VORTEX STATUS MESSAGE AND FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL SEVERE STORMS LABORATORY
1100 AM CDT MAY 20 1995


OPERATIONAL STATUS AT 1100 CDT:  No VORTEX ops
TARGET AREA:  None  
SUPPLEMENTAL SOUNDING/ARCHIVE II REQUESTS:  None  

DAILY FORECAST DISCUSSION:

With a front and pre-frontal trough having pushed through
much of KS this morning, some moisture has pooled along and
north of the pre-frontal trough.  With easterly, upslope
flow to the north of the boundary and mid-40 surface dew-
points and higher ... into the low to mid-50s ... and mod-
erate westerlies aloft, it looks like a classic high plains
severe weather day.  CAPEs will approach 2000 J kg-1 and the
wind profiles look quite good ... see the Granada profiler
data this morning.  Thus, it seems possible to have one or
more isolated supercells in eastern CO today.  Moisture is
marginal and with the Gulf not open this morning it may be
tough to get much more into the threat area by evening, so
the weather will have to work with what moisture it has or
can get from evapotranspiration.  It appears that the SELS
outlook agrees with this thinking, although it remains to be
seen how far south the activity will get.

Tomorrow is likely to see an increase of moisture, so the 
severe threat looks slightly better.  The progs seem to be 
suggesting a weakening of the flow aloft, indicating that
the supercell/tornado threat may not necessarily be improv-
ing. The progs begin to move the moist axis eastward so the
prime area could end up in southwestern KS-northwestern OK.

Looking ahead, all the progs seem to increase the chances by
Monday for targetable storms and keep them high through mid-
week.  This seems reasonable, once we overcome the effects
of driving a front into the Gulf of Mexico in the second
half of May!

	Doswell/Janish

PROBABILITIES OF OCCURRENCE IN VORTEX OPS AREA THRU 04Z (DAY1) 
AND 12-04Z (DAY2)...
                           DAY1    DAY2
LIGHTNING                   60      70
SEVERE                      40      50
TORNADOES                   20      20
TARGETABLE STORM            30      30

FCST STORM MOTION - TARGETABLE STORMS ONLY
PRE-SUPERCELL             270/18  260/22
SUPERCELL                 300/10  300/12

FCST INITIATION TIMES (LT) - TARGETABLE STORMS ONLY 
LIGHTNING                 1630    1530 
1ST SEVERE RPT            1700    1545
1ST TORNADO               1730    1615