Summary: A significant severe weather outbreak is expected this afternoon into tonight from the central and southern Plains states eastward into the Ozarks. Tornadoes, some strong to violent in intensity, very large hail and damaging wind gusts are all expected. In particular a tornado outbreak looks likely across central and eastern Oklahoma, north Texas, southeastern Kansas, southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.
Details: Strong amounts of low-level wind shear currently exists across far southern Kansas, much of central Oklahoma and northwest Texas at the time of this writing. As temperatures rise late this morning into this afternoon and combine with 70-plus degree dew point temperatures, the atmosphere across much of the central and southern Plains will become extremely unstable.
Multiple supercell severe thunderstorms are expected to develop from eastern Kansas & western Missouri southwestward into central Oklahoma and north Texas by 2-3 pm CDT this afternoon & be a big problem for these areas through late this afternoon.
These supercell thunderstorms are expected to push eastward into eastern Oklahoma, western & central Missouri by early this evening & into northwestern Arkansas and eastern Missouri by 10-11 pm CDT this evening.
These storms will be moving through an extremely unstable and strongly sheered environment leading to multiple tornadoes to form & at least a few of the tornadoes will be strong to violent. The area I am most concerned about for strong to violent tornadoes is central and eastern Oklahoma, far north Texas, southeastern Kansas, southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.
In addition, very large hail and very damaging wind gusts will be likely with the severe weather as well.
For those of you in the orange and red colored areas of central and eastern Oklahoma, north Texas, northwestern Arkansas, western and central Missouri and eastern Kansas, please review your plans if you are impacted by a severe thunderstorm or a tornado. If a tornado warning is issued for your area, move to a place of safety, ideally in a basement or interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you have family, friends or colleagues in the severe weather threat area, feel free to pass this discussion on to them.