Severe Weather - Apr 25 (Sat)

[venture]

Strongest cell right now is out in Texas. Core has increased in intensity on it up through the storm. I'll try to post these images a bit more often when we get into the meat of the stuff tonight.


http://www.anvilcrawlers.com/copperm...m&cat=0&pos=-2

Storm is now severe, our first one of the day in this part of the country. Hail is already over 2 inches with the storm.

[venture]

Two nearly severe storms now in Grant and Alfalfa Counties...

Grant County storm is moving into Kansas, but it showing hail over an inch right now. Won't do anymore coverage on that.

Alfalfa County storm is moving NE at about 35mph and is right between Helena and Goltry. Hail over 1.5" possible right now.

Hard to do a 3D image on this one, because it is close to the radar site at Vance AFB. This is the basic look though:



Looking NW into the storm.

Both are now severe warned.

[westsidesooner]

New cells are going up further down the dryline near Childress and nw of Altus. These should be the ones to watch for the Metro later. Looks like they are going up fast.

[venture]

If there is any doubt that Oklahoma is a chaser rich environment, this should erase those doubts. Every little green car and camera is a separate chaser right now.


AnvilCrawlers.com Photo Gallery: Click image to close this window

[Thunder]

This sucks I'll miss the activities today. Well, showertime then off to work.

Venture, when I get back in 4 hours, I'll read all your posts. :-)

[venture]

Beckham County storm, which is now servere, is the best looking of them all. Confirmed hail over an inch in this storm now. Woodward County just went severe as well.

Beckham County storm:

[Thunder]

The one that was NW of Altus looks like it is weakening. I think it might merge with the cell coming out of Texas.

Okay, need to put my socks and shoes on, grab a drink and drive out. Have fun, Venture!

[venture]

Right now they are going to stay pretty parallel to each other. The Beckham Co storm is the best right now in the state. Hail size has come down a bit, but the top of it is still well over 50,000ft. So far nothing is showing any organized low level rotation.

[venture]

Radar trends in NE Beckham Co on that storm are indicating low level rotation is now developing just west of Elk City city limits.

[venture]

General thoughts on on going activity.

Northern Oklahoma - Two areas of storms. One is the severe storm in Grant County. Hail is now around an inch in this storm, however it remains pretty elongated and not all that impressive on radar. KWTV has live video on it now and shows some scud and a decent wall cloud. It is attached to the front, so it has the potential. Next is in Woods/Major Cos with some good sized hail, but overall not much else.

Southwest Oklahoma - Strongest storm is north of Elk City now. There are about 3 billion chasers on this one. Live video from chasers out there so a relatively flat base, not major lowered areas. It is reorganizing right now, it had a cell NE of it that it developed into and seems to be going through a split right now. Structure is fluctuating, but at times it looks like it is trying. Low level rotation has really backed off.

TX/OK Border - Storm coming in from Hemphill Co TX into Roger Mills Co OK is still the strongest one with the best structure. Live video on the storm shows a steady lowered area, but not much in the way of rotation. At times rotation has picked up, but never sustained. This is riding the front, so that should help it start rotating again as it continues to move ENE.

[venture]

Another update...616PM. Current overall thoughts, storms are struggling establishing any low level rotation. Most starts are in areas with have LCLs, which are likely contributing to this. As they move east more, this could change. Best LCLs are general along Highway 81 and east and parts of Northern Oklahoma into Woods County.

North of I-40 Activity...Grant County storm hail to 2 inches but little organized low level rotation. This is an area of better LCL values which is why we are seeing a lot of scud on images from KWTV. Woods/Major Co storm is showing some monster hail on radar but nothing reported from the chasers. Structure is a bit better with this one and there is some broad low level rotation. Live video showing no organized wall cloud right now. There is a bunch of scattered hail storms in Woodward, Dewey and Major Counties. Nothing to worry much from them.

Roger Mills storm is showing a hook echo on radar now, it is completely covered by chasers right now. No wall cloud on live video from this storm (i'm monitoring about 3 different chasers right now)...but a lot seem to be out of position. Internet access is poor in this area through wireless companies. This does have decent low level rotation and will likely be our first to produce.

South of I-40...Custer Co storm which was by Elk City is recovering. Hail size has come up again as well as intensities. Nothing on video to get concerned about, but it seems to be developing a hook echo. Another hail storm is south of Elk City over to west of Cordell. Then another in Greer County. A couple more developing behind them.

[venture]

Roger Mills is now tornado warned.

[venture]

Spotters have a rotating wall cloud on the Major/Alfalfa County storm near Cleo Springs. Do have live streaming video of this up right now and it is an ugly thing.

So far on the Roger Mills storm, nothing on camera, lot of scud but no organized funnel as KFOR is reporting.

[venture]

Tornado Warning Grant and Kay counties.

[venture]

Very small funnel cloud, from what it appears, on video on the storm just SE of Clinton.

[venture]

Mesoscale discussion 0569
nws storm prediction center norman ok
0638 pm cdt sat apr 25 2009

areas affected...portions ern tx panhandle...wrn/nrn ok...s-central through nern ks.

Concerning...tornado watch 183...

Valid 252338z - 260145z

the severe weather threat for tornado watch 183 continues.

Tornado threat will ramp up considerably during in next 2-3 hours...especially from wrn ok toward s-central ks. Continue ww.
Additional counties may be tacked onto srn fringes of ww over portions swrn/central ok. Given potential for frontal zone described below to lift nwd and expand warm sector over more of nern panhandle...nwrn ok and srn ks...svr potential may increase over nrn portions ww after 00z as well. Very large/damaging hail threat will continue with supercells from extreme ern tx panhandle newd across ern ks. Hail to 2.75 inch diameter has been reported with storm in custer county ok at 2315z...and even larger hail is possible over this region as supercell organization increases.

Sfc mesoanalysis shows quasistationary frontal zone from nrn fringes kc metro area swwd near emp...butler county ks...major and srn ellis counties ok. Reflectivity and vis animations each indicate front already has begun retreating nwd across central/ern tx panhandle...and should continue drifting nwd across hemphill/gray counties. Dryline -- initially intersecting cold front invof nwrn wheeler county tx...extends swd across hall county. This boundary may drift/retreat slightly wwd through 02z as boundary layer heating/mixing wanes on both sides of dryline.
With weakened vertical mixing...moist advection should contribute to increasing sfc dew points e of dryline...helping to maintain sfc-based inflow parcels and favorable buoyancy through early evening...mlcapes remaining around 2000 j/kg over wrn ok. Meanwhile llj will strengthen to over 50 kt through 02z...greatly increasing hodograph size. Expect 0-1 km srh to increase to 300-500 j/kg range over wrn ok during next 2-3 hours. Increasing deep-layer shear is expected over this region through evening as well...given strengthening mid-upper level winds evident in jtn/tcc profilers.

..edwards.. 04/25/2009

[venture]

Storm on Bechkam/Wa****a County line has developed a hook echo with decent rotation. No live video in the area right now. Hail over 3 inches indicated with this storm.

Additionally storm in Clinton has slight rotation on the south side of it.

General overall trend seems to be an increase in rotation, so we could see a decent increase in tornadic potential (as expected by SPC in the discussion above) here before much longer.

If they would expand the watch, I would see Caddo, Canadian, Logan counties added on the south sides of it. We'll just have to watch and see what happens. No additional development seems to be happening farther SW.

[venture]

Current Radar trends have northern OK activity to be on the down trend and just focus on rain/hail with some gusty winds. SW OK we still have 4 severe cells that have been bouncing back and forth trying to show signs of rotation or better organization. LCLs in this have have continued to rise and CIN has increased as well. So what that means is new storm development will be limited to he area immediately around existing storms and the tornado potential will be kept in check. Now shear is rapidly increase in NW OK down to about I-40 so this could either offset the other issues working against these storms, or be too late to have any real impact.

Now as long as this activity doesn't grow in coverage, persist through most of the night, and work over the atmosphere a lot...tomorrow is going to be a very active day.

[venture]

Kiowa, Canadian and Caddo have been added to the watch.

Current thinking tornado threat will increase as shear increases with the threat ending around 1AM.

[Jon27]

Thanks for the updates venture!! We've been out working in the yard all day, and guess we missed all the action. So what's this about a tornado outbreak in the metro tomorrow? Maybe I misunderstood.

[venture]

I'll touch on the tornado threat for tomorrow in the other thread after all the evening models are done. The big thing, it is hard to get into detail since tonight's activity can have a major impact on tomorrow.

[Jon27]

I don't know if any of you are on Twitter. I'm following someone by the screen name "okcweathermen". They just put a tweet up that said:

"Mike Morgan just compared the current storm to May 3rd 1999."

Why would he do that this early? Venture, is there any validity to this?

[venture]

Tornado Warning for Kay county.

Chris - if Morgan is doing that, he should be slapped.

[Karried]

That guy okcweathermen is trying to be funny. Ignore him.

He is just making fun of weatherman and Mike Morgan. He has targeted Mike and thinks it's humorous - it's not and I deleted him.

He's just a grown up bully, insulting, calling names and treating people like crap just because he can do it anonymously.

[venture]

Sounds like someone who has little skill in their job or has a grudge. Too bad, since it seems he has an audience that follows him. Ah well.

Anywho. Models seem to have a good handle on how things are evolving tonight. No redevelopment has occurred father south and models don't call for any. All precip is expects to move NE through the night and be up into KS by 1AMish.