The weather pattern is, at the same time, somewhat stagnant and somewhat unsettled. A low pressure center in the Desert Southwest will take its sweet time popping loose and moving across the plains late this week. Ahead of it, decent moisture and some southwesterly flow aloft will combine to make showers or storms possible just about any time this week. Today has the least chance, and severe weather is confined to southeast Kansas.

Some models develop a storms cluster in Colorado late today and bring it across western and central Kansas before it washes out around sunrise Tuesday. If that happens as modeled, we’d be setup for severe storms south of US 50 and east of US 283, so from Dodge City or so south and east.

 

Generally when you see an outlook area in this shape, the expectation is the northern showers and storms will be along the warm front, so lift to the north and east and produce mostly heavy rain and hail. The dry line extends southwest and one would normally expect to see the best chance for tornadic storms along the dry line and near the junction of the fronts, where the low sits. That’s what you hear referred to as the Triple Point.

Wednesday should see some more shower and storm activity across the state, but I believe if there is any severe weather it will be brief pulses above the criteria, so hail just larger than an inch and wind gusting to perhaps 65mph.

On Thursday, the low starts to push out onto the plains, and ahead of it severe storms are possible. In western Kansas, all modes of severe weather are possible as there will be enough shear and upper support to keep updrafts going longer, resulting in larger hail and some tornadoes.

There remains a lot to be resolved on Thursday’s chances, including whether they will extend into Friday further east. Because the systems are moving so slowly right now, models are interpreting things much differently at times leading to big inconsistencies.

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