General Weather Discussion - April 2014

[venture]

I thought I heard we could possibly be looking at an El Nino pattern this summer. Is that not the case any longer?

We are going into an El Nino pattern...how strong is yet to be determined.

[venture]

NWS Tulsa - 532 pm, there was a possible tornado in Quapaw in Ottawa county. N end of town sustained heavy damage. #okwx

[Easy180]

We are going into an El Nino pattern...how strong is yet to be determined.

If it is strong what does it mean for us Okies?

[LocoAko]

Already two deaths being reported out of Quapaw. No warning at all was out at the time. Very sad.

Official: 2 dead after tornado hits Quapaw, Oklahoma; extent of damage still unknown | wwltv.com New Orleans

Image by Shawn Reynolds.

[Achilleslastand]

If it is strong what does it mean for us Okies?

Hopefully it mean loads of moisture for Okla over the next couple of months......but im not holding my breath.

After this morns rainfall I was surprised to see the weatherman say the NW sides of OKC only got like 1/10 of an inch or so.

[venture]

Terrible news from Quapaw. Worst yet that Tulsa didn't even have a warning on it. Usually they go overkill on warnings.

As far as the El Nino discussion...I'm going to start a separate thread on it since we are almost at the end of this month and it is something that will impact us for more than one month.

[ou48A]

Tornado warning for NW of Little Rock AR...
Probably a very large tornado and long tracked

[venture]

Serious stuff...

720 PM CDT SUN APR 27 2014


...TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR MAUMELLE AND MORGAN...


...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR CENTRAL PULASKI...EAST
CENTRAL PERRY AND SOUTHWESTERN FAULKNER COUNTIES UNTIL 730 PM CDT...


AT 715 PM CDT...STORM SPOTTERS AND NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
METEOROLOGISTS WERE TRACKING A CONFIRMED TORNADO WITH REPORTS OF
DAMAGE. THIS POTENTIALLY DEADLY TORNADO WAS LOCATED 3 MILES SOUTH OF
LAKE MAUMELLE...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.


THIS IS A TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR MAUMELLE AND MORGAN. TAKE COVER NOW.

[venture]

[venture]

[venture]

Tornado Emergency expanded to additional burbs...

...TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR MAYFLOWER AND VILONIA...


THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LITTLE ROCK HAS ISSUED A


* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
SOUTHWESTERN WHITE COUNTY IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS...
NORTH CENTRAL PULASKI COUNTY IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS...
EXTREME NORTHWESTERN LONOKE COUNTY IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS...
SOUTHERN FAULKNER COUNTY IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS...


* UNTIL 800 PM CDT


* AT 724 PM CDT...STORM SPOTTERS AND NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER
RADAR WERE TRACKING A LARGE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO. THIS
TORNADO WAS LOCATED 2 MILES EAST OF ROLAND...OR 5 MILES NORTHWEST
OF MAUMELLE. DOPPLER RADAR SHOWED THIS SEVERE STORM MOVING
NORTHEAST AT 50 MPH.

[venture]

Center Hill next to take a direct hit. Sigh.

[Garin]

Thats a pretty good size storm, I hope the damage is minimal

[Anonymous.]

Yesterday was a good example of how tedious these things are.

I think there was only one tornado report in the 'High Risk' area. And overall, only 27 reports for such a large risk area was low. Many of those reports are from the one monster that went north of Little Rock. This goes to show you, a risk of tornados over a general area is usually meaningless to the majority of people in it. However, the communities it does affect, see that risk as validated.

EDIT: On second glance, looks like the HIGH risk was barely encompassing Little Rock. So it did capture the tornado with the multiple reports.



Back to OK weather... Our drought is intensifying. Here in Central OK we are on track for the 3rd driest year ever right now. We are over 6 inches below normal to date in 2014.

[venture]

This is a long post with a lot of graphics - so just beware.

Looking out in the long range...really nothing for this week right now. We are going to be stuck under this massive trough that is pushing the existing storm through through. We might get into a northwest flow for Saturday, but the jet stream is going to be transition well north pretty quickly. Zonal flow for much of the weekend until Tuesday when the next big trough digs into the west. Since we know how accurate longer ranger models are this is a toss up, but GFS has consistent shown us getting into a more unstable pattern after the first few days in May.

As we saw with this current/last system timing can be everything. On Saturday we had very high instability and many ingredients for severe weather. The problem was the upper level support wasn't timed right and the cap killed any surface based convection. So with anything discussed here just keep in mind, we can have perfect conditions for severe weather...but may get zip if one feature isn't available.

The Gulf is going to be shut down for us for most of the week. By this weekend we should start to see some moisture return, and as it looks now definitely by Monday with dews getting back into the 60s.



This is going to be ahead of the next big storm system, but per the 12Z GFS is going to have a large positively tilted trough just off to the our west by Wednesday. Typically for severe weather we are going to be looking for a negative tilt to a trough coming through so we will have to see if it adjusts beyond 7AM Thursday. Side note, COD's GFS products stop at 240 hrs out, TwisterData's will go beyond that time frame but their data feed is very slow and won't be available for another hour.

250MB Winds at 7AM Thursday...hints at a batch of energy moving overhead on Thursday.



If I jump back to the 06Z model to get a look further out it shows another trough digging into the west by the first part of the following week and possibly setting us up for some stormy weather getting into mid month.



Okay so rain chances. The next day that the GFS has actual precip over Oklahoma is May 7th. Not good if you are anti-drought. However, this is always subject to change. We've been talking about it awhile that we would see storm chances return starting somewhere from May 4th to 6th...and this has been pretty consistent, but it has been sliding around a bit. Our big problem is getting this current storm kicked out faster to reopen the Gulf. Regardless, instability does build in starting next week...

Monday the 5th is the first day with much instability in the state thanks to the moisture return.

On the left you can see the instability/CAPE values over the state. The hashed areas is CIN or convective inhibition rates. High CIN in high CAPE areas usually equals pretty sunny days that are nice and muggy with storms struggling to go up. We see here a very unstable atmosphere in the area on Monday, but also high CIN. There are a few areas of weakens we see around the Metro area back to the Northeast - especially in SE KS and WC MO. The surface setup would have us with 60-65 degree dewpoints and a dryline cutting through West Central OK over to Lawton and down I-44 into TX. This could give us a setup for maybe a storm or two to form on the dryline if there is a focused area of lift that would be capable of breaking the cap. On the sounding to the right we see a very ideal severe weather setup with near perfect values across the board except for a cap value near 5. If that verifies then nothing is going to happen. Precip. Water values aren't the best either at 0.92...typically we want to see them just above an inch, but we've had storms in drier air. So that's Monday.

Getting into Tuesday May 6th we have much of the same as Monday...very high, even higher, instability but also decent CIN values across the area. The forecast sounding continues with a strong cap with overall ideal severe weather conditions, though the directional shear isn't the best.

Now into Wednesday the 7th, we see some changes as that upper level storm gets closer. CIN is completely gone in the high instability area west of I-35. The forecast sounding for Central Oklahoma reflects a much weaker cap and overall a very good setup for severe weather. Looks like the dryline stays out in W OK for most of the day though, so I would imagine this could be one of those classic W OK days that chasers and spotters like - open fields and perfect views.

I can't get specific for Thursday yet since COD's product doesn't go that far and TwisterData still hasn't caught up. LOL A lot of this really doesn't matter though. The forecast is going to change, but I wanted to take some extra time of looking at these days in a more detailed way versus some of the short discussions I toss out there. Will any of this happen? It is hard to say. A lot of things can change in the next week and we've also see models completely botch forecasts the same day - let alone over a week out. We dodged a bullet with this last system having the upper level energy come in about 6-12 hours too late to make use of the (otherwise) prime conditions we had. We are going into May...the peak of the season for us, normally. We aren't going to get lucky every time and activity has been showing up for next week pretty consistently now. So we'll just have to see how it plays out. I won't be shocked if in a day or two the forecast for next week completely changes but then snaps back a day or two later. Just the nature of the beast.

[ou48A]

Thanks Venture.
I enjoy reading the type of post you just made and very much understand that its very subject to change at any moment.

[Plutonic Panda]

Venture, if every single thing you posted does not exactly happen as said right now, I will be very upset and it will entirely be your fault! lol j/k

Thanks for that though. Better than watching the ratings machine go on about a bunch of crap.

[bchris02]

Climatically speaking, what causes thunderstorms to become far less severe going into June? Is it because the jet stream trough moves north? Is there any long range predictions as to when that will happen in 2014?

In addition, is it possible to get a good soaker in May without severe weather or does pretty much all precipitation come in the form of supercells or squall lines?

[venture]

Climatically speaking, what causes thunderstorms to become far less severe going into June? Is it because the jet stream trough moves north? Is there any long range predictions as to when that will happen in 2014?

In addition, is it possible to get a good soaker in May without severe weather or does pretty much all precipitation come in the form of supercells or squall lines?

Jet stream moves north and heat up and dry out. Cap gets stronger and it takes more for it to break. Can we get a good soaker in May? Sure. It is also just a volatile time of the year for us, so not much we can really do about that.

[Anonymous.]

Garden variety showers and storms developing in the wrap around of this massive storm. They are currently popping up in WC OK, these will be moving east at a pretty quick pace.

Consider yourself and your lawn lucky if you get hit with a quick downpour.


SIde note: Mississippi is getting creamed right now, 6 or 7 tornado warned supercells draped across the entire state racing northeast.

[Roger S]

Grrrrrr... I was still looking at Ardmore's rain chances of 0% when I washed my car at lunch... Forgot to switch the phone back to OKC when I got home yesterday.

[SoonerDave]

Guys, it appears Tupelo, MS has been hit by a big-time tornado. Reports/tweets of "major damage" coming in. Parts of Alabama upgraded to "high risk" for severe weather and schools are apparently being let out early in anticipation.

This is Not Good.

[PennyQuilts]

Guys, it appears Tupelo, MS has been hit by a big-time tornado. Reports/tweets of "major damage" coming in. Parts of Alabama upgraded to "high risk" for severe weather and schools are apparently being let out early in anticipation.

This is Not Good.

Not good in Tupelo or anywhere in the vicinity. I think I almost worry more about people in other states than I do when something is going on, here. I suppose it is because I know we are a pretty tornado savvy bunch that knows what to do.

I am reduced to watching the Weather Channel and to be honest, it is hard to listen to them because they use just a bit little language and emphasis than what I'm used to in Oklahoma. Different audience. I will attempt to overcome this.

[Mississippi Blues]

Guys, it appears Tupelo, MS has been hit by a big-time tornado. Reports/tweets of "major damage" coming in. Parts of Alabama upgraded to "high risk" for severe weather and schools are apparently being let out early in anticipation.

This is Not Good.

I have family in Tupelo. Not pretty at all.

[Ginkasa]

I have family in Tupelo. Not pretty at all.

They okay?