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000
FXUS64 KAMA 171725
AFDAMA

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Amarillo TX
1225 PM CDT Sat Jul 17 2021

.AVIATION...

For the 18Z TAFs:

VFR are conditions are expected through most of this cycle, but
there is a chance for thunderstorms to impact the terminals and
this could bring ceilings/visibilities down. As it stands now, we
do not have MVFR conditions in the TAFs, but if a thunderstorm
directly impacts a site we could see some categorical changes.
However, confidence was not high enough to include MVFR at this
time due to the scattered nature of summertime thunderstorms.

Guerrero

&&

.PREV DISCUSSION... /Issued 636 AM CDT Sat Jul 17 2021/

AVIATION...
For the 12Z TAFs, expect another round of showers and
thunderstorms to affect the OK and TX Panhandles late this
afternoon and tonight. Have included PROB30 groups for TSRA at
each TAF site mainly around 00Z and after to account for the
expected thunderstorm development.

02

PREV DISCUSSION... /Issued 404 AM CDT Sat Jul 17 2021/

SHORT TERM...Today through Sunday Night.
Daily chance for showers and thunderstorms through the weekend.
Temperature will be near average for mid July.

H500 anti-cyclonic feature continues to dominate the synoptic
patter for the Panhandles. Diurnal heating that results in
mountain convection from NM/CO and moves SE towards the
Panhandles. In-conjunction with convection developing over the
high terrain, a series of weak perturbations will pivot around
the main anti-cyclonic feature in sub 25 kts H500 flow out of the
north. A second area of showers and thunderstorms may develop in
the north central and northeastern Panhandles. This will really
depend on where the perturbation triggers convection and how
storms interact near the stalled front.

Going into the day on Sunday, northerly H500 flow will be slightly
stronger as a broad trough extends southwest from the western
Great Lakes helps to steepen the main height fields over the
central Plains. Same diurnal driven pattern as today will be in
play for tomorrow. With the slightly stronger flow aloft, more of
the Panhandles, if not all of the Panhandles may see a chance of a
shower or thunderstorms. Timing would be late afternoon into the
evening hours on both days.

Main hazard with the more intense thunderstorms will be strong
wind gusts along with heavy rainfall. With a very rich moisture
environment with PWAT values still in the +2 to +3 SD range and
rather slow storm motion, locally heavy rainfall rates over a
short period of time with these stronger storms could result in
localized flooding. Will watch closely to see how outflow
boundaries and cold pools help with forward propagation of storms
throughout the weekend.

Meccariello

LONG TERM...Monday through Friday.
For Monday through Tuesday afternoon, the strong upper level
ridge of high pressure remains in place across the north central
states down to around the four corners region while a weak upper
level low pressure system gets caught underneath this ridge and
rotates south southwestward across eastern Oklahoma into the Red
River Valley of far northern Texas. Should this verify, the threat
for showers and thunderstorms will continue over most of the fcst
area Monday and Monday night, with slgt chc pops restricted to
the southern Texas Panhandle Tuesday.

For Tuesday night through Friday, the upper level low pressure
system will lose its influence on the area as it continues moving
southwest across north central Texas to west central Texas, then
eventually west southwest to far west Texas by Thursday. At the
same time, the upper level ridge of high pressure is fcst to track
east to a position around the south central high plains by Friday
afternoon. This translates to dry weather during this time period.
Medium range models are in agreement with the above scenario and
were accepted. NBM pops and temps were utilized for Monday through
Friday given the decent model agreement.

02

&&

.AMA Watches/Warnings/Advisories...
TX...None.
OK...None.

&&

$$