779 FXUS64 KAMA 161752 AFDAMAArea Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Amarillo TX 1252 PM CDT Tue Sep 16 2025
...New KEY MESSAGES, SHORT TERM, LONG TERM, AVIATION...
.KEY MESSAGES... Issued at 1230 PM CDT Tue Sep 16 2025
- Low chances for thunderstorms this afternoon through early this evening across the Panhandles. Very low chance Storms are able to become strong to severe with gusty winds and hail.
- High chances for rain and thunderstorms are forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday with the highest chances for rain on Wednesday evening into the night.
- Slightly cooler temperatures in the 70s to low 80s are expected Thursday due to cloud cover and a cold frontal passage.
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.SHORT TERM... (This afternoon through Wednesday night) Issued at 1230 PM CDT Tue Sep 16 2025
Today and Wednesday will see a weather system first approach and then pass across the southern and mid plains including the panhandles.
Today while the weather system is approaching the panhandles will find itself under the confluent sector of an upper level jet streak. This feature will provide upper level subsidence that will help to counter the low to mid level environmental conditions. In the eastern panhandles the low to mid levels will be unstable with 1000-3000 J/kg present. Even with opposing upper levels the shear amount of energy available will cause thunderstorms to form during the afternoon hours. It is useful to compare this to Monday where similar conditions produced scattered thunderstorms with a few becoming strong to severe. Compared to Monday, today has less in the way of opposing upper level forces so it stands to reason we will have even more thunderstorm activity and severe threat. If strong to severe thunderstorms form then the main threats will be from hail and damaging downburst winds. The most likely time for the storms to kick off will be during the mid afternoon hours for the eastern panhandles. The western panhandles will be somewhat different in that the environmental energy is less around 1000-1500 J/Kg. This may not prove enough to allow for thunderstorms to form while the upper level are opposing development. The most likely scenario is that rain showers and thunderstorms form in NM and CO first and these then push into the western panhandles with the arrival of the weather system. While the energy may be less it can still allow for strong to severe thunderstorms development with wind and hail.
This linear feature of rain showers and thunderstorms should then slowly drift eastward into the central panhandles for the overnight hours into Wednesday morning. In doing so it should gradually weaken but not fully stop raining and thundering through the early to mid morning hours. It is more likely for this overnight activity to occur for the north central panhandles but it could extend towards the southern panhandles. The lack of any heating from the sun makes it very unlikely that any severe weather will occur for the overnight and early morning hours.
Wednesday the weather system fully moves across the panhandles making it the most active weather day of this event. The overnight linear feature of rain showers and thunderstorms has a moderate to high chance of strengthening during the late morning hours with the onset of daytime heating. This feature will continue its eastward push departing the panhandles for OK proper around or prior to noon. While that occurs further rain showers and thunderstorms will have a high chance of developing in the central panhandles. There is a moderate chance that this round of thunderstorms will be forming along a small embedded wave within the weather system which could cause it to also take on a liner shape. If this occurs then it to will push eastward departing to OK proper during the afternoon hours. If not then this round of activity will just blend in with the next round of rain showers and thunderstorms that form across the whole of the panhandles during the late afternoon to early evening hours. This round of rain showers and thunderstorms will have a high chance of lingering across the panhandles through the rest of the day through the overnight into Thursday morning with the passage of a weak cold front. The environment through Wednesday will not be able to generate a large amount of instability due to the repeated rounds of rain and thunderstorms. This will most likely see CAPE values of around 500 to 1000 J/Kg through much of Wednesday. What is of more interest is the high environmental shear of 30 kt to 60 kt that will be present with the weather system. This will allow even weaker storms to become better organized and robust even with the lesser instability. To further compound this there may be a small layer of surface drier air that will setup a small scale inverted V environment that is favorable for downburst winds. All this put together means that the environment will be supportive of at least a low chance for severe weather through damaging wind gusts. Hail at this juncture seems to be a lesser threat as the updraft strength may be limited by the lower environmental energy. To further compound the threats for Wednesday some tropical moisture from the Pacific will be moved across the panhandles by the weather system. This will create a very moist environment which will allow for the thunderstorms to produce heavy rainfall. This will generally follow the stronger the thunderstorm the heavier the rain it will be capable of producing. This will pose a localized flood across the panhandles either through wet strong thunderstorms and/or multiple rounds of rain and thunderstorms through Wednesday. The impacts from any flooding will be dependent heavily on where the flooding occurs as a town/city will be worse off than open rangeland. Since this will be long duration event flooding, if it occurs, may persist during the overnight hours making it even harder to detect.
For a silver lining the temperatures are highly likely to fall from todays 80s to 90s to just 80s on Wednesday due to all the rain and thunderstorms activity.
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.LONG TERM... (Thursday through next Monday) Issued at 1230 PM CDT Tue Sep 16 2025
The weather system will most likely slowly depart the southern plains through Thursday. This would cause the a slow downtrend of the rain showers and thunderstorms starting first in the NW and slowly progressing to the SE. This would make it most likely for the last of the rain and thunderstorms associated with the weather system depart or cease late on Thursday into the early morning hours of Friday. Thursday will most likely be the coolest day as the cooler air associated with the weather system moves across the southern plains. The departure of the weather system will not be the end of the stormy weather for the panhandles as lingering moisture remains. This will more likely than not allow for a very low to low chance for rain showers and thunderstorms to form with daytime heating for Friday and Saturday. Temperatures for both these days will be on the rises as higher pressure becomes more dominant across the region. For next week there remains a fair amount of uncertainty in regards to what the weather will do. The large scale pattern is broadly favoring a northwest flow setup for the southern plains. This pattern typically favors the passage of small scale weather system across the southern plains that bring periods of increased rain and thunderstorm chances. As of now it is more likely than not the early portions of next week wont have such a system pass through. So our chances of rain remain very low for Sunday through Tuesday. This could easily change as it is hard to detect such small scale weather feature this far out in time. Still a shift in the weather pattern makes it more likely than not that at least a small cooldown should occur for the early portions of next week.
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.AVIATION... (12Z TAFS) Issued at 1230 PM CDT Tue Sep 16 2025
A weather system is moving into the panhandles today bringing rain showers and thunderstorms to the panhandles that may impact all the terminals. Ambient conditions outside any rain shower and thunderstorm will generally be VFR. Ambient winds, outside of any outflow caused by thunderstorms, will be generally southerly and gusty during the daytime hours. During the passage of a rain shower or thunderstorm conditions can be expected to degrade to at least MVFR. For a stronger thunderstorms heavy rainfall will most likely drop conditions to IFR or even worse. Strong to severe thunderstorms cannot be ruled out over with large hail and damaging winds being the primary threat. The chances for the rain showers and thunderstorms occurring on station are low through the early afternoon and are not reflected within the TAFs. There is increasing chances for the evening and overnight hours in the northern panhandles and a lesser chance in the southern panhandles. Thus KDHT and KGUY will reflect this round of rain showers and thunderstorms but not KAMA. Then for Wednesday there is a high chance of rain showers and thunderstorms impacting all terminals intermittently but this is just outside the current TAF time and is not reflected. The extent and duration of the rain showers and thunderstorms make it inadvisable to fly across the panhandles for any not trained to handle such conditions.
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.AMA WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... TX...None. OK...None. &&
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SHORT TERM...98 LONG TERM....98 AVIATION...98
NWS AMA Office Area Forecast Discussion