General Weather Discussion - April 2014

[venture]

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[venture]

With most of the upcoming storm activity going to be in April, felt it best to just get the new thread going now.

March 31st - Monday
Slight chance of some storms mainly east of I-35 and then down into South Central OK. Risk is going to be pretty well mitigated though but we might see one or two isolated storms pop up in the area. Nothing really to worry about.

April 1st - Tuesday
Threat for Tuesday is going to be generally Central back to SW OK - south of I-40 and west of 35. Cap will be marginal and breakable it appears now. Instability will be generally around 1500 j/kg, LIs around -4 to -6, and decent vertical shear. LCLs are going to be pretty high, above 900 mb, so surface based convection is going to struggle somewhat to get established. It does appear rotating storms will have a good environment but this generally is going to mean the risk for a couple large hail reports. Not saying tornado threat is not there, I would just like to see LCLs down a bit further to the surface to really get any level of concern. Moisture coming in should be halfway decent. GFS brings 60° dews up to I-40, whereas NAM is generally up to a LAW to Pauls Valley line. SPC has this as a 5% risk area with a SEE TEXT message, but we'll probably see someone upgraded to a Slight Risk as we get closer. However, it'll be a lower end Slight Risk since coverage won't be significant (unless the storm is over your house).

April 2nd - Wednesday
The general trend with the last few model runs has been to slow things down. Wednesday was looking like the day, but that may slide over to Thursday. However, I would still anticipate a Slight Risk area for much of Oklahoma (except far W and the PH) for Wednesday. Overall the environment just looks pretty primed for a severe weather day. Instability wise we are looking at CAPEs over 2000 j/kg, LIs under (over?) -7, a marginal and very breakable cap (1.0), and decent helicity and EHI values. I would say Wednesday will have a definite tornado risk with it, LCLs are must closer to the surface around 929 mb, and the other indices are in place (see sounding below). Both NAM and GFS are in pretty good agreement on the environment for Wednesday. I'm not going to jump on the boat of calling for strong tornadoes or anything foolish like that right now. Things are still in flux, but we'll get a better idea as we get closer. Definite SLIGHT RISK day and it maybe be a higher end one at that.



April 3rd - Thursday
Thursday appears to be another severe day on hand. This looks like it would include the areas along 35 and to the east. It very well could be an early afternoon show for the Metro and then out east for the evening. I would like to get another days worth of models on this one first before getting too involved with it. However, environment appears it will be favorable for severe weather and if we go off of the GFS solution right now, appears it would be a (broken) squall line of storms wind damage and hail with a more unidirectional setup to the winds - at least for Central OK. Again, wait until tomorrow and definitely Tuesday before getting into it more.

[venture]

At least we never have to hear people refer to may 3rd anymore... Sigh.
There are too many of us on here alone, that are looking at model date to let anything sneak by.

[PennyQuilts]

you'd know for sure if the threat were that serious well ahead of time.

They have come so far in this. Anything can happen but I've been here most of my life and I honestly can't imagine not knowing at least a couple of days ahead of time if there is a real problem. And I also can't imagine not knowing the day of the event that it is likely to happen. And we usually have 2-3 hours of people closely watching the weather blow up and calling out a play by play when things start to pop. None of that does anyone any good if you don't have a plan but if you're watching with a good plan, there is just no reason for someone to get hurt. In 1999, we went home early from work. We knew hours ahead of time. Last year, on the big ones we knew all day that monsters might be coming and literally had hours ahead of time to prepare.

Nearly all the time you aren't in the line of fire, thank goodness. But there is absolutely no reason to find yourself in a situation where a big tornado pops up and catches you by surprise. On the days where the monsters come, you need to be out of the area, in a shelter, or otherwise be ready with your tornado plan. It is trickier when you work and have kids in school but dealing with that should be part of the plan. There shouldn't be any surprises once you know Mr. Tornado may show up at your door sometime between 3 - 6 (or whatever the forecasters are telling you). If you are monitoring the situation, you'll know when it's coming or when conditions are ripe. If you don't have a plan, even if you know it's coming you're counting on luck.

Obviously not everyone can count on a Venture but in the past few years, I've checked in on his website and he is kind enough to tell me as soon as he sees something threatening my area. That's no guarantee that it won't happen or that something won't pop up as an outlier but tornadoes hardly ever show up without giving off signs ahead of time. And the big ones are screaming their arrival.

[ou48A]

They have come so far in this. Anything can happen but I've been here most of my life and I honestly can't imagine not knowing at least a couple of days ahead of time if there is a real problem. And I also can't imagine not knowing the day of the event that it is likely to happen. And we usually have 2-3 hours of people closely watching the weather blow up and calling out a play by play when things start to pop. None of that does anyone any good if you don't have a plan but if you're watching with a good plan, there is just no reason for someone to get hurt. In 1999, we went home early from work. We knew hours ahead of time. Last year, on the big ones we knew all day that monsters might be coming and literally had hours ahead of time to prepare.

Nearly all the time you aren't in the line of fire, thank goodness. But there is absolutely no reason to find yourself in a situation where a big tornado pops up and catches you by surprise. On the days where the monsters come, you need to be out of the area, in a shelter, or otherwise be ready with your tornado plan. It is trickier when you work and have kids in school but dealing with that should be part of the plan. There shouldn't be any surprises once you know Mr. Tornado may show up at your door sometime between 3 - 6 (or whatever the forecasters are telling you). If you are monitoring the situation, you'll know when it's coming or when conditions are ripe. If you don't have a plan, even if you know it's coming you're counting on luck.

Obviously not everyone can count on a Venture but in the past few years, I've checked in on his website and he is kind enough to tell me as soon as he sees something threatening my area. That's no guarantee that it won't happen or that something won't pop up as an outlier but tornadoes hardly ever show up without giving off signs ahead of time. And the big ones are screaming their arrival.

Good points.

There is still a huge problem with many employers and schools not having a good plan in place to ether house people on site in certified shelters or let them go home in plenty of time.
We need to look at not having school at schools that don't have certified shelters on during time periods when the tornado risk is significant.
Large employers should pay more for workers comp if they don't have good tornado shelters.

[bchris02]

I think, in general, whenever "severe weather" is mentioned, you'd be best to not assume it was going to be anything like 5/20 or 5/31 rather than the opposite. Take it seriously and stay informed, but those dates are definitely not typical even of severe weather days, and you'd know for sure if the threat were that serious well ahead of time.

That's reassuring. My perception is a bit skewed because of the 2013 season. Winter lingered through the first week of May holding off severe weather. Then, once it started hitting I remember three times severe weather was forecasted. The first ended up being a hailstorm that totaled almost every car at my apartment complex (luckily I was out of town when it hit). The second was the May 18-20th outbreak and the third was the May 29-31st outbreak.

[venture]

Not a lot of changes to the upcoming forecast from what was previously mentioned.

Today - small line of storms this morning, nothing several from central back to the SW OK will provide a little noise this morning. Not much more.

Tomorrow - SPC has the slight risk in SW OK / Western North Texas and it is a 15% hatched area for large hail. Looking at an isolated storm or two that will have a chance for a tornado and damaging winds along with the hail threat. There is also a slight risk for far Northern OK for some elevated storms with large hail.

Wednesday - This still looks like the main show. Slight risk is officially out for all but far western OK. There is a 15% hatched area over Central OK for possible higher end severe weather. The basic setup will have the front drapped over NW OK with a dryline extending from it through SW OK. Initiation will take place at the intersecting point and also along any possible bulges in the dryline in SW OK. Storms will be moving ENE at 30 mph it appears. As we get into the evening hours, the low level jet is expected to increase causing the tornado threat to go up for a couple hours before instability begins to fade and the storms weaken. As of this point, just plan for all modes of severe weather to be possible and have your safety plan ready to go if needed.

Will update more this evening.

[Soonerman12]

Bchris02... Thery're hyping it a lot up here in Tulsa lol

[Soonerman12]

Ventrue... Sorry didn't realize april discussion already started.. Anyways, back to my question...

Now on to the weather.... Venture, what's your data suggesting for Wednesday and Thursday? I'm seeing a pretty high probability of all modes of severe weather both Wednesday and Thursday as a dry line looks to pop off a few supercell storms as it moves towards Eastern OK. The mets in Tulsa are predicting a high chance.... Could we be possibly looking for a "PDS" tornado watch being issued for either Wednesday or Thursday? They are really giving some hype here in Tulsa for Wednesday and Thursday. Do you think this will be a more eastern ok storm?

[Soonerman12]

Also, even meteorologist on certain tv stations here in Tulsa that NEVER give us high chances for severe weather are giving us high chances. I thought that was pretty interesting. Like always, thank you very much Venture!

[venture]

Ventrue... Sorry didn't realize april discussion already started.. Anyways, back to my question...

Now on to the weather.... Venture, what's your data suggesting for Wednesday and Thursday? I'm seeing a pretty high probability of all modes of severe weather both Wednesday and Thursday as a dry line looks to pop off a few supercell storms as it moves towards Eastern OK. The mets in Tulsa are predicting a high chance.... Could we be possibly looking for a "PDS" tornado watch being issued for either Wednesday or Thursday? They are really giving some hype here in Tulsa for Wednesday and Thursday. Do you think this will be a more eastern ok storm?

Thoughts posted above. Won't go into more detail until later this evening with the 00Z model runs.

[Soonerman12]

I posted that comment before I notice the comments above. sorry about that.

[SoonerDave]

Bit of a side-note as we look this week to our first round of possibly severe spring-type weather....

It's interesting to consider how our own experiences influence our perception of the weather seasons.

I don't know if its a matter of perception biased by age and youth, or if there's anything actually statistically relevant about it, but from the time I was growing up in the 70's I always remember April being the "harem-scarem" month for severe weather. It was the month I always dreaded, much more so than May, even though we all know what May can bring.

And I also recall severe weather being more of the form of E->W squall lines, with fewer of the "individual" cells making the headlines. I remember as a kid looking to the west in a warm, muggy April afternoon and looking for the leading cirrus off the tops of the thunderheads, studying the directions of the anvils atop the big cumulonimbus formations, and it would almost instantly put my stomach into a knot for the rest of the day. Heck, a "Severe Thunderstorm Watch" with a WKY-TV/Jim Williams alert (beeeep-beeeep-beeeep) would do the same thing. When things got bad enough for them to go "wall to wall," which was fairly rare back then, the eerie glow of the old black-and-white met radars focused in on an area where a hook was detected was always scary. My dad, being from New England, didn't understand ANY of the preoccupation with OK severe weather and just hated all of it, didn't understand my upset at all. Education about weather was a wonderful thing as I got older.

Mitigating any of that anxiety is a matter of faith, education, and patience, and realizing there's only so much you can do about any of it...

[Soonerman12]

Very well put comment SoonerDave!

[PennyQuilts]

I used to live in a house that, while brick and only one level, wasn't set up with a center room. So many houses try to get windows in each room and in the interest of lightening up a center room, big mirrors were a common decorating theme. Mirrors scare me more than windows, actually. As they got better with forecasting, I actually got more stressed because I'd know stuff was out there but didn't have a shelter. This was pre weather internet and free television was our main source although at some point the weather channel became the go to station unless the free channels were wall to wall. Piled the kids in the bathtub fairly regularly. Other than that, didn't have much of a real plan and I honestly think I was more prepared than most of my friends and neighbors - I'd at least pile up blankets and comforters in the bathroom to be ready.

My stress level went way down once the kids grew up and I found myself for a couple of years with no pets - easy enough to take myself over to a hospital or someplace substantial on a scary day. Never did it because nothing really threatened the house during that time.

The advent of internet storm monitoring was a huge plus for me as well as having so many ways to educate myself on the science of storms rather than just the danger. Knowledge is a good thing although it's no shield if you're ground zero. Buying a shelter was as much about getting off high center and being proactive due to an interest in storms as it was about genuine concern for my safety. Let's see - I can stress (and worry my family), or I can get a shelter and embrace the whole mindset that you need a real plan. I'd wanted one for years but until the May 31 gridlock flight, Husband was of the mind that he'd rather gamble. He'd pay five million dollars to avoid THAT again.

I have never seen so many people buying shelters and the guys who put in ours can barely keep up. Personally, I think Mike Morgan's ill advised suggestion that the whole city flee may ultimately be the most effective way to get people to invest in shelters. Probably will end up saving lives in the long run. Only a few people get hit by tornadoes but thousands upon thousands got hit by gridlock with a psychotornado at their heels.

[bchris02]

The Oklahoman is hyping baseball+ sized hail. Is that looking like a probability? If so, are we looking at isolated hail cores or something widespread like the 2010 storm?

[jn1780]

The Oklahoman is hyping baseball+ sized hail. Is that looking like a probability? If so, are we looking at isolated hail cores or something widespread like the 2010 storm?

Hail is possible with every severe storm. People are usually more focused on hyping the tornado threat during severe weather events.

[Soonerman12]

bchris02.... Baseball hail is a possibility if storms fire off and supercells develop..

Please visit the link below, This is per The National Weather Service in Norman.


http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/fxc/o...mage_full1.jpg


You can also find additional information from the National Weather Service at: National Weather Service Forecast Office - Norman, Oklahoma

Hope this answers your question. -Taylor

[PennyQuilts]

I never in my life saw anything like the 2010 hail storms until 2010.

[PennyQuilts]

Watching some clouds go up east of us. Are they worried about weather that along that line? Looks lean and mean.

[Dennis Heaton]

I have noticed the change in the sky the last several days...Spring is definitely here. As an "incomer" I had to learn to take tornado watches and warnings seriously, and over the years I have picked up on one rather telling fact concerning approaching severe weather...almost all the birds disappear.

[PennyQuilts]

I've noticed birds hunkering down ahead of storms, too. They're active this afternoon, though.

[Tydude]

Oh Boy News 9 has us under a moderate risk of Severe weather on Wednesday BE PREPARE FOR THIS STORM!!!!

[venture]

Oh Boy News 9 has us under a moderate risk of Severe weather on Wednesday BE PREPARE FOR THIS STORM!!!!

Remember when risk levels actually meant something? Sheesh.

[OKCisOK4me]

I think Venture needs to publish a "Oklahoma Weather for Dummies" book...