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Area Forecast Discussion
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Issued by NWS
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284 FXUS64 KLUB 130724 AFDLUB Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Lubbock TX 224 AM CDT Tue Aug 13 2024 ...New SHORT TERM, LONG TERM... .SHORT TERM... (Today and tonight) Issued at 224 AM CDT Tue Aug 13 2024 Midlevel water vapor satellite imagery reveals the upper ridge stretched from West Texas to Louisiana, centered over eastern Texas. Through the day today the ridge will meander ever so slightly east and be centered over the Arklatex region. With the movement of the ridge today, temperatures may be a few degrees cooler than yesterday. However, warm southwest downsloping winds will give way to continued above normal temperatures. Triple digit heat remains likely across the far southern Texas Panhandle and Rolling Plains, but temperatures will remain below heat advisory criteria. In the wake of the upper ridge will be a shortwave entering the Desert Southwest. This will bring weak southwesterly flow aloft across New Mexico, while West Texas remains under south southeasterly flow aloft along the western periphery of the ridge. Afternoon and evening thunderstorms will quickly develop across New Mexico today and move north northeast. The forecast area is expected to remain under dry air and subsidence with little to no chances for storms. Similar to this evening, weak activity may develop along an outflow boundary late tonight across the far southwest Texas Panhandle and western South Plains. Given the very dry boundary layer and high cloud bases, anything that does develop will struggle to precipitate to the surface. Thus the main threat would be gusty winds. NBM PoPs of below 10 percent were maintained for this evening given the possibility of precipitation being very low and contingent on an outflow from the storms across New Mexico. Childress broke yet another record yesterday for the warmest low temperature thanks to increased cloud cover overnight helping to insolate surface temperatures. The official low yesterday (August 12th) at Childress Airport was 84 degrees, which annihilated the previous record of 79 degrees (set back in 1936). Thanks to another mild morning today (August 13th), Childress once again has another shot at tying or breaking the record for warmest low temperature. The current forecast low is 77 degrees with the previous record being 78 degrees (set back in 1937). Another mild night tonight will give way to continued lows in the upper 60s to 70s. && .LONG TERM... (Wednesday through Monday) Issued at 224 AM CDT Tue Aug 13 2024 Isolated-to-widely-scattered thunderstorms remain in the forecast for portions of the Caprock and Rolling Plains on Wednesday into Thursday. At the beginning of the period, a low-amplitude, progressive wave pattern will envelope the central and northern half of the Lower 48, with two well-defined centers of the subtropical ridge positioned near Baja California and into northern Mexico; and the other rotating over the northern Gulf of Mexico, the Deep South, and eastern Texas. A high-level shortwave trough will also emerge over the central Rocky Mountains and eject into the north-central Great Plains. Mid-level flow will be significantly dampened compared to the geometry of the 250 mb jet streak, with the troughing becoming more-basal overall with southward extent into West Texas. However, the ejection of the shortwave trough and orthogonal component to the mean flow aloft will result in lee cyclogenesis across the western Great Plains, with a surface trough branching southwestward into the TX PH. The isallobaric response will not be particularly strong, but breezy, south-southwesterly winds will develop as the lee cyclone gradually deepens to around 1002 mb in western Kansas by the afternoon hours. The CWA will also be positioned within the inflection point of a barotropic-baroclinic state of the synoptic-scale regime, maintaining very warm mid-levels as subsidence remains intact from near-neutral geopotential height tendencies associated with the basal troughing overhead. This will effectively shunt boundary-layer mixing heights to around 650 mb with Inverted-V profiles beneath the LCL. Initial development of isolated thunderstorms is expected by mid-afternoon across portions of the Caprock Escarpment, mainly to the west of I-27; however, cold pool mergers and the effects of a storm motion governed by propagation may result in slow-moving, multi-cellular lines or clusters before the boundary-layer decouples and updrafts become detrained following the loss of daytime heating. PoPs were once again raised from the NBM into the chance category for areas across the far southwestern TX PH where better low-level convergence may exist compared to areas farther south into the CWA, but large-scale surface and low-level convergence should be limited via weak meso-alpha-scale responses across the southern High Plains from the dampened amplitude of the troughing within the progressive wave train and the nearby subtropical ridging. Heading into Thursday, a longitudinal extension of the center of the subtropical ridge over Baja California is forecast to branch past the lee of the southern Rocky Mountains as a well-defined shortwave trough digs into the Cascade Mountains. A cold front associated with the downstream shortwave trough should also move southward across the Great Plains but become quasi-stationary to the north of the CWA. The net result of this should maintain lee cyclogenesis as the surface low rotates into northwestern Oklahoma on Thursday morning, with breezy, southerly winds remaining intact which will keep very warm low temperatures intact, further adding to heat stress. Low temperatures for Thursday morning were raised (00Z CONSAll) across the Rolling Plains, with lows in the lower 80s forecast. Slight chance PoPs were manually added compared to the dry NBM for portions of the Caprock and all of the Rolling Plains on Thursday, as the presence of a pre-frontal surface trough extending southward from the quasi-stationary front should facilitate enough localized convergence for isolated thunderstorms. The spatiotemporal extent of storms should be limited, owing to increasing mid-level subsidence advecting in from the west and as the 250 mb jet remains over the central Great Plains; and is why PoPs are confined mainly to the east and southeast of the HWY-385 corridor. High temperatures will soar above 100 degrees for most locations across the CWA as vertical mixing heights ascend approximately 50 mb higher than the previous day. The potential for storms will also wane quickly after dark. A dry forecast has been maintained with the potential for oppressive heat heading into the weekend as global NWP guidance remains in agreement with an Omega Block developing across North America. High temperatures in excess of 105 degrees (i.e., achieving Heat Advisory criteria) area forecast for most of the Rolling Plains this weekend and into early next week. It is possible that an increase occurs in the temperatures occur in subsequent forecast cycles as both the deterministic and ensemble spectra of the global NWP guidance suites indicate geopotential heights nearing 600 dam by early next week. Sincavage && .AVIATION... (06Z TAFS) Issued at 1217 AM CDT Tue Aug 13 2024 VFR conditions are expected at all three TAF sites through the period. Expect breezy south winds of 10 to 15 mph, along with hot temperatures tomorrow. Check density altitude. && .LUB WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && $$ SHORT TERM...11 LONG TERM....09 AVIATION...11