Another potent day on tap for most of Western OK and down in to parts of North Central Texas as a dryline will move to along the eastern TX Panhandle/OK state line, and a warm from is lifting north across Oklahoma.

The warm front is currently situated along the I40 corridor with what we call a triple point (where the warm front intersects the dryline) currently in the vicinity of Wheeler County, TX.

The northward extent of severe weather will be tempered by the eventual location of the warm front by mid-late afternoon, but even farther south along the dryline, isolated monster supercells capable of extreme size hail larger than baseballs, strong tornadoes and damaging winds will still be possible.  Storms following the warm front in particular should be especially dangerous!

Today has the potential to be yet another tornado outbreak for much of Oklahoma and even parts of North Central Texas.  Everyone have your weather radios on today and pay attention to local media sources.   Storms will be moving much slower today than they did during the last outbreak on Monday, which means you may have more lead time on warnings, but this unfortunately also means that giant hail and tornadoes will have more time over a given area to do more damage.

I’ll be heading out the door shortly for far western Oklahoma, and will be streaming LIVE this afternoon on the LIVE ChaseCam, with AUDIO!

Very potent severe weather day is shaping up for the Texas Panhandle and South Plains area with the possibility of tornadoes and hail to the size of softballs!

Morning surface analysis shows dewpoints in the upper 50s across the area, which is more that sufficient moisture in the higher terrain of West Texas up on the caprock to get good storms going and forecast models show this increasing into the 60s by late today.

A dryline should tighten up near the Texas/New Mexico state line by afternoon and provide a focus for storms to initiate.  Additionally, some old outflow boundaries from previous convection could also provide a focus, especially anywhere those intersect the dryline.

Wind profiles should increase favorably for supercell development as the day wears on. RUC forecast model shows more than sufficient instability for tall, strong storms of the type to produce very large hail,  and the low level EHI (Energy Helicity Index) has a nice bullseye just west of Lubbock by 22z.  Any supercells today that interact with any of these  boundaries will certainly be capable of producing tornadoes, maybe even a strong one.

From a storm chasing perspective, at least the storm motions will be relatively slow so they should be easy to keep up with.

People living in the area should have your weather radios on today, and tune in to KCBD 11 for up to the minute information if you are on the South Plains in the Lubbock viewing area.

I will be out in the field by early afternoon streaming live on the LIVE ChaseCam page!  Be safe today everyone!

I had no time to get a forecast posted yesterday as I had to get on the road. Initially targeted Wheeler County, TX for storm initiation but got tempted by the triple point up on the OK/KS border and incredible cape, and was concerned about the cloud debris inhibiting heating further south.   Short story was, I bailed from the outflow dominant storm at the KS border and caught the tail end charlie storm at Clinton, OK just in time to get the tornado in the video above crossing over I40.  When things finally settle down I will post more in-depth recaps of the better days.

Today will take me to the Permian Basin, Trans-Pecos region, one of my favorite chase areas because of the photops the terrain provides with the storms.  Warm front is hanging out down there and shear is sufficient for a couple of supercells and perhaps a tornado or two.  In fact, there is already a Severe Thunderstorm Watch out for the area north of where I am going for the elevated hailers underway currently, north of the front.

I will of course be streaming live this afternoon on the LIVE ChaseCam page.

No time to post much of an update from yesterday.  Chased the central part of Oklahoma and ended up on the Moore tornado that is all over the news, so you probably already know what happened there.  Last stop was the massive damage on I40 east of  Tinker Air Force Base.  When things settle down I have a ton of pics and video.

Today presents one of my favorite chase opportunities that involves a nice slow moving boundary, ample moisture and heating and slow storm speeds.  While there is a stout cap that could prevent storms from forming, should one form near the boundary it could be a repeat offender in the tornado department.  Since I am already near the target area and planning to be out here chasing tomorrow too, might as well give it a shot.  I’ll be live streaming later this afternoon on the Live ChaseCam page.

Today is one of those days when it’s hard to be excited about chasing. Storm Prediction Center has issued a high risk for a large portion of Oklahoma and southern Kansas, and more than one long track, violent tornado is a distinct possibility. Hail could be larger than baseballs.

While I’m certainly excited by what Mother Nature may have to offer for viewing, I’m equally apprehensive about the fact that someone is likely to lose life and property today. If you live in these areas, be certain to have your weather radios and to be paying attention to live news sources, because once storms fire, things are going to be happening quickly and storms will be moving fast. Have your plan now, because warning times are going to be short and you may not have much time to react.

I’m heading out to Oklahoma today to chase this set up, of course. But I expect it will be difficult to due to fast storm motion and what is sure to be a very large amount of storm chasers on the road.

Shortly after noon, I will be live streaming video for the remainder of the day on the LIVE ChaseCam page.

Storm Prediction Center has issued a HIGH RISK for Arkansas for this evening, with a high threat for tornadoes. The above graphic indicates the highest tornado threat currently.

PEOPLE IN AND NEAR ARKANSAS NEED TO HAVE YOUR WEATHER RADIOS ON, AND TUNED IN TO LIVE NEWS SOURCES NOW!

Numerous tornadic storms are across Arkansas right now. They are fast moving, most likely concealed in rain and darkness.  DO NOT HESITATE TO TAKE SHELTER if you are put under a TORNADO WARNING.

One particular tornadic storm is threatening Little Rock right now, and has reportedly already caused damage and injuries in the East End area south of Little Rock.

I’ll update this post as I have more info.

04/30/10 8:46PM CDT  UNCONFIRMED: Fatalities reported in Conway and Van Buren Counties.

04/30/10 8:56 PM CDT I40 closed near county line of Lonoke/Polaski County line on east side of Little Rock due to debris on hwy.

04/30/10 9:01 PM CDT  Arkansas Emergency Management confirming 3 fatalities in Scotland in Van Buren County.  Also 25 serious injuries and countless minor injuries.  They report this is the most serious damage they are aware of at this time.

04/30/10 9:16 PM CDT  East End, AR near Little Rock is confirmed hit hard by tornado.  Fire Dept. was hit. Likely the only FD there, as it’s a small community. Fire truck was damaged and trapped in the station. Firefighters took shelter in the bathroom and survived.  Major gas leak in the area.

04/30/10 9:27 PM CDT Polaski County Sheriff’s Office reports major damage in the SE part of the county near 530.  Reporting houses destroyed but not injuries or fatalaties at this time.

04/30/10 9:43 PM CDT Image of Fire Department in  East End, AR

04/30/10 10:29 PM CDT  National Guard has been dispatched to East End, AR.  More tornadic storms headed directly at that area now!

04/30/10 10:54 PM CDT Saline County  multiple homes were damaged, some people were trapped, 8 injured, 1 critical. Trees are hindering access to damage.

04/30/10 11:09 PM CDT Forestry Crews are being dispatched to the hardest hit areas because of so much tree damage causing difficulty for emergency crews getting to the area.

04/30/10 11:25 PM CDT  EM from Conway County, AR reporting damage in that county is confined to the north and west part of the county.  A door to door search is being done in the Center Ridge area.

04/30/10 11:30 PM CDT National Guard deploying 50 troops to Scotland and 50 to East End, AR to help with search and rescue and security.

05/01/10 12:48 AM CDT  All tornado warnings for Arkansas have finally expired.  This concludes the ongoing updates for this blog post.

Severe Weather potential in the Texas Panhandle heats up today with a nice boundary hanging out in the area oriented NW to SE across the area.  Ample moisture is in place and adequate wind shear through elevation in the atmosphere are plenty adequate for supercell development.  Rotation will be enhanced on any storms near this boundary, I expect there will be a tornado or two on any storm that can take advantage of that.  I’ll be heading out here shortly, and streaming live video today on the LIVE ChaseCam.

Anyone 75 miles either side of a line from Tulia to Crowell, TX should pay close attention to developing weather today, as the boundary should be in that general area.  Very large hail is also a significant threat today.

Usually be this time in April, we have had a severe weather episode or two across West Texas. So far this year that has been pretty much non-existent so far this spring, but that looks like it will change today.

Getting moisture back in west Texas at the same time as upper dynamics that are favorable for severe weather has been difficult to achieve.  That, combined with a stout warm layer above the surface, known as the “cap”, which can suppress thunderstorm development.  It almost seems as though our typical climatological weather patterns are running about 30 days behind schedule.  Something I think we can attribute to the strong El Nino that brought us so many winter events.

While we can expect some low end severe weather across parts of west Texas today, it should be confined to low end severe hail and possibly a high wind event or two.  Tornado potential is extremely low due to the weak wind fields throughout all layers of the atmosphere.  However, there should be enough instability, and that aforementioned cap is weak today, that this should allow for quite a few multi-cell storms to develop.  The instability could be enough to allow strong enough updrafts for the hail formation.

The good news is a fair part of the area today could see some meaningful rainfall!  I’m thinking of areas along and south of a line from Cochran to Childress county.  Multicell storms during the day should form into an MCS late this evening/tonight that should propagate south/southeast into the Permain Basin and Concho Valley.

For my storm chasing purposes, I’m mostly hopefully for some good lightning photo ops tonight!

Not much showing up on the long term weather models for any large scale severe weather events ANYWHERE in the plains in the next week or so.  Some smaller scale processes could contribute to an event or two here and there, but those can’t be resolved on long term models.

This one is promising some impressive snow totals, as much as 8″ in Oklahoma, perhaps even more!  This could be crippling for the Oklahoma City metro area.

Already Winter Storm Watches and Warnings as well as Winter Storm Advisories are up across all of Northwest Texas, the eastern half of New Mexico, and most of Oklahoma and Kansas!

Light snow is already falling in some locations and blizzard conditions will exist in some places.  Some locations will most likely set new records for total winter snowfall during this event!

Below are images from the National Weather Service Forecast Offices in Lubbock and Amarillo, TX as well as Norman, OK depicting the current forecast totals.

Now is the time to take your winter weather preparations and safety precautions.

One of Dryline Media’s chasers, Connor McCrory from texasstormchasers.com scored 3 tornadoes, one was this nicely back-lit tornado near Arapaho, which is north of Clinton, OK along I40.

Another Dryline Media chaser, Erik Burns, also scored those tornadoes as well (he’s still working on getting me the video).

EDIT TO ADD: My friend and storm chaser Jason Boggs from Amarillo also got some great tornado video in Oklahoma yesterday as well as you can see here:

A little further north, some longer lived tornadoes were captured by other storm chasers. One tornado that was on the ground over 30 minutes, ended up doing damage in Hammon, OK.  Andy Gabrielson caught this amazing video right next to the damage as it was happening!  Fortunately, reports are that no one was injured.

Another similar shot for tornadoes in Missouri tomorrow!

Storm Chase season has begun!