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Severe WX April 1-2 (overnight) Severe Weather Event

I remember 4/27/11. I was 5 at the time. I saw a shopping center's roof ripped off but the building was still standing most from what I can remember. Is there a return period of sorts for an event like 4/3/74 and 4/27/11?
 
I remember 4/27/11. I was 5 at the time. I saw a shopping center's roof ripped off but the building was still standing most from what I can remember. Is there a return period of sorts for an event like 4/3/74 and 4/27/11?
No one really knows. Our better record keeping of tornados only goes back 50-60 years, so we really don’t know how often they occur. People used to say 4/3/74 was a one in 500 year outbreak, and not even 40 years later you had another one.
 
No one really knows. Our better record keeping of tornados only goes back 50-60 years, so we really don’t know how often they occur. People used to say 4/3/74 was a one in 500 year outbreak, and not even 40 years later you had another one.

Well it's only been 14 years and we may have another 74'/11' event on the horizon if everything pans out. Let's just hope it doesn't pan out.
 
Forecasts suggest that the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) will be in phases 3 and 4 during early April 2025. The Climate Prediction Center’s recent update indicates that ensemble models show the MJO continuing its eastward progression through early April. The most significant impact tends to occur when the MJO is in phases 3 and 4, which coincide with a more active severe weather season in the central and southern US. So based off this I maintain my position that this could be THE STORM. We shall see
I mean this is not what Matt's research suggested, so I'm going to have to disagree here. The charts show that the major outbreaks occur as the MJO is amplifying in Phase 2-3 in a period following a split/incoherent signal. I mean we could have an event as significant as 4/14-4/16 2011 out of this split phase, but I'd be quite surprised if we had an "upper echelon" event just like a few weeks ago, and I certainly don't see this being "THE STORM". That being said, there likely will be tornadoes and possibly some strong/violent tornadoes if the models hold steady and I'll definitely be warning family and friends in the risk areas as the details of this event become clearer when we get closer.

This is probably going to be difficult to interpret and understand, but I'm going to post what I have been working on with Fred for the last 20 years and in particular after 2011. I began issuing skillful internal forecasts in 2021 using the MJO, but the code had not yet been cracked on large-scale outbreaks for the Deep South. Ironically, this all became much clearer in the last few months leading up to the current March 14-16 expected outbreak. It's truly freaky to see this playing out.

The current MJO (Madden-Julian Oscillation) evolution matches that of April 3, 1974, February 5, 2008 (Super Tuesday), and April 27, 2011. What is not included in this presentation is the Trans-Nino Index, which has an extremely positive value right now that is correlated to seasons with major tornado outbreaks. Not all La Ninas are created equal. Some don't have a positive TNI value, but the 2025 La Nina is special.

With all of this information in hand, I took the risk of sending this outlook from February 26 to our staff on March 2, highlighting the window of March 14-20 as the most likely time frame for a large-scale tornado outbreak. Additionally, we'll be watching for the next MJO wave in about 40 days. :oops:

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4/3/74 and 4/27/11 both happened on a Wednesday.
Fire Elmo GIF

Mother nature looking at us like:
 
Well it's only been 14 years and we may have another 74'/11' event on the horizon if everything pans out. Let's just hope it doesn't pan out.
I won’t expand on it in great detail here, but the sheer ceiling of those days was raised much higher because the mesoscale cooperated perfectly with the synoptic setup. Which is why the frequency of those events are pretty rare, it takes perfect harmony and cooperation between synoptic, mesoscale, and even storm scale to pretty much brush off any fail modes and put out a high end event.
 
I won’t expand on it in great detail here, but the sheer ceiling of those days was raised much higher because the mesoscale cooperated perfectly with the synoptic setup. Which is why the frequency of those events are pretty rare, it takes perfect harmony and cooperation between synoptic, mesoscale, and even storm scale to pretty much brush off any fail modes and put out a high end event.
I can see that, and I totally agree. It is very rare for every ingredient to come together in such a way to promote those kinds of outbreaks.

It just worries me that the 3/14-16 event we just had may have been a foreshadowing of more things to come. I don't think I will stop worrying until the primary tornado season is over.
 
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