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Scattered Severe Thunderstorms Across the Northern Plains; Fire Weather Concerns in the Western U.S.

Scattered severe thunderstorms are forecast across central and eastern North Dakota, as well as far northwest Minnesota Saturday (Slight Risk level 2 of 5). Damaging wind gusts are the primary threat. Elevated to critical fire weather conditions will persist through the weekend across the Western U.S. Isolated dry thunderstorms could lead to new fire starts over portions of the northern Rockies. Read More >

Overview

An elongated upper level trough promoted a dryline setup for severe storms in the eastern Texas Panhandle. Parameters that day begun as conditional, as a thick layer of low level clouds were present that morning in the far east, and an outflow boundary had moved in from convection on the previous day. However, as skies started to clear out and the cap was eroded, the true potential of the system was realized and thunderstorms initiated off the dryline between 3 -4 pm. A favorable environment for supercells to produce large hail and even some giant hail had materialized, and despite modest low level wind shear values at the onset of the event, tornadoes quickly spun up and posed threats for locations near Clarendon, in Spearman, and other parts surrounding. Strong downdraft and outflow winds were also a concern, but no reports had come in for straight line wind damage. As storms moved east throughout the afternoon and evening, they weakened as they entered into a less favorable environment thanks to some of the low clouds from the morning not clearing up in time to sustain thunderstorms. 
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