2024 Tornado Season

[R Alto]

Quite impressive strobe lightning on the Galveston webcam right now.

 

[WeatherArc]

Interesting, SPC mentioning the risk of a strong tornado threat on Wednesday. Not much upper level flow but may be just enough to support supercells given a strong low level jet. Cells will likely be very discrete given orientation of shear vectors to the dryline. Large instability over 4,000 j/kg also across warm sector. 

Large nightime increase of LLJ to 50 knots, could support strong tornadoes alongside a large-very large hail risk.

 

[AndrewHamm]

Looking like an active stretch coming up, starting tomorrow and Wednesday, possibly followed by a short lull. Confidence is raising in a trough kicking into the plains between May 6-7, which could lead to an active few days. Beyond that seems uncertain, a lot of discrepancies between models. Some show almost all moisture getting kicked south back into the gulf for almost an entire week, which would put a halt on severe weather across the plains. I'll be chasing from May 6-14, so I'm excited for the potential on May 6-7, also very concerned about moisture from the 8th onwards. Anyone have any thoughts regarding the long term, especially regarding RH and moisture conditions after the 7th? 

[WeatherArc]

Our active stretch continues with two enhanced risks for today and weds. 

Both 5% risk for tors, 15% for wind and 30% for large hail. I could see an upgrade to tor probabilities on both days though.

Tonight, numerous supercells are forecast to fire off the dryline in Kansas and Nebraska at around 22z, initial cells will favour large hail however as the LLJ ramps up if cells can remain strong enough to drill through the weak low level inversion at 00z, as well as discrete an all hazards threat will likely develop with the potential for strong tornadoes. Supercells will then move into Iowa and Missouri as the evening goes on.

Wednesday looks somewhat similar to tues except for a little more south in Central Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle, if discrete cells can fire off the dryline an all hazard threat exists. 

 

  

 

@AndrewHamm If the GFS keeps putting out runs like this your going to be in for quite the start to your chasing season 

 

 

Hopefully this post on twitter will be helpful for you and @Ben Sainsbury looks like we are in for an active start of May followed by a brief lull as the MJO becomes unfavourable, before a quick rebound for late may/early June. In terms of moisture, as long as there's troughs to transport it northwards you should be fine, water temps in the gulf are now in the mid 20 degree Celsius range and further warming is likely, this should ensure plentiful gulf moisture to be pulled northward by troughs. The influence of our pesky El Nino which stole the moisture from many events in March and early April has waned and will likely be non existent by mid May. All seasonal models ive seen being floated around twitter still very much favour an active may.

[Ben Sainsbury]

 WeatherArc Thanks mate, good find there! The medium range models at the moment do also seem suggestive of this too. For you @AndrewHamm even if there aren't any barreling troughs moving through mid-month, the model output does seem to show a good few mesoscale days across Texas which can produce some incredible supercells and a few tornadoes.

I had first hand experience of this last year under the "death ridge" set-up and 24th May 2023 produced the most outrageous storm I have ever seen, including a possible rain-wrapped wedge.

Edited April 30 by Ben Sainsbury

[AndrewHamm]

@WeatherArc@Ben Sainsbury Thank you both for the insight. Latest GFS runs look a bit better but still a bit vague. Hopefully the 6-7th comes to fruition and we get ample moisture and more setups after that!

[WeatherArc]

Wow,  my interest in tonight has defo increased. 

18z HRRR, watch these cells in Kansas is all im saying, Iowa seems like some very large hail but limited tor threat.

[matt111]

Tornado on Reed's stream now 

 

[Allseasons-Si]

Recent footage from Reed...

 

 

[WeatherArc]

The moment i saw that observed sounding from Topeka 2 hours ago i knew Kansas was going to be the tornado play today, very photogenic tors.

 

Edited April 30 by WeatherArc

[WeatherArc]

Audible roar from this violent drillbit tornado. Likely very narrow but significant path of EF2-EF3+ damage with this thing. These drillbits can often be way more violent than mile wide wedges!

Reeds vid from 1 min 55 onwards is insane, the thing is just plucking entire trees from the ground and throwing them around

Edited April 30 by WeatherArc

[WeatherArc]

Rotation attempting to intensify on supercell heading towards city of Topeka 

 

[WeatherArc]

thats a look

[weatherobsuk]

Topeka live cam looking at the area of interest

Webcam livestream - Topeka

WEBCAMS.WINDY.COM

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Webcam livestream - Topeka, provided by Windy.com

 

[WeatherArc]

Wow, damage from the drillbit Reed and Aaron were on. Hopefully everones made it out ok.

 

[weatherobsuk]

Topeka 

[WeatherArc]

hmmm, Topeka storm about to undergo big merger with rotating supercell to its south. I would watch this process very closely. 

[WeatherArc]

Reeds in topeka

 

[WeatherArc]

Big tornado down on reeds stream

[WeatherArc]

The cell merger turned this storm into an HP beast, north of Topeka need to be sheltered.

[weatherobsuk]

 WeatherArc  Watching the Topeka live cam before it was evident the wall-cloud was spinning like crazy, just missed out on seeing the CC drop as the rain wrapped around that area of circulation north of downtown but luckily Reed was there just minutes afterwards for a confirmed visual.

[Sparkiee storm]

Some snaps from reeds stream earlier. Stunning!! But very unfortunate about the damage its caused.

 

Edited April 30 by Sparkiee storm

[WeatherArc]

Oklahoma might also do it

 

[WeatherArc]

May have another tor attempting near Perry

 

[WeatherArc]

Oklahoma