5/20 - 11:45am CDT - Texas Panhandle Today

We're on the road from Oklahoma City to the Panhandle region of Texas where storms are likely to form today. Right now we're watching a clear area on satellite near a cold front situated just south of a line from Childress to Lubbock, TX. This clearing should help to build instability for storms to form as heating from the sun is allowed to reach the surface. Winds and dew points at the moment are not terribly favorable, but the most recent RAP (Rapid Refresh) model does have surface winds turning more easterly during the afternoon bringing in more moisture.

Even though winds at the surface will likely be favorable, winds aloft at 18,000 feet (500 mb) will be weak and westerly to west-northwesterly. It would be preferrable to have winds at that level that are fast and from the southwest, so not having much of either of those components will be a limiting factor. Storms that form this afternoon could have some large hail and winds, but the tornado threat at the moment looks marginal given the lack of upper wind support and possibly lower dew points.

Given these factors, the Storm Prediction Center has decided to forgo issuing a severe weather risk for the area today and only has a general storm risk with mention of some isolated instances of severe storms. The trick today will be to find these isolated instances wherever the best environment for these sets up this afternoon.

The latest updates on our chase are available on Twitter and Facebook.

5/17 - 4:15pm MDT - Some Fun in Denver!

Since good storms for chasing didn't form yesterday and won't form today, we're having a bit of fun in Denver, Colorado! Today we split into a few groups, one group that toured the Front Range of the Rockies, one that went to the Denver Art Museum, and another that went to the Elitch Gardens theme park in town. We all had a great time and will meet up this evening for dinner. Tomorrow we'll be heading back to Oklahoma City as Tour 2 ends and we'll be saying goodbye to our guests on Saturday morning.

For next week's tour, Tour 3, there may be a return of severe weather to the Plains. This may take until midweek though as a large-scale trough moves inland from the Pacific and moisture flows back into the region near the surface from the Gulf of Mexico. A lack of moisture in the Plains has plagued us for days now, so this return will be very welcome if what the long-range GFS model indicates pans out.

Be sure to keep up with my updates on Twitter and Facebook!
 

4/4 - 3pm - Are the Storms Scared of Starkville?

Fast-moving outflow boundary at MSU on Monday

Over the past three days we've had three separate instances where storms have approached Starkville only to die before they reach us because of either being cut-off from their moisture source in the Gulf or having their cold outflow air rush out and undercut the inflow of the storms. The latest instance of this was this morning as a line of storms perished before our eyes just as it hit the Oktibbeha County line. What happened was that storms to our south cut off the moisture source for the northerly storms and left us in a cold pool of air that was not conducive to storm development.

Tomorrow's SPC severe weather risk

This cold pool has lingered into the afternoon as expected and the chance of storms, especially severe ones, is minimal at this point. Once the atmosphere recovers tomorrow and a cold front starts moving through the region, we could see a much better chance of storms. A few of these may be a little strong, but I think the best chance of severe weather will remain to our south where better moisture and wind shear will be located. Check out the video below for more details!

2/4 - 4pm - Storms Come to an End Across West TN

After a round of showers and storms this morning, a cold front is now moving across the Mississippi River into the state. The cold air and clouds with the storms this morning stabilized the atmosphere considerably, so storms will not re-fire this afternoon as previously forecast. This also means that our marginal risk for severe weather today is done. Instead a few areas of drizzle may pop up as the front moves through by this evening. After a few showers tomorrow, calm and mostly clear conditions should prevail for the rest of next week. Check out my forecast from this morning on WBBJ below:



This morning I walked into the studio and our weather center was completely gutted! WBBJ is starting to disassemble it to make room for our new set, which will include a shiny new weather center once completed. For now our weather operations are running from a temporary location just off-camera, which you can see in the panoramic photo I shot this morning:

7/5 - 6pm - Scattered Storms in Louisville

Hope everyone had a great Independence Day! Some scattered small thundershowers have popped up across the Louisville Metro area this afternoon with the heating of the day. These will likely stay well below severe limits, but watch out for some heavy rain and a few lightning strikes as they move very slowly through the city.


More storms like this are possible tomorrow afternoon through Friday with severe weather chances remaining very low. We should be completely dry this weekend in Louisville as a surface front slides to our south and an upper-level ridge slides in from the west.

7/3 - 12:30pm - Fantastic Fourth Forecasts

A cold front sliding southward through Indiana and Kentucky this morning has triggered some thunderstorms in Southwest Indiana that likely won't make it to the Louisville area this afternoon, but more storms could develop later on. While any storm that forms this afternoon could have heavy rain, lightning, and some gusty winds, most if not all will stay below severe limits. Temperatures are already in the upper 80's around the Louisville area, so a high near 93 today looks good at this point.

How about those Fourth of July forecasts? Hot and humid will be the rule for most locations, but scattered afternoon thunderstorms covering quite a large area could drench a few of those outdoor barbecues. The storms will be large in coverage due to a trough hanging around the eastern half of the US and a stationary front near the Ohio River.


Here are some Independence Day forecasts for selected regional locations from the National Weather Service:

Louisville, KY: Partly Sunny | 89 degrees | 40% afternoon storms
Lexington, KY: Partly Sunny | 86 degrees | 40% afternoon storms
Evansville, IN: Mostly Cloudy | 87 degrees | 50% afternoon storms
Indianapolis, IN: Mostly Sunny | 85 degrees
Cincinnati, OH: Partly Sunny | 86 degrees | 20% afternoon storms
Jackson, TN: Mostly Sunny | 93 degrees | 30% afternoon storms
Memphis, TN: Mostly Sunny | 95 degrees | 30% afternoon storms
Nashville, TN: Mostly Cloudy | 92 degrees | 30% afternoon storms
Knoxville, TN: Partly Sunny | 91 degrees | 40% afternoon storms
Tupelo, MS: Mostly Sunny | 96 degrees | 20% afternoon storms
Starkville, MS: Mostly Sunny | 96 degrees | 20% afternoon storms
Jackson, MS: Mostly Sunny | 97 degrees | 30% afternoon storms
Birmingham, AL: Partly Sunny | 94 degrees | 30% afternoon storms
Atlanta, GA: Mostly Sunny | 94 degrees | 50% afternoon storms

6/23 - Expecting the Unexpected: The Louisville Tornadoes

A horse barn at Churchill Downs
Image: NWS WFO Louisville

The city of Louisville is recovering from an outbreak of tornadoes that even the most seasoned weather watchers didn't expect. As of this writing there have been four confirmed tornadoes (two EF-1's and two EF-2's) inside the Jefferson County/Louisville city limit. A fifth tornado in Harrison County, IN has been confirmed of EF-0 strength that started off the event. The iconic Churchill Downs received damage to barns, several power poles near the University of Louisville's Papa John's Cardinal Stadium were brought down, and buildings in Jeffersontown sustained damage along with massive tree damage as a result of three of the four tornado touchdowns in the county. Thankfully there were no reports of injuries or fatalities as these tornadoes ripped through a city containing three quarters of a million people.

Below is a rough map I've put together based on the NWS WFO Louisville storm survey page of the tornado tracks through Louisville . Purple tracks indicate EF-2 rated tornadoes (the indicated tornadoes only reached this strength briefly) and the red tracks indicate EF-1 rated tornadoes. Be sure to click the image for a larger view.

Timeline of Tornadoes

Information used in this section about each tornado can be found on NWS WFO Louisville's storm survey page.

Yesterday started off cloudy and even misting at times across the city as a cloud shield from overnight persisted well into the morning hours. The Storm Prediction Center had a Slight Risk for severe weather out for a good portion of the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys northward to Michigan, but this was a very conditional risk for Kentucky and Indiana because the cloud cover in the morning inhibited destabilization of the atmosphere. A cold front sagging southeastward from Indiana would be the trigger for any afternoon storms should they form as temperatures warmed. The clouds finally moved east of the Louisville area at around 2:30pm yesterday and temperatures topped 80 degrees by 3pm. By 6pm there were showers on the radar to the north of Louisville and a few specks on the radar to the west.

Just after 7:30pm a Tornado Warning was issued for Harrison County, IN and western portions of Jefferson County/Louisville because a tornado was spotted near Elizabeth, IN. The "storm" that triggered this warning was no more than a shower because it had no lightning strikes associated with it. I'll admit that I was skeptical of this tornado report because there was really no significant rotation on radar. I thought the report was an improper identification of moving scud clouds or even a gustnado. The storm seemed to weaken and spotters near the Shively area reported no funnel clouds, so the warning was allowed to expire. About ten minutes later the storm began to strengthen again in West Louisville and another Tornado Warning was issued just after 8pm for Jefferson County. Multiple reports of a tornado and associated damage began coming in from Churchill Downs around that time.
This time the storm had lightning and the visual tornadic hook echo with prominent rotation on radar, so it was clear at this point that this thing meant business. To the right is a radar image with the supercell and hook echo near Churchill Downs and below is the velocity data with the green/red couplet signifying where the rotation was at the time. Click either image to see a larger view:

This tornado strengthened briefly into an EF-2 with 120 mph winds near the intersection of Floyd and Central Avenue at the University of Louisville campus where the power poles came down. Here's a video from YouTube user kehdsh that was posted on the WAVE 3 Weather Facebook page this afternoon. It's a little far away, but it clearly shows the funnel cloud above and debris cloud on the ground near Churchill Downs. Note that a tornado does not need to have a visible funnel snaking all the way to the ground. The debris dust-up and tube near the ground verifies that a tornado is there. Watch the center of this video closely:

Bent light pole in Jeffersontown
Image: NWS WFO Louisville

The next three tornadoes to hit Louisville were actually from the same storm and you could argue that it was the same tornado that lifted and touched down three separate times. From 9:29pm to 9:41pm (a total of twelve minutes with two short breaks in between) these tornadoes pestered the Louisville incorporated city of Jeffersontown, the suburb of over 26,000 people in Jefferson

Tree on dentist office in Jeffersontown
Image: Ryan Hoke

County that I've lived on the southeastern fringe of for nearly ten years. The initial touchdown occurred in the neighborhood just behind (west of) the Meijer store on South Hurstbourne Parkway west of Jeffersontown. This is just due south of the Stonybrook Cinemas. The tornado continued eastward to downtown Jeffersontown and lifted at the St. Edward School and Church, causing EF-1 (95-100 mph winds) damage along the path. It dropped again just east of the school and went on to cause tree damage at Tully Elementary School and structural damage at an apartment complex and the Good Samaritan Center in downtown Jeffersontown. The Good Samaritan Center had EF-2 winds of 115 mph that tossed and flipped cars about 20 yards. The tornado then went on to cause significant damage at the industrial park just east of Jeffersontown before lifting again. It sat down again in the industrial park causing more warehouse damage and continued on toward the Gene Snyder Freeway (I-265) where it lifted just after damaging a bed and breakfast on Tucker Station Road. This storm wasn't as well-defined on radar as the Churchill Downs supercell because of the merger of multiple storms in the county. The embedded supercell structure with rotation was certainly there as you'll see with the red/green boundary of wind velocities north of the Jeffersontown dot in the image below:

Why it Happened

Caution: This section gets a little technical on the meteorology side of things.
I explain why I think tornadoes hit Louisville unexpectedly and in such a small area.

Nobody expected this rash of tornadoes in Louisville at all. This includes the National Weather Service, local media, and me. In my blog post yesterday morning I even stated: "The tornado risk for [Southern Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee] will be quite low." The Storm Prediction Center issued a Slight Risk with a 2% tornado risk area in the morning with mention of wind-driven linear storms possible across the Lower Ohio Valley. Later on in the day they issued a Mesoscale Discussion that indicated they may issue a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for a broad area from Cincinnati to Memphis if storms developed more, but they never did. Some folks are asking why they didn't issued a Tornado Watch as soon as the storms unexpectedly began producing a spotter-confirmed tornado in Central Louisville, especially when the tornado threat dragged on for roughly an additional two and a half hours. My guess is that the very small lead time they would give with the issued watch and the unknown end time for this already unexpected tornado outbreak led them to scrub any plans of issuing one. Not to mention that the watch would be extremely small given that tornadoes occurred across two counties. The National Weather Service office in Louisville did a very good job of handling all the reports and translating that information into warnings for folks in the path of these storms.

These storms formed in a highly speed-sheared environment meaning winds were very fast aloft, but much slower at the surface. The direction of the winds at the surface were forecast to be from the southwest according to most of the computer forecast models. Aloft at 18,000 ft the winds were forecast to be from about the same direction, but slightly more west. This means that there was little directional shear forecast, meaning the chances of storms rotating were slim. The setup was more favorable for damaging straight-line winds. Here's where things get interesting. At 2:43pm, surface observations showed southwest winds in Louisville as forecast. All is well, but watch that southerly wind vector (down-pointing flag) east of Evansville, IN in the top picture on the left. Just before 5pm this southerly surface wind vector is in Louisville as a south-southeast wind. This increased directional shear between the surface and 18,000 ft quite a bit. The timing also lines up with the development of small showers just to our west and north. The surface winds were from the south in Jefferson County between 5pm and just before 10pm. In between these times we had the tornado pandemonium in Louisville. The timing and location is just too perfect for these southerly winds to not be a contributing factor to this event. Low-level wind shear (the kind that produces tornadoes) would have been much higher in Jefferson County than the surrounding area with the surface wind out of the south given the winds aloft being from the southwest.

It's also interesting to note that the bulk shear output on SPC's mesoscale analysis had a 50 kt maximum right over Central Kentucky and Southern Indiana. I make no claim of being a research meteorologist, but this surface wind reasoning comes from my four years of chasing storms in the Plains and the experience I've gained from books on severe weather.

The RUC and NAM models yesterday morning did pick up on the fact that storms would indeed form in the afternoon near Louisville after the clouds cleared. The 12z RUC yesterday in particular seemed to pick out the linear nature of the storms that were to form less than twelve hours later. It was nowhere near perfect, but the timing and shape of the storms were in the ballpark. Check out the comparison of a live radar capture late last night and the aforementioned RUC reflectivity (simulated radar) output:

Finally, I wanted to point out that this all happened with less than 1500 J/kg of CAPE or instability. Usually you need a little more instability than that to get severe storms going, but I think the directional wind shear compensated for that. None of the other storms outside of the localized southerly winds around Louisville were severe. That plus the fact that we had a tornado touch down in Harrison County, IN (just west of Louisville) with little to no lightning present in the storm makes this a once-in-a-lifetime event that could have been much worse if people did not heed warnings. I'm extremely pleased that there were no reports of injuries or fatalities with these five tornadoes yesterday. Hopefully this event will be the last major population center to be hit by a tornado this year, which has seen tornadoes hit cities including Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Joplin, MO, Oklahoma City, Springfield, MA, and now Louisville, KY.

Check out NWS WFO Louisville's storm survey page for more information on this tornado event.

6/2 - 10:45am CDT - South Dakota Today, Not Looking Very Promising

We saw a small supercell last night near Valentine, Nebraska with a very picturesque sunset behind it. Since there were no road networks in the area we had to stay a good distance away from it and unfortunately it didn't last long either. If it had developed a couple hours earlier it would've been a big storm!


I'm no fan of today's severe weather setup in South Dakota. The main thing this morning that throws up red flags is the cirrus cloud shield over much of the state. This isn't something that burns off during afternoon heating, but is rather persistent. This shield will act to limit instability this afternoon and could keep storms from firing until after dark or not at all. Dew points at the surface are a bit marginal this morning and it's not a sure thing that they'll recover this afternoon because of computer model issues lately. We won't get a true east wind for good low-level wind shear either, so that's another thing to throw in the bin of issues.


Nevertheless, we're going to drive up to south-central South Dakota (short drive) and wait there to see how things develop. Maybe Mother Nature will surprise us. The Storm Prediction Center has a Slight Risk area out for much of South Dakota, but that may be in jeopardy right now based on current conditions.

5/31 - 12pm CDT - Minnesota? / Back to Nebraska

We're departing Detroit Lakes, Minnesota for Nebraska this morning. Many of you are probably asking how on earth we ended up in Minnesota last night. Here's the deal: The area of low pressure that we tried to stay up yesterday with kept moving northward and we had to follow it into the Fargo, North Dakota area. The cap (warm layer of inhibiting air) was broken with 4500 J/kg CAPE (!) for nearly four hours yesterday, but the low kept moving around. This meant that the east wind component needed for supercell formation wasn't staying in the same place either, so elements just weren't lining up in one spot for a long enough time to get anything going. Once we finally threw in the towel, we headed just a few miles east to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota for a nice evening in the town with a view of the lake.


Not all was lost though, because we did have a fast-moving squall line of storms move through Detroit Lakes while we were eating dinner. We had heavy rain and lightning where we were, but just a few miles west in Fargo, ND they sustained some wind damage due to a bowing segment in the line of storms.


Westerly flow aloft and southeasterly winds at the surface will return to Nebraska/South Dakota tomorrow as an area of low pressure moves into Colorado. These winds at the surface should usher in dew points that will break 65 degrees, so moisture should not be a problem as it returns to the Plains. Instability also looks good and it appears the cap will break tomorrow in the later afternoon hours. With all of this put into play, the Storm Prediction Center has issued a 15% Slight Risk area for severe weather in Nebraska, parts of South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. They even have a hatched area for an enhanced risk and their discussion calls for supercells with a few tornadoes possible. Looks like the chase is on again tomorrow!

5/19 - 12:45am CDT - Bust Today, Better Tomorrow?

Frustrating. There's no other way to put it. We had storms blowing up and developing before our eyes this afternoon in Oklahoma only to have a cirrus cloud shield develop in the upper levels of the atmosphere and squash any further development. Just about all the other conditions were right for this severe weather event, but the cloud shield made sure that nothing would form. A few linear storms along the warm front surging north this even have formed, but they should be out of Kansas pretty soon.

Speaking of Kansas, that's where all the action will likely be tomorrow. Upper level winds will be stronger tomorrow than today, but this time over Kansas. We're hoping that a dry slot aloft moving into the region later this evening (see right satellite image) will decrease the chances of an inhibiting cirrus shield forming tomorrow like it did today. Temperatures at 700mb will be less than optimal (need 10C or higher, but we may only have 8-9C tomorrow), so a shot of dry air will definitely be needed to keep clouds from forming in the cooler temperatures up there. Otherwise, I like the setup since winds and moisture will be wrapping around the northeast side of a low centered in the Texas/Oklahoma Panhandles. Easterly winds should stick around in Central Kansas beceause  The cap (warm layer of air aloft) should break sometime after 4pm or so tomorrow based on output from the NAM computer model.

With all of these factors, the Storm Prediction Center has issued a Slight Risk for severe storms tomorrow across Central Kansas with a 10% tornado risk tacked on. Could this be upgraded to a Moderate Risk? I think so if this dry slot aloft comes in and keeps the upper air clear tomorrow. We also have to be sure that no storms develop over Central Kansas tomorrow morning, which seems unlikely at this point. After two big severe weather busts in the past couple weeks, we're hoping tomorrow will be the charm!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter and Facebook tomorrow for all the latest updates from our chase!

5/16 - 12:45pm MDT - Touring New Mexico

We just toured Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and are getting ready to hike around the Guadalupe Mountains near the Texas/New Mexico border. It looks like this will be our last day of "touristy" things as the risk for severe weather increases tomorrow. While it won't be a big risk tomorrow, some moisture will be streaming back into the Southern Plains and we may chase a few elevated thunderstorms that form in the evening. Of course the bigger risk is still Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, so we'll continue to monitor that. The return of moisture into the region may be better than previously thought, so this could be a good end to the week! I'll have a more detailed discussion on that setup tonight once some new computer model runs come in. Check out this panoramic photo I shot of the view from Carlsbad Caverns today:

5/15 - 6pm MDT - New Mexico!

Storm Chasing Adventure Tours is in Carlsbad, New Mexico for the evening as we're still waiting for the severe weather threat to ramp up during the middle part of the week. We visited Roswell, New Mexico this afternoon and the associated alien museums and gift shops before heading to Carlsbad where we'll view the bats flying out of Carlsbad Caverns this evening near sunset.

12z GFS dewpoints at 7pm CDT Wed

Tomorrow should be another "touristy" day before we begin seriously looking at the risk for a severe weather event across much of Texas and Oklahoma on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The latest models have moisture streaming back into the region nicely, but we're keeping a close eye on it. You can see the dewpoints rising near the Oklahoma/Texas border on the right-hand image from the GFS model. Should moisture return as advertised, things should shape up nicely for mid to late week. Three or more good days of chasing in a row? That sounds good to me!

5/14 - 2pm CDT - Gearing Up for Another Week of Storm Chasing

We're in Amarillo, TX today to prepare for another week of storm chasing with a new set of tour guests. The van has been washed and the oil changed, and all the guides and drivers are fully rested for what Mother Nature will bring in the coming days. While getting things done in Amarillo today, we passed by a bunch of semi tractor-trailers at a truck stop in town carrying blades for the giant power-producing wind turbines in farms around the Plains. Look how huge one of these blades is!

Next week's severe weather risk areas are still a bit fuzzy as we'll be under a ridge here in the Plains for at least the next few days. Once a trough begins moving through on Tuesday into Wednesday, we should see severe weather chances begin to increase. Wednesday, Thursday, and possibly even Friday are all looking like good chase days due to upper-air support and moisture streaming back into the region. Even the Storm Prediction Center is mum on details about next week because of all the uncertainty regarding where exactly this will set up:

LOW LEVEL MOISTURE SHOULD GRADUALLY RETURN ACROSS TX INTO OK AND PERHAPS EVEN KS BY MID-LATE WEEK AS LARGE SCALE HIGH LEVEL FLOW RELUCTANTLY FORCES RIDGE TO NUDGE SLIGHTLY DOWNSTREAM ACROSS THE SRN PLAINS. WITH TIME CONVECTION SHOULD DEVELOP WITHIN INCREASING WARM ADVECTION REGIME ATOP RETREATING SFC ANTICYCLONE. WHILE A FEW SEVERE TSTMS MAY ULTIMATELY EVOLVE WITHIN THIS PATTERN THERE IS SOME RELUCTANCE TO INTRODUCE A MORE ORGANIZED THREAT DUE TO TIMING ISSUES OF RIDGE DISPLACEMENT WHICH SHOULD ALLOW GREATER MOISTURE/INSTABILITY TO DEVELOP ACROSS THIS REGION.

5/9 - 11:45pm CDT - Done for the Day, Travel Tomorrow

We finally did catch up with a supercell near Philip, SD this evening. Low visibility due to the high-precipitation nature of the cell made it very difficult to make out any structure within in it during lightning flashes. There were a couple reports of a brief tornado and funnel with this storm, but we really couldn't see anything

After a good night's sleep in Murdo, SD, we'll be heading south during a travel-only day tomorrow since there's no real risk of severe weather within a reachable area. Wednesday looks interesting in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The SPC has issued a 30% Slight Risk already for the region, but we'll see how everything plays out. The way the models have been performing lately, I wouldn't want to hype-up an outbreak more than 18 hours in advance.

5/8 - 8:15pm CDT - Looking Forward to South Dakota Tomorrow!

Things just didn't materialize here in Nebraska today. A lack of good upper-level wind support and marginal southeasterly surface winds along with a strong cap suppressed severe storm development during the daytime hours across the region. We're going to settle into Norfolk, NE this evening to prepare for what could be a much better chasing scenario tomorrow in South Dakota. The Storm Prediction Center has a high-end 30% Slight Risk area posted for the western two-thirds of the state tomorrow. With a trough digging in further to the Plains tomorrow providing faster wind speeds aloft, I think tomorrow's outcome should be better.

3/29 - 4pm - Storms Tonight in Mississippi, Clear Weekend

Some heavy thunderstorms will make their way across Mississippi tonight as an area of low pressure and associated cold front to our south make an eastward run overnight. We could pick up over an inch of rain here in Starkville before it's all said and done tomorrow morning. Even though severe weather doesn't look likely for us at this point, some storms could have small hail and gusty winds. Areas south of Jackson, MS could see more potent weather as a Tornado Watch has been issued for that region as stronger storms are forecast to develop down that way this evening.

Once we deal with some cloud cover tomorrow and Thursday, things should clear out for the weekend and temperatures will make a nice recovery into the 70's. Check out the video below for your complete forecast:

2/1 - 4:30pm - MSU Forecast Video / No Severe Weather Here!

We dodged a bullet here in Starkville today in terms of severe weather. High winds aloft, adequate shear, and optimal low pressure placement all came together today, but a lack of atmospheric instability prevented a severe weather outbreak from occurring across North Mississippi. While they did have some severe storms in South Mississippi, things certainly didn't get out of hand and heavy rain was the only problem across much of the state. We'll clear out the clouds and usher in some cooler temperatures tonight and tomorrow, and maybe even see some light wintry precipitation on Friday. Things will be warmer for the weekend! Check out my MSU weather forecast video below:

5/19 - 12:30am CDT - Empty-Handed Today in Texas

We busted big time in the Texas Panhandle today. We were expecting storms to form in the nicely sheared, moist, and southeasterly-winded environment to the south of Amarillo, but they didn't. Instead, a huge supercell exploded north of Amarillo as we waited. It kept looking like there would be more southward development as the afternoon went on, but that lone supercell was the only show in town. We held our position and so did other experienced chasers because the environment was so ripe for supercells south of Amarillo. Any storm that formed there would cut off the supercell to the north, and we didn't want to head north for fear of that scenario. Five hours and multiple tornado touchdowns later, we were the ones who left empty-handed. We were befuddled because dew points and temperatures in the area where that supercell formed were way too low to support a storm like that. There must have been something else going on that we could not detect. Nature throws curve balls like that sometimes!

Tomorrow's severe outlook for Oklahoma looks pretty good right now, with the SPC already issuing a Moderate Risk (45%) for much of the state. An area of low pressure just to the west coupled with an advancing dry line will generate east winds and a source of lift for storms tomorrow. CAPE values will be over 2500 J/kg, dew points near 70 degrees, and bulk shear over 50 kt just east of Elk City, OK. With storm motion forecast to be 10-15 kt tomorrow, any storm that forms will be a slow mover. I'll update our chase forecast tomorrow morning!