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Severe Weather Threat 4/27-4/28

The writing was on the wall when we had extreme drought conditions across the western CONUS.
I mean, we also had initiation on two questionable CI days in Oklahoma lead to tornadic supercells immediately prior to this. It's more nuanced than this.
 
If you would’ve asked me what day, out of this sequence, would produce the highest end tornado, I would’ve never said Thursday.
It had the lowest outlook out of all of the days as well.
What’s crazier is that when comparing it with all the others it actually looks the most favorable. Hindsight is 20/20 though.
 
The dry air aloft isn’t really a negative in this kind of setup, for now, it’s more about how it’s positioned and how quickly it’s moving in. That “dry punch” you’re seeing is tied to the mid-level jet and stronger forcing, so instead of just killing storms, it can actually enhance them by steepening lapse rates and increasing downdraft potential. That’s part of why these classic water vapor looks show up in higher end events.

Where it can become a problem is if it mixes down too aggressively into the low levels and undercuts storms, but right now the better moisture is still pretty well established in the warm sector with strong advection ongoing. So it’s more of a balancing act than a negative.

If anything, that feature combined with the speed max moving in is part of why initiation looks more imminent now compared to earlier concerns about things being too capped or delayed.
The dry air became a negative…
 
Seems like the supercell just north of west plains has begun to root to its environment. Surface winds aren’t backed and still directional, so it can easily become outflow dominant.
If it can intensify any further and get a good forward flank inflow region going then it can actually do something.
The winds are southerly near/ahead of those storms on observations.
 
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