ACUS02 KWNS 231700
SWODY2
SPC AC 231659
Day 2 Convective Outlook
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
1059 AM CST Fri Jan 23 2026
Valid 241200Z - 251200Z
...NO SEVERE THUNDERSTORM AREAS FORECAST...
...SUMMARY...
The risk for severe thunderstorms appears negligible across the U.S.
Saturday through Saturday night.
...Discussion...
Downstream of amplified split flow across the Pacific into western
North America, it still appears that several short wave troughs will
gradually consolidate into larger-scale mid-level troughing across
the Rockies and Great Plains into Mississippi Valley through this
period. This is likely to include at least a couple of merging
perturbations of Canadian Arctic origin digging across the
international border through the northern U.S. Rockies and Great
Plains, and another emerging from the northern mid-latitude Pacific
before digging inland across the Pacific Northwest coast through the
southern Great Basin. Yet another impulse, emerging from the
southern mid-latitude eastern Pacific, and currently in the form of
a mid-level low as it digs toward Baja, is forecast to undergo
considerable deformation while being forced eastward, then
northeastward, across the northern Mexican Plateau into the southern
Great Plains by late Saturday night.
This is being preceded by the southeastward development of an
expansive cold surface ridge across much of the nation to the east
of the Rockies, as far south as the Gulf coast vicinity. While
highest surface pressures centered across the Upper Midwest, Ohio
Valley and Great Lakes at the outset of the period are forecast to
continue to fall while shifting northeastward, it appears that the
residual Arctic air mass will impede significant inland surface
cyclogenesis.
Models do still indicate modest deepening of surface troughing in
one corridor across the lower Mississippi Valley toward the lower
Ohio Valley (as well as in another near/offshore of the Carolina
coast) by late Saturday through Saturday night. Elevated moisture
return above the cold air to the north and northwest of this feature
appears likely to be accompanied by weak destabilization. However,
appreciable boundary-layer destabilization along the surface trough
axis, inland across southeastern Louisiana through southeastern/east
central Mississippi and adjacent western Alabama by 12Z Sunday,
appears unlikely. This is expected to minimize the risk for severe
weather.
...Southern Great Plains/Lower Mississippi Valley...
Convection allowing output and other guidance suggest that the most
substantive potential for thunderstorm development will largely
focus just to the cool side of the surface frontal zone, near/inland
of mid/upper Texas Gulf coastal areas through Louisiana and central/southwestern Mississippi Saturday through Saturday night..
Layers of developing weak conditional and convective instability
further aloft, and to the west through north, might become
supportive of convective development capable of producing lightning,
anywhere from the Texas South Plains and Big Country into the Mid
South. The extent of this potential remains a bit unclear due to
spread evident in the model output. However, further adjustments to
the 10 percent thunder line may be needed in subsequent outlooks for
this period.
..Kerr.. 01/23/2026
$$
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