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Severe WX Severe Weather Threat 5/16-5/19, 2017

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I think this warrants its own thread at this point. 15% hatched MDT out for today, tomorrow upgraded from Marginal to Slight,* another round for the Plains looking likely on Thursday.

*Not too often you see an unhatched slight risk outlook where the text mentions the possibility of strong tornadoes. The placement and intensity of the H5 trough and surface features forecast for 21z tomorrow-0z Thursday look pretty near ideal for a significant outbreak in the upper Midwest, but of course instability is in doubt. I can't blame SPC for being a little gun-shy after going with higher-end categorical outlooks for so many conditional threats that have failed to pan out thus far this spring.
 
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Limited instability is the most obvious caveat, but of course we were all saying that in the morning of 5/6/2015. I wouldn't write off any possible outcome just yet. It could be mostly wind/hail reports, or we could end up seeing a pretty significant outbreak like Cheeseland said, particularly tomorrow and Thursday.

Something interesting I've noticed about this tornado season so far - there's definitely been no shortage of tornadoes, but we've had a surprisingly low number of EF3+ tornadoes so far. It could end up like a less active version of 2004, with mostly weak tornadoes, an average number of EF2 tornadoes, and a dud for EF3-EF5 tornadoes.

EDIT: Of course just as I write about the shortage of strong tornadoes the SPC puts out a PDS watch with 90/80 probs. I should probably just keep my mouth shut.
 
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A lot of that lack of EF3+ tornadoes can be attributed to those conditional setups that failed to pan out, and fantasy troughs that looked great in the 100-200 hour range but had a lot of problems by hour zero. We'll see if this week bucks the trend, starting with today. This one IMO has more going for it than some of the previous underwhelming events, but there is still a touch of VBV below 500mb in a lot of the forecast soundings. Perhaps the EML can help with keeping destructive storm interactions to a minimum.
 
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Amarillo has put out a very ominously worded AFD update this afternoon. If this pans out, it could be the first true classic Texas Panhandle/w. OK tornado outbreak in quite some time, of the kind you hear about from the old school chasers who were out in the '70s/80s/90s.
 

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You are right, Cheese. A PDS has been issued for the area.

First Tor warning of this event issued around 3pm.
 
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bwalk

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Lots of spin going on. 3 separate tornado warnings now. All rotations are weak & only radar indicated but things may likely tighten up as the day progresses. Greensburg, Kansas is in the general area of the action as it moves northeast. I imagine those folks are uncomfortable.

Edit: Make that 4-5 current warnings at 3:45pm (1 is in Tx & 1 may be in the process of being replaced by a new warning).
 

bwalk

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So far this has been a hail event. The cells in Kansas have merged and become messy. Lack of discrete cells is discouraging possible tornado formation (among other reasons). Things could change - or they could not. The atmosphere in the Texas area of this event is the only place maintaining discreet cells at this time. Maybe a few tail-end Charlies could form down there.
 
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Taylor Campbell

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Watch the storm carefully near Wellington, TX. It's had a more rightward progression in the last few frames.
 
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And of course, a very impressive supercell with strong mid-level rotation in the 2% area in northern WI. I'd wish I was up there, except I know that is horrible chase territory due to the forests. Here in south-central WI isn't the greatest (hills, trees and corn in the summer), but at least it's not near-solid tall pine forest.

2202z scan shows a sharp ramp-up in rotation on tail-end Charlie SW of Wellington.
 
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There is a pronounced radar hole over the E. TX panhandle/w. OK in the middle of the quadrilateral between KAMA, KFDR, KTLX and KVNX. Seems like a bad spot for that.
 

WesL

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I've enabled live mode for this thread. For members who are logged in the feed will automatically update past the last post. This feature will automatically disable after 60 minutes of no posts.
 

Taylor Campbell

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Starting to see some weak returns pop up on radar back to the west of the supercells in OK. There's a nice CU field too. Watch for more storms to develop and potentially track over already affected areas.
 

Mike S

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Live Stream - News9

And I just texted our daughter in Oklahoma reminding her she's not allowed to watch Channel 4/KFOR for severe weather.
 
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