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Hail pelted Omaha as severe thunderstorms fired up from Kansas to Minnesota on the evening of April 23.
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00:00Take a look. Thunderstorms already producing three dozen reports of hail from Kansas to Nebraska, Western Iowa, and Minnesota today.
00:08This is just the beginning.
00:09Yeah, it's coming down out there, and we're going to be tracking some more trouble.
00:13Omaha, Nebraska just had a heavy thunderstorm in the past hour and a half.
00:17The worst of this is now moving east of Omaha, but there's a pretty good wall up there in the
00:22city.
00:23This neighborhood, heavy rain, low visibility.
00:25Let's take a look at what's been going on.
00:26Radar here showing these storms as they move through Omaha and continue to move east now.
00:31Down to the south, down to where the Platte River dumps into the Missouri River.
00:35Heavy thunderstorm in that area, so that's going to be a scene for some severe concerns.
00:40And all the way down into Kansas, storms are erupting as well.
00:42We had emergency management confirmed a tornado earlier between Omaha and Sioux City along the Missouri River.
00:49And these storms are fairly intense.
00:50A lot of hail, so there have been at least 36 reports of hail reported so far.
00:55There's the northernmost, in fact, now we're counting beyond 36.
00:58There's a new one east of Minneapolis.
01:00And then all the way down, one or two in Kansas so far, but they're beginning to ramp up as
01:04well.
01:05So a tornado watch runs for eastern Kansas, Wichita, into areas near Iola, and up into Topeka, Maryville, Missouri,
01:12just barely north of St. Joseph.
01:14Omaha and Lincoln still officially under the tornado watch.
01:16And east and northeast up into parts of Iowa until 7 p.m. there, 9 p.m. farther south.
01:22And then until 8 p.m. central with a severe thunderstorm watch up into Minneapolis.
01:25So we're tracking severe weather, damaging wind, and hail are the biggest concerns here with this setup.
01:31But again, isolated tornadoes, always a concern with this kind of a storm in this part of the calendar especially.
01:37And we've already had one tornado reported.
01:40So Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City, Wichita, all at concern for wind and hail with some isolated tornado threats here
01:48this evening.
01:49We'll be watching more storms.
01:50This is going to give birth to another round of storms early tomorrow morning all the way down through Little
01:55Rock.
01:55Watch this as it kind of moves on through.
01:57And that will be leading to, again, some very wet weather tomorrow morning in Little Rock.
02:03But the outflow boundaries from that may produce some additional severe storms south of Interstate 40 during the afternoon and
02:10evening.
02:10So it's going to be a real active day here in Little Rock.
02:12Damaging wind and hail.
02:13There we are at 9.30 a.m.
02:15But then after that, some residual leftover little boundaries where the rain-cooled air interacts with some untapped air
02:22could lead to some severe weather.
02:24Then Saturday we look farther west, damaging wind, hail, and some big concerns out this way.
02:29And there's not a whole lot of jet stream energy to support the Saturday severe risk.
02:32But we have plenty of moisture and a lot of warmth out there.
02:35So a medium risk for severe weather even there.
12:22Well, this weekend brings some much-needed rain for the southeast.
12:27I know not great timing for any outdoor plans, but with the drought and especially the wildfires that we've been
12:32dealing with, we need the rain.
12:34So, let's talk about this.
12:36details I want to focus a little bit on how much rain we're actually getting because we need
12:40a lot and this will help but it's not going to solve our problem so overall starting off Friday
12:47we're still focused into the central US and keep in mind some of these storms all the way to the
12:53Tennessee Valley is where we can see some severe weather building in so just something to keep in
13:00mind some of these storms can be strong just severe but mainly the western portion of the
13:03region so through Saturday we get to Alabama we need the rain in Georgia the Carolinas and down
13:11into Florida when it comes to the wildfire issue finally by Saturday and Sunday well late Saturday
13:17and Sunday we start to get some rain there but the heaviest rain is still focused well it's going to
13:22help with drought conditions there but not where we need it the most we continue on through Monday
13:27we add on a little bit more but again the heaviest rain where we get the yellows the
13:32two plus inches of rain it's into the Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys we continue through Tuesday
13:38we start to get another round that makes it all the way to the coast it's going to help the
13:42situation especially in the immediate short term it's going to raise those dew points and bring
13:48some rain that should help firefighting efforts the only thing to keep in mind is if we get some of
13:53those gusty winds out ahead of the rain that can make things worse and it's all because of the drought
13:58just very very significant drought across the whole region including a pretty large area in the
14:04exceptional category which is the top category of drought otherwise temperature wise we're staying
14:10warmer than we typically would be this time of year feeling like late spring early summer overall
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15:07Well, the storm surveys continue from Friday's event a week ago.
15:11Now we're up to 80 confirmed tornadoes.
15:14This is a storyline that just kind of keeps on trickling in, and 80 confirmed tornadoes
15:19from this event.
15:2048 of them were EF1s.
15:21More than half of the 80 confirmed were in central and northern Illinois, and that's
15:26been an area hit very hard here.
15:28So far this season.
15:30In fact, Illinois has seen more tornado reports.
15:32Now this is based on surveys, but they've seen more tornado reports than any other state
15:37in the nation.
15:39Now we want to take a look at what's going on with our severe setup.
15:42And in the short term, I'm going to focus mainly on the weekend and into early next week.
15:47But just in the short term, you can see we are facing a severe threat that's ongoing in
15:52parts of Kansas all the way up into far southern Minnesota.
15:55Some severe alerts have been out there, severe thunderstorm watch to the north, two tornado
16:00watches to the south.
16:01And we're tracking, again, we've had our first tornado warnings of the event.
16:05But we want to move forward beyond this.
16:07And again, this is being driven by a disturbance that is emerging into the plains from the northwest,
16:12where we've had some pretty good snow, over 10 inches of snow in parts of Montana.
16:15We saw over a foot of snow tied to this system in the Sierra.
16:19By the way, the Sierra Mammoth Mountain picked up over 40 inches of snow just this month.
16:24That's a good April after that dry, warm March.
16:27But as this disturbance rotates through, and you can see this trough, kind of highlighting
16:33the trough axis here with the dashed lines.
16:35And I can circle it to draw it out a little bit more.
16:38This system is lifting northeastward, and into Friday, the tail of it will still be kind
16:44of lurking near the southern plains.
16:46But we have a couple of weak disturbances into parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
16:50That'll be just enough to spark some strong and severe storms.
16:52It doesn't take much down this way this time of the year.
16:55So these bright colors, by the way, are measures of vorticity or spin in the atmosphere.
17:01And if you're east of one of them, you're going to be in a posture of lift in the atmosphere,
17:05and that's going to produce more thunderstorms.
17:06So again, in the short term, there we are, tonight into early, this is Thursday night
17:10into early Friday, Thursday night into early Friday, eastern Kansas, eventually northeast
17:15Oklahoma into northwest Arkansas, but also all the way up through Missouri, facing that
17:19severe risk.
17:21Now, as we move forward into Friday, again, I mentioned the weak disturbance that'll drive
17:26some more storms through places like Arkansas.
17:29And it doesn't look like a major event.
17:31The timing of this is tricky because we're going to have some ongoing morning thunderstorms that
17:36kind of plow through this area before the day gets really going.
17:41So Friday and Friday night, again, a lot of questions about the timing of this.
17:46I would not be surprised if we have a large cluster of storms barrel through the area of
17:50Little Rock in the morning.
17:53And then perhaps the outflow boundaries that'll be residual from that, almost like small-scale
17:58cold fronts will be kind of meandering around, maybe drifting a little south.
18:01That could help to fuel the next episode of severe weather during the day and into the
18:06evening and night in other parts of Arkansas.
18:09That's Friday.
18:10Saturday, we are watching for another round of storms.
18:15This one will break out into parts of Oklahoma and Kansas.
18:18It'll be late in the day Saturday.
18:20Here it is.
18:21You can see a lot of development during that time frame.
18:24Here's another model depiction.
18:25The NAM kind of hugs more of Kansas and Missouri.
18:29The European fires off some storms a little farther south.
18:33So again, there's a little bit of different noise and some different opinions among different
18:37models as to how this will play out.
18:39Here's the GFS with a little sharper zone of vorticity there sliding through parts of Kansas
18:45and Missouri and the European.
18:48Overall, though, big picture, this is a relatively weak lobe of energy that will be sparking whatever
18:54happens.
18:55So when we take a look at how we're kind of characterizing the overall hazards for Saturday
19:01afternoon and Saturday night in the Southern Plains, I'm going to give warmth and moisture
19:05a solid medium.
19:06So check marks here.
19:08That's not a shortage, but the upper level energy is lacking a little bit.
19:13So I think that's the thing that's going to hold this event back a little bit on Saturday.
19:18But with that said, we're still concerned about tornadoes, and there will likely be some
19:23tornadoes.
19:23It takes very little dip in the jet stream, very little jet stream energy to get things
19:27going this time of the year.
19:28So large hail, damaging wind, and isolated tornadoes from south-central Kansas down to
19:33northwest Arkansas.
19:34And I wanted to point out, back to the models, another variable, another product here.
19:39Well, first, here's Saturday's CAPE.
19:42This is convective available potential energy.
19:44This is basically a measure of warmth and humidity near the ground in contrast to colder
19:49air aloft.
19:50But it's calculated in a very precise way, taking all levels in the atmosphere into account.
19:56But then we can go over to this product here.
19:58This is the Energy Helicity Index.
20:01So it marries CAPE, where there's lift in the atmosphere, with another product called
20:07Helicity.
20:07And if you picture maybe a spiraling football, if you were to put an LED light on the laces
20:13and send it, throw a nice spiral, you would see this looping type of cycloidal motion.
20:19And that is something that's important here.
20:23We talk about helicity.
20:23It's a result of wind shear, wind blowing in different directions, different altitudes,
20:30coupled with some lift in the atmosphere.
20:32So on Saturday, while there's not a whole lot of jet stream energy, there are some fairly
20:36strong signatures for this Energy Helicity Index, which signals some tornado threats that
20:44may be more significant in southeast Oklahoma in the GFS world.
20:48And in the NAM, it's a little farther west.
20:51In fact, it's a lot farther west out near Wichita Falls.
20:54So we've got to keep an eye out for this area.
20:55We're playing it kind of hedging a little farther east with the risk that we are concerned
21:00about on Saturday, favoring eastern Oklahoma.
21:04And again, we'll be watching that.
21:07Now, we're a little more concerned about Sunday because the jet stream energy is a little
21:12greater with this system.
21:13So Sunday, we have a moderate risk for isolated tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds.
21:19And you can see that we're looking at Wichita, Oklahoma City, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Dallas,
21:24Texas, all at risk here with this setup.
21:26And then Monday, we're very concerned about a large area with lots of people in the Mississippi
21:31Valley.
21:31And that's another big concern.
21:33So weighing all these days, we are really most concerned about Sunday and Monday, partly
21:40because of the jet stream energy that kicks through with this setup.
21:44There's Sunday.
21:45We have this area of the dip in the jet stream coming in from eastern Colorado.
21:50And then Monday, that pivots up into the Mississippi Valley.
21:52So that for now is your forecast feed.
21:54We'll keep you, stay connected for the latest.
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