Severe Weather Outlook for 10/13/12

Severe Weather Outlook for October 13th....

We are going to begin by taking a look at the water vapor..

You can see that over the TX region at the present time there is a black color and this black color represents dry air ..you also see brown as well representing dry air to the west into New Mexico...
When you put this in motion you can actually see some of that dry air from the west moving towards TX...

Now lets look at the latest surface map..

You can see where the low pressure is developing to the west of the Panhandle of TX and you can also see where the warm front is located which is well north of the TX region... The outflow boundary is set up over that same region (panhandle region) and hence why you have the severe reports generally in that area..

Not many reports on the day a total of 20 (though there day goes to 7 AM) we end our day at midnight here...As now technically we are on Saturday morning.. We do see there was two tornado reports... 
Now lets look at the guidance the first image is 18 hrs out which means it covers from 8 AM to 2PM and the second image is 24 hrs out which means it covers from 2 PM - 8 PM..

You can see that the low is coming out of the colorado rocky regions and this low splits a piece of energy goes to the Lakes while another piece is over the same region and this 2nd low generally takes the same track. Breaking it down by 6 hrs it looks like this:

You can see that most of the day this blended solution keeps TX dry until between 18 Z and 00z or 2 PM to 8pm. We think this dryness will be due to the dry air we see located on the water vapor up above...
Temperature wise we are only looking at temperatures in the 70s to lower 80s..

Dewpoints are in the 60s....

You can see the instability  (CAPE) is relatively meager with 500 to about 2500 with the higher amounts more in isolated small pocket regions...
Shear is one ingredient that is not lacking...

We have 30-60 knots of shear across the region highlighted for severe...

Lift index goes from about 0 to negative 6 with the greatest lift being Oklahoma North and this is important because this is an indication of where there is greater spin in the atmosphere...

EHI is 1 in above from about N Central Tx but then you see the yellow colors in OK and then more isolated locations N / NE of there which is where the indication of tornado's are possible.. based on just the EHI..
We also see that is where the highest Helicity is located as well from OK and points north...

So with the Helicity aligned with the greatest EHI region...that is why we have the red zone which means greatest risk of severe weather which would include the potential for isolated tornado's as well as winds and Large hail...

Outside of this region is the yellow zone and this is where we feel the lowest risk will be because of the significantly weaker parameters..other then the shear so this is where we feel that the threats will be of winds and possible hail.
On the southern end we still are thinking moisture will be a problem at first...because of the dry air but then some moisture should occur towards the afternoon...
The other threat involved in the areas from OK north is also heavy rain potential... we think that this should coincide with the greatest severe threat...