Severe Weather Outlook

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Outlook for Monday, April 27

Outlook Images

any severe predictability too low

Note on Medium Range Outlooks

You are looking at an outlook that is part of the medium range forecast (the outlook for days 4-8). The most important thing to note is that lack of a risk does not mean zero risk. Generally speaking, confidence has to be pretty high for the Storm Prediction Center to have an outlook area this far into the future.

When no specific risk areas are shown, you might see one of these phrases:

Predictability Too Low: This means that severe storms might be possible, but forecasters aren't confident enough about where or when they might occur. Think of it as the models showing different possibilities, like pieces of a puzzle that haven't come together yet.
Potential Too Low: This means forecasters are fairly confident that widespread severe weather is NOT expected on that day. While isolated storms might still occur, the chance of reaching severe criteria across any given area is very low.

If you bookmark this page, it will continue to update with each new outlook that is issued.

Days Covered in this Outlook

Day 4	Thursday, April 23	15%
Day 5	Friday, April 24	15%
Day 6	Saturday, April 25	predictability too low
Day 7	Sunday, April 26	predictability too low
Day 8	Monday, April 27	predictability too low

Detailed Outlook

ZCZC SPCSWOD48 ALL ACUS48 KWNS 200858 SPC AC 200858

Day 4-8 Convective Outlook NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 0358 AM CDT Mon Apr 20 2026

Valid 231200Z - 281200Z

DISCUSSION

In the days preceding this forecast period, a long-wave trough will develop across the western US. This feature will persist across the western and central US through the forecast period supporting a multi-day severe weather threat across portions of the central US.

On Thursday/Day-4, a lobe of vorticity will rotate around the closed midlevel low across the northern Rockies. This will reinforce a surface cyclone as it moves north into Canada. As this low moves north, a combined dryline/cold front will move east into an increasingly moist environment across the central Plains. The airmass ahead of the front should destabilize during the day Thursday, with MUCAPE values over 1000 J/kg possible into portions of Minnesota.

Thunderstorms should develop across portions of northeast Kansas into Iowa during the late afternoon as height falls overspread the surface front. These storms should quickly build southward along the front into portions of Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Kinematic fields initially should support supercells, but midlevel flow will increasingly become parallel to the front suggesting that storms will grow upscale into one or more linear segments.

The surface front, augmented by convective outflows, will continue to push south and east into the Southern Plains and the greater ArkLaTex region overnight Thursday into Friday/Day-5 before stalling out. Forecast soundings along and ahead of the frontal boundary indicate an unstable, uncapped environment with vertical shear between 30-40 knots should support additional severe thunderstorms Friday afternoon into the evening/overnight across portions of eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas.

By Saturday/Day-6, the larger-scale flow across the southern Plains will begin to respond to a low-latitude trough moving into southern California by once again becoming increasingly southwesterly. Embedded perturbations within this southwest flow ahead of the main trough will support an ongoing severe threat across the southern Plains. However, the location of various surface boundaries (dryline, outflow, frontal) will be predicated on the evolution of prior days of convection and the timing of the aforementioned perturbations in the midlevel flow. Thus, while pattern recognition suggests severe weather will be possible on Days 6,7, and 8, certainty as to the location of greatest severe potential on any given day remains too low to highlight with unconditional probabilities at this time.

..Marsh.. 04/20/2026

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National Risk Overview

Monday, April 20: TORNADO: low; HAIL: low; WIND: low
Tuesday, April 21: TORNADO: low; HAIL: low; WIND: low
Wednesday, April 22: ANY SEVERE: 5%
Thursday, April 23: ANY SEVERE: 15%
Friday, April 24: ANY SEVERE: 15%
Saturday, April 25: ANY SEVERE: predictability too low
Sunday, April 26: ANY SEVERE: predictability too low
Monday, April 27: ANY SEVERE: predictability too low

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