Severe Weather Threat - Mar. 27

 An upper level low will become closed for a short period of time today, and in conjunction with a surface low will create the potential for thunderstorms and a few severe thunderstorms this afternoon/evening over the Central Plains.  The area of interest for severe weather will be over extreme southeast Kansas, extreme southern Missouri, extreme eastern Oklahoma, and Arkansas.  Surface moisture will be meager over the area of interest, with dew points only reaching near 50F by this evening. However, the low level temperature profile will be sufficient given the cooling mid-levels associated with the closed upper low.  This will result in low level instability sufficient for numerous thunderstorms across the area, with a low level wind field especially favorable for low level wind shear.  The best mid-level and upper-level wind shear will be offset from this best low-level wind shear, thus limiting the overall tornado potential.  However, there will be enough to uphold a marginal tornado threat across mainly extreme southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.  Large hail and damaging winds will of course also be a threat with any strong/severe thunderstorms that occur this afternoon as well...

The threat is marginal enough and in an unfavorable chase terrain to not warrant a chase day for me.  There will be several chasers out taking the chance however, and will likely have their live video available on ChaserTV this afternoon/evening.  For the Kansas City area, expect showers/thunderstorms to continue off/on through much of the afternoon, becoming widespread by evening.  The severe weather threat is very low, but thunderstorms are expected.

Beyond this storm system we can look forward to one of the first good upper level ridges across the Plains for much of the week ahead.  This will bring temperatures warming dramatically to the highest we've seen yet this year, likely into the 70s and 80s across the Central Plains.  This will hopefully increase the moisture content across the Plains as well, setting us up for the potential for one of the first significant severe weather events of the year...  More details on the warming weather and the round of severe weather that may be in the forecast tomorrow!