General Weather Discussion - April 2015

[venture]

A bit better look at how good this is being to the state...4 Day Totals...

[HangryHippo]

Venture, is there more rain like this in the forecast for this week? Or is it going to be more hit or miss on the constant rain?

[venture]

May starting to look pretty busy over the first 10 days...possible chance of storms every day in some part of the state. Of course this will change, but will post more tomorrow after the new Euro comes in.

[John1744]

National Weather Service in Birmingham soon coming to a channel near you | AL.com

The Alabama NWS office is going to start doing live broadcasts of weather information.

This seems like yet another move into getting out of being the middle man between models and tv networks and more towards giving info directly to people themselves.

Meanwhile Rick Smith is having an interesting Twitter convo right now about how confusing the current warning system is particularly when TV networks get involved. I'm wondering if all this talk is gearing up for a move to responding directly to the people themselves and bypassing TV networks.

[soonerguru]

I spoke to a colleague in Altus today who said he is ecstatic about the improvements to Lake Altus-Lugert. It has risen three feet and is getting a ton of inflow from the watershed that feeds it. Also, Canton Lake is rising, too. This has been a great April for western Oklahoma.

[Bunty]

Rainfall amount here finally went over 1 in. as of 10:25pm, well over my guesstimate that it would only rain around .25". As usual, OKC got more rain with amounts well over 2 in.

[SoonerDave]

National Weather Service in Birmingham soon coming to a channel near you | AL.com

The Alabama NWS office is going to start doing live broadcasts of weather information.

This seems like yet another move into getting out of being the middle man between models and tv networks and more towards giving info directly to people themselves.

Meanwhile Rick Smith is having an interesting Twitter convo right now about how confusing the current warning system is particularly when TV networks get involved. I'm wondering if all this talk is gearing up for a move to responding directly to the people themselves and bypassing TV networks.

Think it's a great idea. They've been on the radio for years. No reason these days not to start broadcasting - heck, could start streaming a channel on the 'net.

[bchris02]

We are now entering the stretch of springtime where conditions are most favorable for a high-end outbreak. KOCO is really starting to focus on the stretch from next Sunday all the way to Friday. Any ideas as to what can be expected?

[Dessert Fox]

We are now entering the stretch of springtime where conditions are most favorable for a high-end outbreak. KOCO is really starting to focus on the stretch from next Sunday all the way to Friday. Any ideas as to what can be expected?

In what way were they focusing on it? From what I just saw it seemed to be pretty modest.

[venture]

In what way were they focusing on it? From what I just saw it seemed to be pretty modest.

Welcome to Spring Time with BChris.

I had some house stuff to take care of today, I'll get an update out tonight. promise.

[venture]

Instability in the state starts to return on Saturday...May 2nd. So that's where I'll start with this quick daily run down...

May 2nd - Slight chance of storms, NE OK. Severe risk is minimal as it appears now.

May 3rd - Moderate to high instability over Central and Western OK. High CIN/strong cap should prevent more precip as it looks now. If a storms manages to get through the cap, it will probably be severe.

May 4th - High instability over Central and Northern OK. CIN burns over over NW OK where storms are most probable to form. Severe weather will be possible.

May 5th - Moderate instability over the state, no main forcing element, so could see some storms fire over Western OK or TX and move east.

May 6th - High instability most of OK. CIN/Cap burn off by late afternoon. Chance of storms, some severe.

May 7th - Very high instability over Central into Western OK. Little CIN/Cap by mid to late afternoon. Severe storms appear probable by late afternoon in Western OK.

May 8th - System shifts east, instability over Eastern OK which chance of storms.

May 9th - Very high instability Central and Southern OK. Limited precip forecast, but CIN/Cap eroded by afternoon.

May 10th - High to very high instability Central into NW and SE OK. Like the 9th - CIN burned off by late afternoon but little precip forms.

May 11th - High to very high instability most of OK, CIN burned off and storms predicted over Central and SW OK by late afternoon.

May 12th - Rinse and repeat. Ongoing/morning convection will play a role.

May 13th - Broken record but it appears front will start to finally move but not get far.

May 14th - Same as the last few days. High instability, storms predicted...severe weather definitely doable.

At this point will wait until I get the May thread up to go into any highly detailed outlooks

[Dessert Fox]

Looking fairly long range..I see that low coming out of the Pacific in the third week of May. It could just pass over the Northern US/Canada but historically the third week of May has been our big week. So it's just something to watch I guess.

[bchris02]

Looking fairly long range..I see that low coming out of the Pacific in the third week of May. It could just pass over the Northern US/Canada but historically the third week of May has been our big week. So it's just something to watch I guess.

I was thinking about this myself. Yes it is big sometimes but some of the big outbreaks I can think of have happened in early May. May 3-4, 1999 and May 8-9, 2003 both come to mind. I always assumed things started to quiet down towards the end of the month but May 31, 2013 proved that wrong. I am not sure there is any statistics to really pin it down other than the fact that most of the big outbreaks in Oklahoma that everyone remembers have happened during the month of May.