Severe weather likely today in California and the south-central US!
An extremely active pattern is in store over the next several days across the entire southern U.S. from California to Florida, as a classic winter El Nino pattern is dominating. As part of this pattern, two tornadoes were reported yesterday in Huntington Beach and Santa Barbara County, California, the former rolling a large vehicle and causing roof damage. More of the same could be in store for Southern California today, as another vorticity maximum slams into the coast. The Storm Prediction Center has issued a mesoscale discussion for isolated severe weather and even brief tornadoes from Los Angeles northwestward along the coast to the San Francisco area, prompted by the band of convection currently moving on-shore. Given the incredibly cold temperatures over the top of a relatively moist low-level atmosphere, sufficient instability is in place for mini-supercells and marginally severe hail. At the very least, flooding is a major concern across much of California as heavy rains of inundated the same areas for the last few days. As the shortwave responsible for yesterday's tornadoes in So Cal has moved east across the Southern Rockies last night, heat and moisture has surged northward from the Gulf of Mexico ahead of this feature across East Texas and
Louisiana, with upper 50s dewpoints as far north as the OK/TX Border. The jet streak is arriving a little late for robust diurnal convection today, and the best low-level wind shear will reside over East Texas into Louisiana, especially overnight tonight when the LLJ really gets cranking. The RUC model is showing convective intiation along the cold front in North Central Texas between 4 and 5 pm CST, with an increasing threat for supercells overnight tonight well to the south and east of the Cold front over Southeast Texas into Louisiana as the jet streak plows east. The biggest tornado threat over the South-central U.S. will be overnight tonight in extreme southeast TX into LA, between 00 and 06 UTC, when 0-1 km EHI values will be approaching the 2-3 range as the LLJ intensifies and low-level moisture continues to increase. The RUC forecast 0-1km EHI for 00z is shown above, as well as an MD that was just issued as I write this update for North-central Texas. Stay tuned for updates!
http://www.tornadovideos.net/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1132-severe-weather-likely-today-in-california-and-the-south-central-us
