00:00Well, the storm surveys continue from Friday's event a week ago.
00:04Now we're up to 80 confirmed tornadoes.
00:07This is a storyline that just kind of keeps on trickling in.
00:10And 80 confirmed tornadoes for this event, 48 of them were EF-1s.
00:14More than half of the 80 confirmed were in central and northern Illinois.
00:18And that's been an area hit very hard here so far this season.
00:22In fact, Illinois has seen more tornado reports.
00:25Now this is based on surveys, but they've seen more tornado reports than any other state in the nation.
00:31Now we want to take a look at what's going on with our severe setup.
00:35And in the short term, I'm going to focus mainly on the weekend and into early next week.
00:39But just in the short term, you can see we are facing a severe threat that's ongoing in parts of
00:45Kansas all the way up into far southern Minnesota.
00:47Some severe alerts have been out there.
00:50Severe thunderstorm watch to the north.
00:52Two tornado watches to the south, and we're tracking, again, we've had our first tornado warnings of the event.
00:57But we want to move forward beyond this.
00:59And again, this is being driven by a disturbance that is emerging into the plains from the northwest,
01:04where we've had some pretty good snow, over 10 inches of snow in parts of Montana.
01:08We saw over a foot of snow tied to this system in the Sierra.
01:11By the way, the Sierra, Mammoth Mountain, picked up over 40 inches of snow just this month.
01:16That's a good April after that dry, warm March.
01:20But as this disturbance rotates through, and you can see this trough, kind of highlighting the trough axis here with
01:26the dashed lines.
01:28And I can circle it to draw it out a little bit more.
01:31This system is lifting northeastward and into Friday.
01:35The tail of it will still be kind of lurking near the southern plains.
01:38But we have a couple of weak disturbances into parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
01:42That'll be just enough to spark some strong and severe storms.
01:45It doesn't take much down this way this time of the year.
01:48So these bright colors, by the way, are measures of vorticity or spin in the atmosphere.
01:53And if you're east of one of them, you're going to be in a posture of lift in the atmosphere,
01:57and that's going to produce more thunderstorms.
01:59So again, in the short term, there we are, tonight into early, this is Thursday night into early Friday, Thursday
02:04night into early Friday.
02:05Eastern Kansas, eventually northeast Oklahoma into northwest Arkansas, but also all the way up through Missouri, facing that severe risk.
02:13Now, as we move forward into Friday, again, I mentioned the weak disturbances that will drive some more storms through
02:20places like Arkansas.
02:22And it doesn't look like a major event.
02:24The timing of this is tricky because we're going to have some ongoing morning thunderstorms that kind of plow through
02:29this area before the day gets really going.
02:33So Friday and Friday night, again, a lot of questions about the timing of this.
02:38I would not be surprised if we have a large cluster of storms barrel through the area of Little Rock
02:43in the morning.
02:45And then perhaps the outflow boundaries that will be residual from that, almost like small-scale cold fronts will be
02:51kind of meandering around, maybe drifting a little south.
02:53That could help to fuel the next episode of severe weather during the day and into the evening and night
02:59in other parts of Arkansas.
03:01That's Friday.
03:03Saturday, we are watching for another round of storms.
03:07This one will break out into parts of Oklahoma and Kansas.
03:11It will be late in the day Saturday.
03:13Here it is.
03:13You can see a lot of development during that time frame.
03:16Here's another model depiction.
03:18The NAM kind of hugs more of Kansas and Missouri.
03:22The European fires off some storms a little farther south.
03:25So, again, there's a little bit of different noise and some different opinions among different models as to how this
03:31will play out.
03:31Here's the GFS with a little sharper zone of vorticity there sliding through parts of Kansas and Missouri and the
03:39European.
03:40Overall, though, big picture, this is a relatively weak lobe of energy that will be sparking whatever happens.
03:47So, when we take a look at how we're kind of characterizing the overall hazards for Saturday afternoon and Saturday
03:54night in the southern plains, I'm going to give warmth and moisture a solid medium.
03:59So, check marks here.
04:01That's not a shortage, but the upper level energy is lacking a little bit.
04:05So, I think that's the thing that's going to hold this event back a little bit on Saturday.
04:11But with that said, we're still concerned about tornadoes, and there will likely be some tornadoes.
04:16It takes very little dip in the jet stream, very little jet stream energy to get things going this time
04:21of the year.
04:21So, large hail, damaging wind, and isolated tornadoes from south-central Kansas down to northwest Arkansas.
04:27And I wanted to point out, back to the models, another variable, another product here.
04:32Well, first, here's Saturday's CAPE.
04:34This is convective available potential energy.
04:37This is basically a measure of warmth and humidity near the ground, in contrast to colder air aloft.
04:43But it's calculated in a very precise way, taking all levels in the atmosphere into account.
04:48But then we can go over to this product here.
04:51This is the Energy Helicity Index.
04:54So, it marries CAPE, where there's lift in the atmosphere, with another product called Helicity.
05:00And if you picture maybe a spiraling football, if you were to put an LED light on the laces and
05:06set it, throw a nice spiral, you would see this looping type of cycloidal motion.
05:12And that is something that's important here.
05:15We talk about helicity.
05:17It's a result of wind shear, wind blowing in different directions, different altitudes, coupled with some lift in the atmosphere.
05:24So, on Saturday, while there's not a whole lot of Jetstream energy, there are some fairly strong signatures for this
05:30Energy Helicity Index, which signals some tornado threats that may be more significant in southeast Oklahoma in the GFS world.
05:41And in the NAM, it's a little farther west.
05:44In fact, it's a lot farther west, out near Wichita Falls.
05:46So, we've got to keep an eye out for this area.
05:48We're playing it, kind of hedging it a little farther east with the risk that we are concerned about on
05:52Saturday, favoring eastern Oklahoma.
05:57And, again, we'll be watching that.
05:59Now, we're a little more concerned about Sunday because the Jetstream energy is a little greater with this system.
06:05So, Sunday, we have a moderate risk for isolated tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds.
06:11And you can see that we're looking at Wichita, Oklahoma City, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Dallas, Texas, all at risk here with
06:18this setup.
06:18And then, Monday, we're very concerned about a large area with lots of people in the Mississippi Valley.
06:23And that's another big concern.
06:25So, weighing all these days, we are really most concerned about Sunday and Monday, partly because of the Jetstream energy
06:34that kicks through with this setup.
06:36There's Sunday.
06:37We have this area of the dip in the Jetstream coming in from eastern Colorado.
06:42And then, Monday, that pivots up into the Mississippi Valley.
06:45So, that for now is your forecast feed.
06:46We'll keep you, stay connected for the latest.
12:25for the southeast. I know not great timing for any outdoor plans, but with the drought and especially
12:31the wildfires that we've been dealing with, we need the rain. So let's talk the details. I want
12:37to focus a little bit on how much rain we're actually getting because we need a lot and this
12:42will help, but it's not going to solve our problem. So overall, starting off Friday, we're still
12:47focused into the central U.S. and keep in mind some of these storms all the way to the Tennessee
12:53Valley is where we can see some severe weather building in. So just something to keep in mind
13:00some of these storms can be strong to severe, but mainly the western portion of the region. So
13:04through Saturday, we get to Alabama. We need the rain in Georgia, the Carolinas, and down into Florida
13:11when it comes to the wildfire issue. Finally, by Saturday and Sunday, well late Saturday and Sunday,
13:18we start to get some rain there, but the heaviest rain is still focused. Well, it's going to help
13:23drought conditions there, but not where we need it the most. We continue on through Monday. We add
13:28on a little bit more, but again, the heaviest rain where we get the yellows, the two plus inches of
13:34rain, it's into the Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys. We continue through Tuesday. We start to
13:39get another round that makes it all the way to the coast. It's going to help the situation,
13:43especially in the immediate short term. It's going to raise those dew points and bring some rain that
13:49should help firefighting efforts. The only thing to keep in mind is if we get some of those gusty winds
13:54out ahead of the rain, that can make things worse. And it's all because of the drought, just very,
13:59very significant drought across the whole region, including a pretty large area in the exceptional
14:04category, which is the top category of drought. Otherwise, temperature-wise, we're staying warmer
14:11than we typically would be this time of year, feeling like late spring, early summer overall.
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