30 March 2008

Latest model runs show a fairly substantial upper-level trough moving into the Rocky Mountain West this weekend, with a strong disturbance moving into the plains on Sunday during the day. The 00 UTC NAM 500 mb flow is shown below. Fairly strong midlevel flow is shown over the high plains.


The surface pattern shows lee troughing associated with the midlevel trough as well. The NAM may be overestimating the 65 degree dewpoints that appear in the warm sector over OK and eastern TX, and I've often found this kind of setup to be unreliable as the models try to move the system onto the plains too rapidly. If this forecast rings true though, a fairly substantial severe weather event may be setting up for Sunday. What is more likely is that this pattern will set up more likely severe weather days into early and mid week following this weekend. At this point, a pattern worth noting, but I'm not confident in calling Sunday a model verification success yet due to my experience with this kind of "promising" forecast.

C.R. 10:55 pm C.D.T.