Severe Weather - May

[PlaneShocker]

is the tornado coming here? not a drop of rain in sw wichita

[SB Shock]

Tornado emergency for Norman, Newcastle & Moore OK

Here is what it looks like on radar for the Norman Tornado





Another view, the white is the hail core.

[SB Shock]

Here is a interesting image showing the where all the chasers are right now. Notice all the chasers abandoning the wichita area and racing down I-35 to OKC.

[WuDrWu]

The weather service center in Norman has evacuated for the time being.


Horrific, but so far limited damage. It appears the worst of the tornadoes stayed in lowly populated areas and most importantly has spared the Moore and Norman area.....so far.


Edit:

Unfortunately, fatalities in the Reno, OK area.

[ShockerFever]

High risk bust indeed for Kansas. Par for the course.

The fatality count continues to grow for 2011.. It has to be near 5 -600.. unbelievable..

[1979Shocker]

I saw on the CNN ticker that there were 122 dead and 1500 still missing in Joplin.

[KC Shox]

Last week I was in Huntsville and Birmingham, AL and this week I am Joplin. Damn these storms! Oh well, it's job security.

[ShockTalk]

High risk bust indeed for Kansas. Par for the course.

The fatality count continues to grow for 2011.. It has to be near 5 -600.. unbelievable..

Not just you, SF, but I just "love" the way some of you weather geeks talk about catastophic (or the lack there of) events. It was as if you were disappointed that Kansans couldn't have participated more in the death toll. I know, I know...you really are sincerely concerned, it just doesn't come off that way sometimes.

Instead of "high risk bust", how about dodged a bullet. Rather than "par for the course", we were fortunate once again.

I'm as mesmerized by the power and sight of a tornado as the next. However, one should always temper their fascination of nature's fury when lives are turned upside down, or lost altogether. I'm probably being over sensitive about it, but the resulting destruction and possible loss of life is felt the same by those involved, whether it came from nature or man's rath. I'm guessing Mike Bettes knows what I mean.

[ShockerFever]

High risk bust indeed for Kansas. Par for the course.

The fatality count continues to grow for 2011.. It has to be near 5 -600.. unbelievable..

Not just you, SF, but I just "love" the way some of you weather geeks talk about catastophic (or the lack there of) events. It was as if you were disappointed that Kansans couldn't have participated more in the death toll. I know, I know...you really are sincerely concerned, it just doesn't come off that way sometimes.

Instead of "high risk bust", how about dodged a bullet. Rather than "par for the course", we were fortunate once again.

I'm as mesmerized by the power and sight of a tornado as the next. However, one should always temper their fascination of nature's fury when lives are turned upside down, or lost altogether. I'm probably being over sensitive about it, but the resulting destruction and possible loss of life is felt the same by those involved, whether it came from nature or man's rath. I'm guessing Mike Bettes knows what I mean.

Anytime you see a weather "geek" hoping for tornadoes or being disappointed about a bust, it's because of the tornado itself, not of one avoiding a populated area. Nobody wants death, injury or destruction. More times than not tornadoes will strike over open country (especially in this part of the country) so it's the perfect scenario of seeing a beautiful tornado and avoiding the negative human effects.

Please don't confuse the two and please don't imply that any person would want to see any type of negative human impact.

[wsushox1]

Some things of note.....

1. As of the morning model runs yesterday, the wind profiles for KS were still excellent, however by yesterdays evening runs things were changing. The Closed Low in the Upper Levels was stronger and deeper (further South) than previously forecasted, this caused the wind shear to become less favorable for long tracked tornadoes across KS (More South-North WInds, rather then West-East). Things were looking as if they would be a linear, undiscrete mess across SC KS which they were.

2. I do think this set up might have been over hyped. It does not help that Joplin happened two days prior and that April 26/27 was still fresh in peoples minds. Closed Lows are extremely tricky to forecast because any slight wobble can change everything. (the past 3 main severe weather systems through KS have been closed lows)

3. SPC did a good job across OK, and people were undoubtedly saved because of the good lead time and the use of strong wording and the High Risk.

4. No previous memorable outbreak (May 3, Greensburg, Andover) had closed lows. Don't get me wrong this will probably go down as a memorable outbreak, but not as memorable as those dates

5. I really thought Boundaries from this mornings convection would play a role in things, but they really didn't.

6. Another thing about this season in General across KS is that the Jet Stream at 30000 Feet can't seem to match up with the jet stream at 18500 Feet. I'm not complaining though, its just that when looking at the busts this year across KS, that's usually been whats to blame.

All in all across SC KS the stage was set for an outbreak, however several small, yet important details did not align just right taht caused almost no tornadoes be found across SC KS.


Since I've talked about it for so much......an example of a closed low....




See how there is a circle over WCNTRL KS, that's the closed low with winds flowing cyclonically around it.

[ShockTalk]

High risk bust indeed for Kansas. Par for the course.

The fatality count continues to grow for 2011.. It has to be near 5 -600.. unbelievable..

Not just you, SF, but I just "love" the way some of you weather geeks talk about catastophic (or the lack there of) events. It was as if you were disappointed that Kansans couldn't have participated more in the death toll. I know, I know...you really are sincerely concerned, it just doesn't come off that way sometimes.

Instead of "high risk bust", how about dodged a bullet. Rather than "par for the course", we were fortunate once again.

I'm as mesmerized by the power and sight of a tornado as the next. However, one should always temper their fascination of nature's fury when lives are turned upside down, or lost altogether. I'm probably being over sensitive about it, but the resulting destruction and possible loss of life is felt the same by those involved, whether it came from nature or man's rath. I'm guessing Mike Bettes knows what I mean.

Anytime you see a weather "geek" hoping for tornadoes or being disappointed about a bust, it's because of the tornado itself, not of one avoiding a populated area. Nobody wants death, injury or destruction. More times than not tornadoes will strike over open country (especially in this part of the country) so it's the perfect scenario of seeing a beautiful tornado and avoiding the negative human effects.

Please don't confuse the two and please don't imply that any person would want to see any type of negative human impact.

SF, I do understand, I'm not confused, and I'm not implying that anyone here wants "negative human impact" (maybe I didn't make it clear enough).

Some people get a rush from doing something that they do by choice, have a good deal of control of, any physical "down side" is to themselves, and that negative human impact is very limited, say as in skydiving.

Some others get that rush from not directly participating in the event, say auto racing, but the power and danger is there. However, the potential negative affect is on others, not them personally. The rational fan does not wish harm to happen to others, but the known risk is there nonetheless. In this case, negative human impact is still minimal.

Then you have something like tornados. One is the observor and it's much like auto racing. Again, they do not want harm to others, but the danger is far greater and potential for negative human impact much, much larger. One should not get a rush or a thrill from such an event. To speak of it (or of it not happening) in such a manner, to me anyway, is something akin to pyromania. Is it awe-inspiring? You bet! There is much wonderment. It's fury is one of nature's greatest. One should speak in terms of thankfulness if a tornado does not happen....the risks are just to high. Those who have been affected first hand by a tornado, and possible lost loved ones, probably look peculiarly at that weather "geek speak".

In other words, be careful what you wish for.......

[SB Shock]

Here is a few things I saw.

1. Mid level cooling occured a little sooner than they expected and after the cap broke the storm movement was insane (40-60 mph). The day before they were expecting the cap to be potent and not get broken until 4-7 pm. It started breaking after 2pm.

This graphic shows the 700 mb temperatures. The red represents capped atmosphere. If I could animate this you would have seen OK/KS capped and the blues spreading across around 2pm-ish. This broke the cap before the LLJ could kick in and back the winds.



2. SC kansas was hampered because the wind field was veered. In NW KS where there was backing tornadoes where seen. OK was veerred also, but that had higher instability and shear to overcome it.



3. Here is shot of the EBWD (effective bulk wind difference) and ESRH (effective storm Helicity). Therese are parameters to help in identifying possible areas favorable for supercells. ESRH is a measure of the potential for updraft rotation.

In the next 3 figures you will see a common theme - NW kansas and OK were high areas, SC kansas wasn't.




EFFECTIVE BULK WIND DIFFERENCE


ESHR


4. STP is parameter that correlates to F2 or > tornadoes. NW kansas and OK where in the bullseye.



The one thing I'm not sure about the effect is that that it looked like the Low out in Western kansas was pulling in some drier air between medicine lodge/alva OK. The models predicted this and you could see this on other charts (that I didn't capture screen shots). Alva dewpoint wee dropping at the surface at one point and caught my eye.

[wsushox1]

Back to Back High Risk Days for the second time this year.

[Kung Wu]

An amatuer like me could look at this loop and draw the conclusion that there is a very mild hurricane spinning over Kansas City right now. :)

http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/uppermissvly_loop.php

[NCAABound]

Missouri is getting hammered right now...tornado warnings all over the place.