Severe Weather Risk - 14 June 2016

Ample moisture and instability will combine with at least a couple surface boundaries and small disturbances in the upper atmosphere to bring the risk for severe weather to the Central Plains. Very large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes all appear possible alongside flash flooding. A quick view of the surface setup shows a somewhat diffuse warm front across northeast Iowa running northwest to southeast, and an intensifying dryline over Nebraska and Kansas. One if not more, weak low pressure centers may develop at the surface in conjunction with upper level disturbances. Dew points in the warm sector will likely be near 70° even after afternoon mixing.

The base of an upper level trough will be working through the Northern Plains by the evening hours with at least a couple of weak pertubations further south over Kansas and areas north/east providong the dynamics for thunderstorm development. Note the max/min from the NAM indicative of thunderstorm development already occurring.

A combined look at instability and the wind fields shows a good amount of turning to support supercells as the primary storm mode. While lower level winds on the large scale do not appear particularly conducive for tornadoes any boundaries will have the means to create locally more favorable conditions, and thus at least a few tornadoes are possible. Also included below is a sounding for Topeka, KS which shows favorable thermodynamic conditions for large hail, and with a boundary nearby an increase in low level shear indicative of some tornado risk.

Here's a look at the current SPC Severe Weather Outlook for tomorrow.