional scenario is possible across central Texas. At the
southern end of the morning convection, continued storm development
is possible within a supercell environment. This scenario is less
certain given rising heights aloft and will likely be dictated by
the character of the cold pool from Saturday night/Sunday morning
storms. However, this is a scenario depicted by some guidance (most
notably the ECMWF) which could have a locally higher severe weather
threat across this region on Sunday afternoon.
someone was laughing about the 2011 comparisons just now
