On a bit of a smaller scale, the west coast of the US has been under the classic Rex blocking type of pattern: upper low over California with a strong high pressure over southern British Columbia, Canada. This causes strong offshore flow over much of the west coast, giving places like Seattle record warmth due to downsloping off the cascades.
As the upper low over the southeast exits, so does the record-smashing cold! Numerous all-time record lows and record minimum high temperatures were broken from Texas to Georgia over the past week due to this one system.
Our attention now turns to this new storm system swirling over California. The Omega block pattern is not a terribly progressive one, although the feature is slowly beginning to make eastward movement. It's been almost stationary for a few days, but impulses, or shortwaves, in the atmosphere have been spawned from this parent system, bringing some rain and storms to drought-plagued parts of Texas.
As the upper low moves over the southern Rockies, more concentrated energy will be focused across the southern Plains, increasing storm coverage and intensity. The Storm Prediction Center has introduced the standard Slight Risk of severe weather in its Day 1-3 outlooks (today, Wednesday and Thursday):
For now, the tornado threat appears on the low side and at least for later this afternoon and evening, limited moisture will be an inhibiting factor.
With that being said, some of the high resolution models do develop storms over western Oklahoma and west Texas. Later today, the NSSL WRF is suggesting the storms will really get going in earnest later today and early this evening:
For Wednesday afternoon, the models are showing the majority of storm activity north of the Red River (for now):
As the upper low continues to track east, it becomes more nebulous and less amplified, but should still be enough to provide enough upper support for strong-to-severe storms.
The current 5-day rain outlook from the HPC keeps the heaviest totals across southeast and coastal parts of Texas:
Jake Reed
Skywarn 6 Meteorologist
Twitter: @JakeReedTV
Facebook: Meteorologist Jake Reed
