Expires:No;;235850 FXUS64 KLUB 231140 AFDLUB Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Lubbock TX 640 AM CDT Tue Apr 23 2024 ...New AVIATION... .SHORT TERM... (Today and tonight) Issued at 243 AM CDT Tue Apr 23 2024 Surface cold front, as of 2 am, is located across northern Kansas and will continue moving south through the morning hours. This front should enter our forecast area around noon and clear the entire area by midnight. Ahead of this front, compressional warming will help to boost temperatures into the upper 80s to lower 90s today. A weak dryline is also expected to develop and shift east to near the edge of the Caprock. Ahead of the dryline and cold front, dewpoints in the upper 50s and steep mid-level lapse rates will lead to MLCAPE values around 1500 J/Kg. As has been talked about the past several days though a cap will be in place around 725 mb with around 50 J/Kg of CIN. Convective allowing guidance continues to indicate that near the intersection of the dryline and cold front, lift will be sufficient for thunderstorm development and based on the CAPE/shear parameters supercells would be favored. Cloud bases will be fairly high so large hail and damaging wind gusts are the primary threat. If a right splitting supercell becomes established relatively slow storm motions may also lead to localized heavy rainfall. This activity should move east and out of our area shortly after sunset. Isentropic ascent will increase during the overnight hours which will allow a low cloud deck to blossom over the forecast area. These low clouds will keep temperatures mostly in the 50s Wednesday morning. /WI && .LONG TERM... (Wednesday through Monday) Issued at 243 AM CDT Tue Apr 23 2024 A relatively active stretch of weather remains in the cards for much of the extended forecast period as a train of upper level disturbances pass over the region. Wednesday starts out with a stationary front oriented W-E squarely across our region, with deep low level moisture in place especially off the Caprock within a potent low/midlevel warm advection regime. Modest isentropic lift is expected to result in areas of drizzle or light rain across the SE TX Panhandle early in the day, with high temperatures also likely to be cool in this region relative to the rest of the forecast area given the anticipated thick low cloud cover. The forecast for the rest of Wednesday into Wednesday night is more uncertain, with uncertainty largely driven by a conditional potential for thunderstorms off the Caprock as isentropic lift intensifies and the surface front attempts to wobble back northward. A stable surface layer results in a stout capping inversion through most of this period, but the aforementioned isentropic lift as well as the arrival of a weak ripple in the flow aloft could allow isolated or scattered storms to develop off the Caprock Wednesday afternoon into Wednesday night. While this potential is conditional, feel the signal is strong enough to introduce SChc PoPs along and east of the escarpment Wed-Wed night, with some severe threat certainly present if storms do manage to develop. The pattern transitions into more of a classic West Texas dryline setup beginning Thursday as southwest flow aloft intensifies ahead of a potent midlevel shortwave digging over the Four Corners region. Guidance remains in very good agreement sharpening a dryline somewhere right along the I-27 corridor on Thursday with dewpoints off the Caprock progged to surge well into the 60s. Despite a favorable dryline position and rich low level moisture east of the dryline within backing surface flow, very strong inhibition is progged to remain in place through most of the day off the Caprock as a stout EML shifts overhead a relatively cool and capped boundary layer. Most guidance keeps the cap in place through the entire day on Thursday with little or no thunderstorm development during the daytime hours, and this seems reasonable given a relatively late arrival of the upper trough axis. The most likely outcome currently appears to be a late initiation of scattered storms on Thursday night as the main batch of forcing arrives along with a modified Pacific surface front. This would place most of the Rolling Plains and SE TX Panhandle under threat of severe weather overnight Thursday night into early Friday morning, but exactly how far west this threat extends is still uncertain. After a dry and breezy day on Friday, guidance is advertising another dryline sharpening across the region on Saturday ahead of another potent disturbance aloft. However, the Saturday dryline will likely set up much further east given a limited window for moisture return, with only the eastern edges of the forecast area having a chance at storms Saturday before drier air sweeps into the region. Drier and more tranquil weather is then expected to return Sunday into early next week as upper ridging rebuilds over the region. && .AVIATION... (12Z TAFS) Issued at 636 AM CDT Tue Apr 23 2024 VFR conditions are expected to prevail through the majority of this TAF period. Winds about 800 ft AGL remain around 40 kts at KCDS this morning and with surface winds remaining light this will lead to LLWS through about 14z. A cold front will sweep south through the area late this morning and afternoon which will switch southwesterly winds around to the north and then to the east as we go through the period. A few strong thunderstorms may develop south of KCDS and east of KLBB/KPVW late this afternoon and evening but no direct impacts are expected at the three TAF sites. Towards the end of this TAF period MVFR to IFR ceilings are expected to develop across the Texas Panhandle and move south through tomorrow morning. && .LUB WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && $$ SHORT TERM...58 LONG TERM....30 AVIATION...58