Severe Weather Threat 4/27-4/28, 2024 - (Saturday, Sunday)

[UK_EF4]

Today looks unfortunately like a potentially nasty day as well. Hadn't even realised until this morning being so focused on both the 26 and 27 outbreaks - but the environment does look to become arguably supportive of strong-intense tornadoes this afternoon/evening in parts of E TX, OK and AR.



Luckily the threat looks to highly depend on how much surface destabilisation occurs behind the current morning MCS from last nights storms - and also how much of a discrete mode there would be. Generally looks quite messy so hopefully we wont see anything able to utilise the above environment, but will be on the lookout for trends through the day which may change the threats magnitude.

 

[TheSuckZone]

I've yet to see any confirmed reports of fatalities from either outbreak in this sequence so far. Assuming that holds true, if that's not a testament to the overall warning process and the public response to it given the ferocity of what has happened, then I don't know what is. Even with today's technology, Friday alone easily could've been a day with dozens of fatalities, not to mention the after dark significant tornadoes striking towns in southern Oklahoma on Saturday evening...

That would be a miracle and I pray that holds true

 

[joshoctober16]

I’m talking about the actual top tier outbreaks…for what it was…yesterday’s outbreak was still far from what you would class as “historic”…no where near the likes of…

March 13 1990
April 26 1991
May 3rd 1999
May 24 2011

Ya know…those kind’s of outbreaks
Where actual extremely violent damage was done…
The last tornado to produce objectively violent damage in the plains was matador…and that was one fluke tornado on an otherwise middling day…

It seems like top tier set-ups just don’t do anything notable in the classic plains way anymore…

note historic outbreaks are the level right under super outbreak, the last one to happend (note not counting this outbreak since it cant yet be calculated) was march 31 2023

 

[wx_guy]

Wow, I went to bed at the wrong time last night, all hell broke lose....


Curious about the horrible training of tornadic supercells and how that plays into the rating -- if Sulphur (for instance) was hit by overlapping tracks, is the overlap totally contaminated data-wise to rate any of the tornadoes? I mean how can you attribute damage X to tornado A if tornadoes B and C followed? Interesting conundrum of the way the EF scale is set up to rate based on damage with it being an indirect indicator and all.

 

[MichelleH]

Yeah, when I went to bed there were only a few warnings. Wow.

 

[NorthGaWeather]

Yes, and that's what I was talking about with there being differences in office philosophy. It's all subjective without any hard "yes or no" lines drawn anywhere in NWS directive.

I can confirm.

 

[joshoctober16]

video of the damage form last night's tornado

 

[jiharris0220]

So yeah, definitely don’t see any “entire town gone” Greensburg level damage.

But it’s to say Sulpher won’t be the same after this, big section of town has to be replaced.

 

[A Guy]

So yeah, definitely don’t see any “entire town gone” Greensburg level damage.

But it’s to say Sulpher won’t be the same after this, big section of town has to be replaced.

It's a mildly irritating bit of hyperbole, like this one from yesterday from Minden - town looks there and later chaser and drone footage showed the tornado hit the edge. The highly damaging core is much rarely more than a couple of hundred metres outside of extreme cases, many towns are bigger. Obviously in this case a lot of buildings will still have to go and lot of money will still have to be spent.

It'd one of those storm chaser/tornado enthusiast exaggeration things. A bit like with size - a survey may have EF0 contour a half mile wide or whatever, the actual condensation funnel they're seeing will probably be less than what they're saying in their videos. Or the use of 'violent' to describe anything more than a little spin up.

 

[Xanthaar]

It's a mildly irritating bit of hyperbole, like this one from yesterday from Minden - town looks there and later chaser and drone footage showed the tornado hit the edge. The highly damaging core is much rarely more than a couple of hundred metres outside of extreme cases. Obviously in this case a lot of buildings will still have to go and lot of money will still have to be spent.

Seems to be one of those storm chaser/tornado enthusiast exaggeration things. A bit like with size - a survey may later put an EF0 contour at a half mile wide or whatever, the actual condensation funnel they're seeing will probably be less than what they're saying in their videos.

It's more than mildly irritating. It's downright scummy to do. People who say this care more about their social media interactions than the response to these disasters. It's imperative that EMS get accurate information in the immediate aftermath of such scenarios. If people go around saying entire towns have been wiped out, it will likely result in redirected first response from other areas impacted. Any relatives of people in the town hit are likely to presume the worse for their loved ones too when they inevitably search social media for updates and see that the entire town is "gone", causing all sorts of unnecessary anguish. I really wish the community would call out chasers who overexaggerate impacts like this.

 

[Gail]

I spent the day with my Weather Airman son yesterday, and I didn’t have the best service. Someone sent him a text saying there were 8-9 PDS tornado warnings at the same time?!? That sounds insane. It was a horrible two days for some residents of the Midwest. Heartbreaking.

 

[Muwx]

I spent the day with my Weather Airman son yesterday, and I didn’t have the best service. Someone sent him a text saying there were 8-9 PDS tornado warnings at the same time?!? That sounds insane. It was a horrible two days for some residents of the Midwest. Heartbreaking.

A lot of warnings were getting PDS tags with nothing confirmed.

 

[Gail]

A lot of warnings were getting PDS tags with nothing confirmed.

Gotcha! I’m glad they weren’t confirmed! I’m trying to play catchup this morning, but there’s a lot.

 

[Clancy]

Unfortunately, 2 fatalities confirmed in OK.

Two dead, including infant, after nighttime tornadoes rip through Oklahoma

At least two people have died in Holdenville after nighttime tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma Saturday.Hughes County Emergency Management reported four injurie

okcfox.com

 

[Tanner]

Unfortunately, 2 fatalities confirmed in OK.

Two dead, including infant, after nighttime tornadoes rip through Oklahoma

At least two people have died in Holdenville after nighttime tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma Saturday.Hughes County Emergency Management reported four injurie

okcfox.com

I’m really worried about the damage in that area, that looked like a really violent tornado.

 

[jiharris0220]

Damn, was really hoping we could get through this hell without fatalities.

 

[TornadoFan]

 

[Equus]

That nocturnal round was terrifying; got busy and barely checked up on it but reviewing everything this morning that was a horrifying night for a lot of Oklahoma. Looks like the some of the worst happened in the radar hole only kinda filled by the Durant radar. We definitely got the right balance between dynamics for supercells to do this and too much forcing just way later in the day than I expected. Some really violent damage out there

Given the distribution of tornado reports, looks like the moderate verified almost perfectly; didn't verify in the daytime isolated supercell category as expected but managed to spam strong long tracked tornadoes on the tail end of the expected time frame anyway

 

[cincywx]

they certainly have their work cut out for them

 

[Tanner]

That nocturnal round was terrifying; got busy and barely checked up on it but reviewing everything this morning that was a horrifying night for a lot of Oklahoma. Looks like the some of the worst happened in the radar hole only kinda filled by the Durant radar. We definitely got the right balance between dynamics for supercells to do this and too much forcing just way later in the day than I expected. Some really violent damage out there

Given the distribution of tornado reports, looks like the moderate verified almost perfectly; didn't verify in the daytime isolated supercell category as expected but managed to spam strong long tracked tornadoes on the tail end of the expected time frame anyway

*VERIFIED*