Severe Thunderstorm Potential - Mar. 9

A quick morning update on the potential for severe weather today as the surface low currently located over south-central Kansas will move northeastward and create the potential for severe weather this afternoon for areas of eastern Kansas and western Missouri.  The low pressure system has become vertically stacked overnight, creating a true cold-core thunderstorm setup over the Central Plains.

Moisture is still somewhat meager with dew points nearing 50 over much of the area this morning, while a few more degrees of moisture can be expected before this afternoon to bring dew points into the lower 50s the key for thunderstorm development today will likely be the instability.  Some instability will be present simply due to the steep lapse rates created by the vertically stacked low, however, we will likely need to see some sunshine over the area to give us better low-level instability.  Current satellite trends do not bode well for sunshine with a cluster of thunderstorms located just east of the surface low in Kansas, and its' associated cloud shield covering much of eastern Kansas under thick cumulus.  We'll have to watch trends to see if we can get a dry/clear slot to rotate around the low pressure system late this morning or early this afternoon to give us a chance, but currently conditions don't bode well for our thunderstorm risk.

If we are able to see a few hours of sunshine to enhance the low level instability then we could see an enhanced risk for low topped supercells.  This would create the potential for some brief cold air funnels and perhaps a quick cold core tornado or two given strong low level wind shear and vorticity present with the low pressure system.  This currently seems to be at rather low probability, thus not too excited on the potential.  Will try to update if anything changes this morning before I get into the office...