Day 3 Convective Outlook  
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
0212 AM CDT Wed Jul 08 2026

Valid 101200Z - 111200Z

...THERE IS A MARGINAL RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IN A CORRIDOR
EAST OF THE SOUTHERN ROCKIES THROUGH THE CENTRAL GREAT
PLAINS...OZARK PLATEAU...AND TENNESSEE VALLEY...

...SUMMARY...
Clusters of thunderstorms accompanied by a risk for damaging wind
gusts may evolve in a corridor across parts of the central Great
Plains into Tennessee Valley Friday afternoon and evening.

...Discussion...
To the southeast of a significant digging trough offshore of the
British Columbia and Pacific Northwest coast, models continue to
indicate that an increasingly prominent mid/upper-level high may
begin to form across portions of the Colorado Valley/Plateau through
southern Rockies vicinity.  Ridging is also forecast to continue
building along an axis northward through the northern U.S. Great
Plains and eastern Canadian Prairies Friday through Friday night,
while positively tilted larger-scale downstream troughing gradually
shifts into and across the northern Atlantic Seaboard.

The evolution of weak remnant troughing across the lower Missouri
Valley and central Great Plains remains much more unclear.  However,
guidance generally suggests that a belt of convectively augmented
mid-level flow will linger across southern portions of the central
Great Plains through Tennessee Valley, and perhaps through southern
Mid Atlantic coastal areas.

The potential for at least moderate destabilization appears most
certain along the southern periphery of this regime, aided by a
corridor of steeper lower through mid-tropospheric lapse rates
associated with elevated mixed-layer air (probably based closer to
850 mb than 700 mb), above a seasonably moist boundary-layer. 
Focused in zones of strengthening differential heating across a
remnant outflow boundary, or boundaries, the environment might
become conducive to the evolution of at least small organizing
clusters with potential to produce strong to severe surface gusts
Friday afternoon and evening.

..Kerr.. 07/08/2026

Day 4-8 Convective Outlook  
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
0348 AM CDT Wed Jul 08 2026

Valid 111200Z - 161200Z

...DISCUSSION...
There remains a general consensus in medium-range guidance that a
prominent mid-level high will build further while developing across
and northeast of the Colorado Plateau through the middle Missouri
Valley this coming weekend into early next week, within elongating
larger scale ridging.  A bit more uncertainty lingers concerning the
evolution of larger-scale troughing and embedded short wavelength
developments to the northeast and east of this feature into the
early to middle portion of next week, but it still appears that this
ridging may eventually become suppressed across the Great Lakes
region.

As a plume of very warm elevated mixed-layer air advects along the
southern fringe of strengthening flow around the northern through
northeastern periphery of the mid/upper ridge, it may contribute to
an environment conducive to the initiation and evolution of
organizing thunderstorm clusters with potential to produce swaths of
damaging surface gusts.  Based on latest guidance, this may tend to
initially remain north of the international border from the Great
Plains through the upper Great Lakes.  However, due to spread within
and among the various model output, it remains unclear whether this
activity will pose a greater potential impact to portions of New
England or the lower Great Lakes into northern Mid Atlantic by next
Tuesday or Wednesday.