Memorial Day Forecast

Scattered showers and thunderstorms rolled through early Monday morning as heavy rain poured for some.  As of 10:00am, most of that rain has moved on with breaks in the cloud cover that will last through early afternoon.  Those breaks will allow temperatures to climb into the middle 80's.  Not only that, but with the rain and rising dew points today it will definitely feel a lot more summer-like for this Memorial Day afternoon.

Additional thunderstorms are likely later today and early this evening but the threat for severe storms will remain low, despite the building instability.  The reason:  there just isn't enough support in the upper levels of the atmosphere. 

Strong low pressure moving through Texas will keep the severe threat limited to the far southern Plains.  For us, a few weaker waves moving within the jet stream will provide isolated, pop-
up thunderstorms with the heating of the day.  In order to get severe weather to develop, you need a few key ingredients:  those being moisture, instability and lift.  While the moisture and instability will be present, as felt with the higher humidity values today, there isn't much lift - or rising air- going on in the atmosphere.  Without that, getting organized thunderstorms to form will be a little difficult.  Also, the overall winds within the jet stream are fairly weak limiting the amount of wind shear.

However, any thunderstorms that develop today will contain heavy rain in isolated locations as well as a couple stronger wind gusts.  Unfortunately, trying to pin down exactly where those isolated storms develop will be a bit more challenging.  As with this morning, not everyone will experience rain and the day won't be a complete washout.  Just know that as the heating of the daytime increases, between 2pm and 6pm, that's when the greatest storm threat will be.  As the evening wears on the storm threat will decrease, but the humidity will remain.