Intense storms spawn tornadoes in the Plains

AccuWeather forecasters were tracking severe storms throughout the Plains on April 25 as multiple tornadoes were reported.

Transcript

00:00We're seeing baseball size hail possible here with some of these storms. So here's the overall

00:03broad view. I'm going to put the radar loop so you can see the overall progression of these storms.

00:08Now one very interesting thing is happening and I want to point this out because one of the

00:12difficult things about forecasting weather, especially across the southern plains,

00:17is just subtle changes in the jet stream and the upper levels of the atmosphere can create

00:23various widespread changes here in the low levels of the atmosphere whenever it comes to storms,

00:29especially storm direction. And the reason why I point that out is because I just want to point

00:32out these two particular storms. I'm going to freeze frame them. I'm going to put the directional tool

00:36on here for you. So from this storm just to the northwest of Lubbock to this storm moving into

00:41southwestern parts of New Mexico, this is about 125-130 miles. And the reason why I want to point

00:48that out is that as you look at the overall movement of these individual storms that are

00:52about 125 miles apart, you have this storm to the north that is now starting to take an almost

00:58directly south to southeast direction. And this storm to the south is moving almost directly to

01:04the north. So this is the kind of setup that we're going to be tracking here for today.

01:08And that storm to the north is that storm, that video you're seeing on the right hand side of

01:13your screen from Sudan, Texas. That's the tornado that was produced earlier here for today. So these

01:18storms are going to be spinning here across the Texas Panhandle. So let's go and take a closer look

01:22at that storm. So the overall rotation signature, at least in the low levels of the atmosphere,

01:26has come down enough to where it's not really looking like it's going to be producing a tornado

01:30in the immediate future. However, that can change because these storms with how fast they can spin

01:36up and produce a tornado, it normally takes about three to five minutes for that to happen. So this

01:40storm is still, even though it's not producing a tornado right now at this very second, it's still

01:45capable of producing one here going forward. So do not let your guard down if you're near the Lubbock

01:50area. Looking at the Lubbock radar and looking at the overall velocity product, you can see that,

01:54yes, you can definitely see that the rotation signature on this particular storm has come

01:59down. But one thing that has not come down is the overall intensity. This storm is definitely

02:03still capable of producing up to baseball size hail. If it can really start to get its act together,

02:08it has lost some significant intensity from its peak about an hour ago, but we're still going to

02:13be watching this storm very closely. And it looks like the overall motion is starting to work its way

02:17a little bit farther to the south and to the southeast. So it does look like it could miss Lubbock proper

02:22here coming up. But we'll continue to track this for you here as we head into this evening.