GOES-R Nearcast shows the low level moisture and instability axis from the Low Rolling Plains off the Caprock northwest into the southern Texas Panhandle at 21z. The Nearcast of CAPE is around 1500 J/K in the LUB forecast area but higher in northeast New Mexico.

Waiting for storms to develop. But once storms develop, Nearcast of low level Precipitable waters shows the higher low level moisture axis will remain over the South Plains and Rolling Plains through the evening. With the directional shear from low level easterly to modestly strong mid and upper level westerly flow, potential for convection to grow upscale into MCS later tonight.

Tim/Ty

The OUN WRF is running a little behind with it already showing CI at 1945z.

Here is the LBB radar at the same time:

We believe that the ongoing convection over the central Texas may be hindering CI. We also believe that the location of initiation will be correct, just ~2-3 hours later.

Ty/Tim

Storms firing northeast of ABQ are strengthening.  Cloud top cooling around -29C/15min.  Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Mora and San Miguel Counties in Northeastern New Mexico until 230 PM MDT. 

3DVAR data shows moderately strong updraft with storm moving through Brownwood with the storm moving

along convergence axis seen with 1 km Total Wind streamlines. MESH/VIL have only indicated marginal severe hail.

Two storms decided to merge over southern Concho County, and the MESH rapidly increased from 1 inch at 0034 to over 3.5 inches at 0044! Although the max updraft did not increase in the 3dvar until the volume scan after the MESH went to 3.5 inches, the updraft helicity did start to increase at 0039…corresponding to the same time the 1km wind vectors converged.Went with a new warning with 80 mph winds and 3 inch hail. MRD/TT

Merger:

0034z:

0040z

0045z:

Shifted to BMX CWA from HUN ~1915CDT.  WoF Max updraft and strong cold pool…issued svr 60mph winds and 3/4″ hail for jefferson and se Tuscaloosa counties and nw Shelby/Bibb counties at 1948CDT/0048Z valid thru 0115z.  Garmon/Skov

We issued a warning at 0013 UTC based on reports of damaging wind near Starkville in eastcentral MS. Base velocity from KGWX was unavailable for a few scans around this time and may have affected the 3DVAR. When the KGWX data coming back in at 0007 UTC (didnt see until later), some 50-55kt velocities were seen at 1000ft AGL. The fast forward motion of the leading edge of the storms in reflectivity was moving at 50 mph but the high reflectivity did not extend very high aloft. The MRMS MESH did not show any values > 0.75″ as well as legacy cell-based 88D hail algorithms. The 3DVAR 1km winds were SW at 10-15 m/s in this area, but sfc obs and storms reports had north winds around 62 mph.  Lost the screen capture of the 3DVAR and MESH.

Update 0042UTC: Here is the MRMS 4 panel for the warning issued 30 minutes earlier. Note the low reflectivity aloft and small MESH.

Update (0053 UTC): Got the 3DVAR data back into AWIPS2. Now we can show the before and after effect of the lack of KGWX data on the 3DVAR wind. Without KGWX, the 3DVAR winds were 10 m/s from the SW at 0015 UTC.

With the addition of KGWX, the winds 25-32 m/s from the north at 0020 UTC.

While monitoring the severe Thunderstorms moving through the Jackson, MS CWA the echoes suddenly disappeared.

It appears that this occurred because the floating domain (Alabama) did not include the Slidell 88D, which would have been used to fill in that empty space. Snelson/Ty

Update (0053 UTC): Got the 3DVAR data back into AWIPS2. Now we can show the before and after effect of the lack of KGWX data on the 3DVAR wind. Without KGWX, the 3DVAR winds were 10 m/s from the SW at 0015 UTC.

With the addition of KGWX, the winds 25-32 m/s from the north at 0020 UTC.

Decided to issue another warning on the Concho county storm. However, not to confident. In fact, the updraft and MESH have both decreased — it certainly does not look at good as the 1st warning. Main reason for the warning was due to the possible downburst as seen in the 0.5 velocity image (but not in the 3DVAR wind speed). MRD/TT

Here is the image from 2340:

Here is the image from 2345 — warning issued at 2346.