The critical conditions marking the onset of thermally induced vortices over an inclined iso-thermal plate are investigated using the linear stability theory. The stability equations are simplified by estimating the orders of magnitude of respective terms. The analysis is carried out under the assumption that for the system of large Prandtl numbers temperature disturbances are initiated within the conventional thermal boundary layer of the basic flow. The stability criteria obtained from the present results agree well with those of the existing quasi-parallel flow models. In addition it is found that the critical conditions generate the heat transfer correlation in good agreement with experiments. Therefore, it is suggested that the validity of existing theoretical models will be reexamined.