Severe Weather Threat in the Southern Plains

24 Nov 2020, 3:30 pm

Severe Thunderstorm threat continues the rest of Tuesday and into Wednesday in the Southern Plains with ongoing severe storms in the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle through this evening and eventually moving into the lower Mississippi Valley through tomorrow (Wednesday). In the upper levels of the atmosphere, a strong mid to upper level trough of low pressure continues to move in which will energize storms and set-up more severe storms. And down at the surface levels, a surface front will guide storms eastbound.

Severe Outlook – Tuesday

A large area will be under a marginal (level 1 out of 5) to slight (level 2 out of 5) risk for severe storms for the rest of Tuesday. Areas of west and central Oklahoma including Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Enid through Ponca City will have a higher risk to see damaging hail and isolated tornadoes. The marginal risk will include cities from Texas through Texarkana and as far north as central Missouri and east as Tennesee.

Severe Risks

The risk of severe storms will be for the threat of damaging winds up to 60-70 mph and isolated tornadoes. The tornado risk is on the low end, but it only takes one tornado to do damage to life and property. There could be some small hail within some of the storms, but it doesn’t look like the hail threat will be severe (2″ in diameter or larger).

Tuesday Forecast

Storms have initialized in the Texas – Oklahoma panhandle and will continue to be guided east into Central Oklahoma through this evening.

The cold front catches up to the discrete thunderstorms ahead of the boundary and will move east and drive the storms to the east tonight.

Through early Wednesday morning storms organize along the front and move into Central Arkansas. They may gain more strength as they head into the Mississippi Valley during the afternoon hours which will keep the severe threat going into Wednesday’s forecast.

Severe Outlook – Wednesday

By Wednesday, along the frontal boundary storms are likely from the Lower-Mid Mississippi Valley to the Ohio/Tennessee Valley with lots of moisture to work with and strong daytime heating ahead of the cold front. Because of this instability storms will move east throughout the day Wednesday.

Wednesday Forecast

For the latest on this ongoing severe weather threat make sure to tune into WeatherNation for live updates with VIPIR radar!

About the author

Meredith Garofalo

Meredith is a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist as designated by the American Meteorological Society. She was born and raised in Cleveland but has worked from coast to coast covering almost every type of weather. Meredith is a weather, space, and STEM journalist and has been live out in the field during destructive tropical storms on the Gulf Coast of Florida, raging wildfires in Southern Cali... Load Morefornia, and covered the wreckage from tornadoes in the Great Plains. In 2009, she reported on the damaging hail storm during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and in 2017, the historic California winter storms that produced record rain totals and devastating flash flooding. Prior to joining WeatherNation, Meredith worked at KEYT/KKFX in Santa Barbara, CA, KOTA-TV in Rapid City, SD, WWSB-TV in Sarasota, FL, and began her career as an intern at WGN-TV in Chicago. She was Santa Barbara's "Favorite Weathercaster of the Year" in 2016 and the Community Partner of the Year in 2017 for her volunteer work with Make-A-Wish Tri-Counties and awarded with the 2018 Valparaiso University Alumni Association First Decade Achievement Award. Meredith is the current chair of the American Meteorological Society's Station Scientist Committee, which focuses on raising greater awareness & outreach when it comes to science education for viewers. She's also an accomplished journalist, producing weather and science stories including rocket launches at Vandenberg Air Force Base and the new GOES-16 satellite and it's impacts on weather forecasting. Meredith was personally invited by NASA's Johnson Space Center to interview astronauts on the International Space Station and was the only meteorologist in the nation to do an exclusive report accompanying the GOES-West satellite from Colorado to Florida, reporting on and covering it's launch in 2018. Meredith's also worked on features that took her paragliding along the coast, white water rafting in Northern California, learning to surf in the Pacific Ocean, and how to be an aerial photographer while flying a single engine plane!