Day 4-8 Convective Outlook  
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
0237 AM CST Mon Feb 23 2026

Valid 261200Z - 031200Z

...DISCUSSION...
The upper-air pattern across the US will remain characterized as
broad, fast, northwest flow for most of the forecast period.
Embedded within this flow, a series of shortwave troughs will move
across the US. The first, and potentially most impactful of these
troughs will move across the eastern US on Thursday and Friday (Days
4 and 5). 

A surface low will develop across portions of the Tennessee Valley
early in the day Thursday in response to increasing large-scale
ascent associated with the aforementioned shortwave trough. This low
will quickly move east then northeast, pushing a cold front through
much of the Southeast US. A couple days of moisture return  will
result in surface dewpoints in the 50Fs to perhaps low 60Fs ahead of
this cold front. Despite poor lapse rates and meager buoyancy
profiles, strong convergence along the front should yield a narrow
band of forced ascent/convection. A strong low-level jet and curved
low-level hodographs indicated in forecast soundings may support a
few isolated damaging wind gusts or perhaps a brief tornado or two
with this convection, even absent widespread lightning. Although
confidence is increasing that a band of strongly forced convection
will occur along the cold front, confidence remains too low in where
damaging wind gusts/brief tornado may occur to introduce
unconditional 15% severe probabilities.

In the wake of this cold front, the severe potential looks to be
rather limited as surface moisture is suppressed south into the
northern Gulf until next weekend at the earliest, when southerly
return flow should develop across Texas and Oklahoma.