2024 Tornado Season

[Allseasons-Si]

Rotation on Brad arnold's feed now...

 

[Sparkiee storm]

This is crazy!!! Off the charts tornado parameters a couple of hours from now onwards 

Edited May 6 by Sparkiee storm

[Allseasons-Si]

Reed....

 

[Freeze]

Interesting watching the weather channel on the news from florida, they have constant coverage of the storm potential tonight , they're saying the tornados could go on into the night, scary stuff, I wish we had storm coverage in the UK like they do here.

[WeatherArc]

I really, really dont like where tonight is going

 Freeze Lets be honest if this was the uk they would be calling wedges mini-tornadoes 

 

[Sparkiee storm]

A bit of a wall cloud from one of the chasers on severe studio's in Oklahoma.

Edited May 6 by Sparkiee storm

[WeatherArc]

Tornado on the ground

 

[WeatherArc]

 

[WeatherArc]

Our 300mb jet is beginning to properly impinge into Oklahoma now, expect an uptick. 

 

[WeatherArc]

Tornado probs keep increasing on mesoanalysis, low level jet also beginning to ramp up.

Reed close to a big tornado

 

[WeatherArc]

 

[WeatherArc]

Latest HRRR, OKC metro still needs to watch this event very closely. Also notice the cell down by the red river completely by itself.

[WeatherArc]

Heres the 00z observed sounding from Oklahoma city, any storm that can remain discrete is going to be trouble.

[Eagle Eye]

Large tornado was down on Corey Inman's night vision in-between lightning strikes here about a minute ago.

 

[Eagle Eye]

Tornado is a wedge wrapped in a rain at the moment. SPC continues and expands the high risk.

[Alderc 2.0]

News 9 talking about things starting to line out in north Oklahoma and things definitely nowhere near as bad as models were suggesting. Still a risk of storm forming to the south west of OKC. 

[Sparkiee storm]

A mile wide Tornado causing significant damage in barnsdall, Oklahoma, SPC issued a tornado emergency. Could be heading towards other towns such as bartlesville as its a long tracked monster. Damage from correlation shows debris getting flung miles away so definitely a higher class tornado.

Also unfortunately (at the time of writing this), information from the police in the affected towns say there are already 2 fatalities, several people trapped, and building being flattened. Im sure we will hear more as we go through the rest of the day.

Edited May 7 by Sparkiee storm

[Eagle Eye]

Oh no. 

 

 

Edited May 7 by Eagle Eye

[Cold Winter]

A horrible night for the people of Barnsdall and Bartlesville OK. There are a couple of videos taken from the Hampton Inn, Bartlesville. Tornado sirens wailing at the beginning, then power flashes and the siren stops as the big tornado moves into town. Video below (strong language as you might expect!).

There were a few weaker tornadoes elsewhere but it feels like things could have been a lot worse given the environment and what the models and Storm Prediction Center were forecasting.

Edited May 7 by Cold Winter

[WeatherArc]

 

 

[Sparkiee storm]

As it has't been posted yet, here is today's risk and forecast by the SPC. 

Day 1 Convective Outlook NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 0749 AM CDT Tue May 07 2024 Valid 071300Z - 081200Z ...THERE IS AN ENHANCED RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS OVER PARTS OF INDIANA...OHIO AND NORTHERN/CENTRAL KENTUCKY...

...SUMMARY... Scattered severe thunderstorms are expected across the Ohio Valley today. A few tornadoes (some strong), large to very large hail, and severe/damaging winds all appear possible.

...Synopsis... A mid/upper cyclone, now occluded at low levels, will meander over the northern Great Plains and fill gradually through the period. As that occurs, a shortwave trough in its southeastern quadrant over IA will eject northward across MN and weaken. A trailing shortwave trough -- apparent in moisture-channel imagery over portions of KS -- should merge with the trailing portion of the IA perturbation then pivot across northern MO, southern IA and the DBQ vicinity, reaching northern IL and Lake Michigan by 00Z. That trough then should turn eastward through a larger-scale ridge and cross Lower MI overnight. South of those troughs, a broad fetch of southwest to west-southwest flow aloft -- with minor and mainly convectively influenced perturbations -- should extend from the southern Plains to the Ohio Valley.

At the surface, 11Z analysis depicted a surface low near MBG, with occluded front southeastward to southern IA, becoming a cold front across western MO, eastern/southern OK, to the TX Permian Basin and southeastern NM. A warm front was drawn across central IL and southern IN, with secondary warm front/frontogenesis to its north over central IN and southern OH. The western part of both warm fronts should consolidate through the day, amid a broader plume of warm advection over the Ohio Valley. By 00Z, the cold front should reach central IN, southern IL, the eastern Ozarks, southeastern OK, north-central and central TX, with the TX part becoming stationary. The front will move northward overnight and become diffuse, amidst a broad fetch of southerly flow responding to surface cyclogenesis shifting from southeastern KS to northern OK. .

..Ohio Valley and vicinity... A complex and multi-episode severe threat exists today over the region. First, an ongoing band of strong/isolated severe thunderstorms was apparent across portions of IL, southwestward over southeastern MO and northeastern AR. Though favorable moisture and buoyancy exists in the foregoing warm sector (along and south of the warm front), height falls aloft and deep-layer lift will be greatest over the middle and northern parts, near and just south of the warm front and mainly north of the Ohio Rover. What does not overtake too much of the warm frontal zone and dissipate in the next few hours may reintensify as it encounters diurnally destabilizing low levels, related both to low-level theta-e advection and cloudiness- restrained surface diabatic heating. At least isolated severe gusts would be the main concern with any such convection, which should diminish as it moves over/past eastern IN/western OH while outrunning already marginally favorable inflow-layer buoyancy.

The more-substantial severe concern exists for thunderstorms forming this afternoon along/ahead of the cold front, then impinging on a corridor of favorable heating and warm/moist advection behind the morning activity. Surface dewpoints should recover into the mid- upper 60s F, beneath a plume of steepening midlevel lapse rates that is part of a remnant, somewhat modified EML spreading over the area of low-level destabilization. Superposition of these processes should yield peak MLCAPE in the 2000-3000 J/kg range over the "enhanced" area, narrowing and weakening northward into Lower MI. Favorable wind profiles are forecast, with effective-shear magnitudes in the 55-65-kt range and large-enough hodographs to support 200-400 J/kg effective SRH. To the extent an supercells that develop can remain relatively discrete, hodographs in the lowest couple km appear favorable for tornadoes (some possibly strong). Damaging, large to very large hail also is a concern with any such supercells. Buoyancy should be even greater with southwestward extent into steeper midlevel lapse rates and greater boundary-layer moisture of the Mid-South, and also southward over the Tennessee Valley into AL, but with weaker overall forcing and/or vertical shear otherwise, coverage and organization of strong-severe convection are likely to be less.

...Arklatex to north-central and south-central TX... Isolated severe thunderstorms are possible during mid/late afternoon. Damaging gusts and large hail would be the main concerns. The threat over the area is conditional -- more due to weak lift than thermodynamic considerations. Surface dewpoints commonly in the 70s F will underlie a deep troposphere and enough middle-level lapse rates for MLCAPE in the 3500-4500 J/kg range. Weak low-level winds will constrain hodograph size and boundary- layer shear. However, enough mid/upper flow remains to support around 45-55 kt effective-shear magnitudes, yielding a conditional supercell environment. In the absence of meaningful large-scale support, and with shallower overall lift near the front/dryline, convective coverage over this region is more in question and likely isolated. Additional convection may form overnight in a warm- advection plume near and southeast of the front, across parts of the Mid-South to Arklatex regions. Marginal hail and isolated damaging gusts would be the main concerns.

..Edwards/Broyles.. 05/07/2024

[Allseasons-Si]

Absolutely dreadfull scenes on some of those X tweet's and YT vid's that are still coming in but gladly not as disruptive as was forecast and my heart goes out to the 1 fatality (as i know of) as it could of been more,it was a late night for me (5am) so hopefully today's/tonight's event doesn't go on for that long

@Sparkiee storm thank's for the update,i will be checking in later but i don't think i will pull an all nighter tonight,...ii will see.

Edit: just read @Sparkiee storm's post above,so there where 2 fatalities,...gosh

no more fatalities please

Edited May 7 by Allseasons-Si

[Sparkiee storm]

 Allseasons-Si yw, was up till around the same time  so yeah hopefully things kick off a little earlier (if they do) lol

[WeatherArc]

With the exception of the Barnsdall tornado yesterday thankfully underperformed when compared to what was expected, one of the core reasons tornado events interest me is days like this, knowing how and why these days failed means we can be better prepared for those that dont.

Really great thread on twitter by Cameron Nixon here going over the event and comparing it to the significant may 24th 2011 outbreak which did verify. He highlights subtle fail modes that were difficult to forecast but combined to hinder storms.

Main reason though was storm mode, its no coincidence that the Barnsdall storm was the only cell that managed to retain its discreteness. The cell near Wakita, Oklahoma kept trying to put a large tornado down but its rear flank downdraft kept being impinged on by the forward flanks of the cell behind, leading to weaker, rained out circulations that only lasted for a few mins before dissipating. This was on top of the dry air aloft, reports of virga ahead of some supercells, this is explained in Camerons thread but essentially this led to rear flank downdrafts being stronger with excessive precip, choking off cells inflow, this is all while they are likely competing with a cell infront or behind them.

Honestly in my opinion it was a combination of 'smaller' fail modes aswell as the slower trough ejection that led to this event underperforming. 

Saying that im once again not particularly impressed by models, especially the HRRR showing low level lapse rates at 7 degrees celcius a few hours before the event when in reality they were under 6.4, once again no coincidence that the Barnsdall storm produced as low level lapse rates began to increase after dark.

The best area for discrete cells was southern Oklahoma, storms didnt fire there and in northern Oklahoma shear vectors were way more parallel to the dryline than perpendicular, leading to training storms.

Shows that we still have ways to go in fully understanding the internal dynamics of thunderstorms and tornadogenisis, some things we just dont know yet.

[Sparkiee storm]

Ryan's stream -