A potentially significant tornado outbreak is possible today across the central Great Plains into western areas of the Corn Belt.
Forecast courtesy of: KRZY
A deep cold core 500mbar closed low will shift towards central Nebraska this afternoon, with an attendant surface low stacked vertically underneath. Associated with the 500mbar low is a potent 65-75kt jet streak over almost the entirety of the central plains. The jet streak’s exit region appears that it will leave the risk area early, which usually would be a problem, however due to the curved nature of the winds aloft, there will still be ambient ascent in the form of curvature forcing. At the surface, the deep low has been able to pull in moisture very rapidly, even despite the powerful complex having formed this morning.
There will be a large pool of instability to the north of the complex which likely goes entirely uninterrupted through the day tomorrow. This will be the airmass that feeds almost directly into the low itself under the coldest air aloft in Eastern Nebraska Further to the south in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, at least adequate atmospheric recovery should occur behind the morning MCS.
Environmentally, the northern target is about as potent as it gets for a potentially large outbreak of tornadoes, with adequate low level shear (100-200 M^2S^2 SRH), extreme instability (2000-2500MLCAPE, 175-300 0-3KM CAPE) and lots of backing in the 3-6km layer, allowing for precipitation to be vented far away from any mesocyclones.
Further away from the low it appears even still that the environment will be relatively potent, with 250-350M^2S^2 of SRH, and around 1250-1750J/KG of MLCAPE, dewpoints will be a little bit more of a question here due to the MCS, however even still, the atmosphere should be destabilized enough for robust supercell development.
