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FXUS63 KDDC 050953 AFDDDC

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Dodge City KS 453 AM CDT Sun May 5 2024

KEY MESSAGES

- Severe thunderstorms are expected from mid-day Monday into the afternoon along and east of a line from WaKeeney to Dodge City.

- The western limit of severe weather Monday depends on how early in the day storms develop.

- Critical Fire Weather conditions are possible over much of the southwest Monday Afternoon.

- A mainly dry weather pattern will develop Monday evening and persist for several days.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH MONDAY/
Issued at 316 AM CDT Sun May 5 2024

A swath of warm air advection was moving north from OK this morning, generating showers and thunderstorms that will be approaching the KS state line through sunrise. Southeast counties have the best chances (20-40%) for measurable rain in any given location, although QPF (amounts) would only be a few hundredths of an inch. HRRR 4 hr lightning produces about a 40-50 percent chance for thunderstorms over parts of Comanche, and Barber counties this morning. A few lingering showers might be around through the mid morning hours.

Cloudy conditions this morning will give way to more sun in the afternoon, as winds become more southerly as the gradient increases due to the retreating Plains surface anticyclone.
Gusts in excess of 30 mph will be common west of roughly highway 83 to the Colorado line. Gusts in the western half of the area will intensify after midnight as the gradient strengthens and momentum transfer plays a role with the increasing wind speeds aloft associated with an incoming upper jet into the Central Plains.

Monday will be much more windy and warm, as a dryline advances east ahead of a cold front sweeping east to overtake the dryline in the late morning. Models have trended for days for severe weather favorable surface dewpoints to spread north into central Kansas. With steepening lapse rates through a deep layer, and the available shear for organized supercell development near the dryline, the afternoon hours will bring a severe weather risk anywhere east of Scott City to Garden and Liberal line, with the greater risk of high end severe threats like supercell tornadoes farther east into the higher dew point air east of roughly highway 283. A moderate risk outlook (level 4 of 5) has been highlighted by Storm Prediction Center for for Barber county, and portions of Comanche and Pratt counties, implying a 15% chance for a Tornado within 25 miles of a point in those areas. The entire area, west to Dighton , Dodge City and Meade Minneola is in a favorable area for very significant hail in the 2 to 4 inch range (baseballs or larger possible). The negatively tilted trough should provide storm motions off the boundary as opposed to parallel with the boundary, generally increasing confidence for high impact heterogeneous threats.
Uncertainty however revolves around how long the individual cells will be in the DDC forecast area as typically the hail risk will be the initial risk for some time before storms are able to become tornadic, as well as time (early or later in the afternoon) of initiation along the advancing dryline/cold front lifting mechanism.

LONG TERM /MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY/
Issued at 409 AM CDT Sun May 5 2024

The GFS and ECMWF ensemble 24 hour multiple run trend for precipitation are completely dry for the rest of the week, Monday through Friday. Friday night the first hints at measurable precipitation starts to show up in the ensemble means and maximizes in the the Tuesday through Thursday timeframe. The deterministic global spectral models show a broad cyclonically curved jet mid week, becoming more of a strongly positively tiled trough from the western Great Lakes into the central Rockies. By the end of the week, the entire synoptic pattern of these 3 models Canadian/ GFS/EC depicts a split flow pattern with a sunbelt subtropical jet and cold advection roughly Thursday into Saturday - potential for frontogenetic forced showers and thunderstorms in the central Plains and return flow warm advection precip.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/
Issued at 452 AM CDT Sun May 5 2024

Ceilings have developed lower than anticipated this morning at LBL where 800 ft ceilings were reported by the ASOS in light rain. This will likely be the case for about another 4 hours before the insolation begins to warm the boundary layer. Farther north, the ceilings should remain MVFR or better before widespread scattering out of the stratus takes place by late morning. Winds turn southeast this morning and increase to around 15-20 knots with higher gusts in the afternoon.

FIRE WEATHER
Issued at 316 AM CDT Sun May 5 2024

A dryline will sweep across the west late Monday morning followed by a cold front in the late morning and early afternoon, reinforcing the dry air and downsloping winds. A combination for low relative humidity and frequent wind gusts in excess of 20 mph may crate critical fire weather conditions for a large portion of the area west of highway 23. A Fire Weather Watch has been posted for the 9 southwesternmost counties for Monday afternoon and early evening.

DDC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
Fire Weather Watch from Monday afternoon through Monday evening for KSZ061>063-074>076-084>086.

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