2h ·
Isolated t-storms are possible this afternoon and early evening as heat and high humidity combine allowing a few storms to pop. These pop-up storms will be just a small preview of what is to come. By far, the MAIN action arrives after the sun goes down as a LARGE cluster of strong to severe thunderstorms approaches from the NW and sweeps through most of north Texas tonight.
Storms will be capabale of all severe weather modes. The main tornado threat, however, will be from widely scattered supercell thunderstorms across the TX Panhandle/West Oklahoma late this afternoon, stretching into far NW sections of north Texas early this evening. And then all the storms will merge together to form one giant cluster of heavy rain, pockets of hail, and widespread high winds.
The leading edge of the main storm cluster will sweep into the NW Metroplex after 10 PM and the leading edge should clear the SE Metroplex by 1 AM. However, that will not be the end of the rain. There will be additional not-as-strong storms that will fire behind the main cluster keeping rain chances going a few more hours after the severe line passes.
The tricky part of this forecast is the precise DIRECTION this large storm cluster will move when it gets to north Texas and will determine if this will be a 75% coverage or a 100% coverage. The upper-level steering winds will be blowing to the east/northeast which will try to keep much - but not all - of the action north of I-20.
HOWEVER, the broad area of rain-cooled air (called the "cold pool") produced by this large storm complex will blast to the southeast and will try to pull the cluster much farther to the south in spite of the upper-level winds blowing in an opposing direction. This will subject most of north Texas - including ALL of the Metroplex - to this storm event, though once again, not all Metroplex cities will be soaked with heavy rainfall totals.
This forecast assumes the cold pool will ultimately dominate and overwhelm the upper-level winds and drive the storms to the southeast.
