Looks like the forecast is somewhat confusing for Monday.
Storm Prediction Center is not as concerned with the storm potential today as they were yesterday.
So, what are some of the positives for storms tomorrow at this point?
Looks like we will have at least 60 dew points by Monday morning, and flow at 500mb is close to 30kts (not real strong but enough to organize some storms). NAM and GFS both indicate CAPE values around 1500 with the NAM runs coming up with some 2000 CAPE near I 35 and close to the DFW area. Lift seems to be moderate over the area as well and pockets of decent lift remain over the area through the evening (though the best lift looks to be east of the area in the afternoon).
What is not looking so good?
Surface boundaries are hard to find. The NAM seems to have a basic Dry Line feature sitting west of I 35... or maybe it is the cold front. Winds behind that are out of the west-north-west or northwest, which is fine, but ahead the flow is confused and or non-existent.
The GFS has west winds all across North Texas and begins to shunt the moisture off to the east into far East Texas by early afternoon and never really develops a dry line/front feature.
Both models never really develop thunderstorms west of I 35, but keep a complex of storms going in East Texas.
The 18z run of the NAM Surface Pressure and Wind shows some winds backed out of the east along the red river... but... really can't focus too much on these small scale features since they tend to change up quite a bit from run to run. It could simply be outflow from convection the model thinks is currently ongoing near the Louisiana boarder.
If the NAM solution verified (the most optimistic of the two models I have been looking at) then we could still be looking at a threat of some severe weather activity if the lift over the area combined with surface heating also combined with any surface boundaries proves to be sufficient for storms to initiate. Laps rates aloft a pretty steep... so updrafts shouldn't have a lot of trouble getting going once they can lift through any CIN over the area. Even then that is no guarantee that storms will even initiate or develop much mid-level rotation... though I still think that is a distinct possibility (with the NAM solution). At least we would not need to go far in any particular direction... unless we really wanted to head down I 45 into the core of the slight risk area.
The other issue is even if all goes well and we get a storm to develop a mid level mesocyclone within our range how long will it last? Once the sun goes down we will lose surface based instability fairly quickly. So, lightning photography opportunities might be very short lived.
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