A tale of two heatbursts

In the Hazardous Weather Testbed we have a ton of data coming in showing all kinds of unique phenomena and yesterdays models had a few strong heatbursts. This was expected given the very strong capping inversion and the likelihood that storms would initiate along the dryline and move into the capped region. As it turned out the storms in Texas/Oklahoma moved North and not Northeasterly thus putting the residents of western OK into jeopardy for Heatbursts. And indeed there quite a few damage reports from the high winds generated by the heatbursts.

Convection Initiation (lack thereof)

Yesterday everyone was talking about the cap. As if that is the only player in a complex tapestry of processes that drives whether we see any convective clouds. The SPC issued a slight risk for a situation last evening in Nebraska along a boundary where CI and thus tornadoes were possible.  A TOR watch was issued with the caveat that the best thermodynamics were out in the warm sector just slightly removed from the zone of better vertical shear located in a narrow corridor behind the front.