Strong storms over north central Texas

The NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere model indicated probabilities into the 70-80% range with storms developing along the dryline in the vicinity of Abilene and Wichita Falls, Texas.  Figure 1 shows an example of the NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere output overlaid on KFRD 0.5 degree reflectivity at 0008 UTC 7 May 2014.

Figure 1.  NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere output and KFDR 0.5 degree reflectivity valid at 0008 UTC 7 May 2014.

No severe reports nor warnings have been associated with these storms, so these count toward the false alarms for today.  The following question was posed to the NWS forecaster assessing the ProbSevere data over this region:  "Are you troubled by the relatively high ProbSevere values with these storms?", and he replied:

"Definitely not!  I would expect high probabilities based on my analysis of all radar tilts.  There was over 60dBZ reflectivity to near 20,000 feet and 55 dBZ to near 30,000 feet.  I wouldn't be surprised if these storms did produce severe hail, but they were in a very sparsely populated portion of Texas.  Perhaps the high freezing levels, which I estimate to be near 13,000 feet and surface temperatures near 100F may also have contributed to partial melting of hail falling from these storms.  We noticed hail spikes in the radar reflectivity imagery."

We are planning on investigating the value of including freezing level information within the NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere model, among other NWP fields in the future.  Freezing level information may have been useful in this case.

-Sieglaff