April 2nd-5th. Severe Weather Outbreak Round 2

[Iowawx]

Still time for things to get going, but as of now, this could be a bust around here. Warm front has not moved through, only sitting at 62 now, and clouds have hung around all day. 

Radar doesn't look all that impressive right now.

[Hawkeye]

Models were never super bullish for much of southeast Iowa.  The cap was going to be an issue.  It would not surprise me a bit if Cedar Rapids and Iowa City get little or nothing.  The cold front storms later tonight should be weakening as they move in.

[East Dubzz]

2 minutes ago, Iowawx said:

Still time for things to get going, but as of now, this could be a bust around here. Warm front has not moved through, only sitting at 62 now, and clouds have hung around all day. 

Radar doesn't look all that impressive right now.

Any chance we can still get some nice storms without the crazy stuff? That’s what I’ve been hoping for haha

[East Dubzz]

It seems like the tornado watch here got replaced with a severe thunderstorm watch.

[Hawkeye]

The strong storm southeast of Des Moines is now tornado-warned.

[Hawkeye]

52 minutes ago, Iowawx said:

Warm front has not moved through, only sitting at 62 now, and clouds have hung around all day. 

Yes, it appears models overestimated the warm front's northward push.  It has been nearly stationary this afternoon and evening.  CR/IC have been stuck in the 50s.

[Hawkeye]

There must be some huge hail from that cell east of Des Moines.  It should pass to the nw of Cedar Rapids.

[East Dubzz]

Doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything from this line of storms. Maybe the one later tonight behind it?

[Hawkeye]

The central Iowa supercell has moved north of the warm front, into the colder air.  It appears to be on a weakening trend.

[East Dubzz]

Welp, heard a fouled rumbles of thunder, but it appears that’s all we’re going to get out of this round of storms. No idea if those other ones further west will make it here or not?

[ToastedRavs]

Got on the first TOR warned storm in Southern Iowa. Tough to keep up with but got these shots in SE Warren County/SW Marion. Looking north from Melcher-Dallas

[East Dubzz]

Some nice storms formed to the west by about 20ish miles. Can see the lighting. 

[Anti Marine Layer]

1 hour ago, ToastedRavs said:

Got on the first TOR warned storm in Southern Iowa. Tough to keep up with but got these shots in SE Warren County/SW Marion. Looking north from Melcher-Dallas

Nice tornado. Looks drought struck.

[Timmy Supercell]

All of a sudden we just warped to a week in late May.. I'm not ready for lows in the 60's.

These convective outlooks were almost a repeat of Fri/Sat, hopefully not as widespread on the reports. This will be my 2nd time in less than a week my city is in a Slight Risk. We missed the brunt of last one, only a couple medium size trees in Central Park have been downed here and we have not had any power outages on this block so far.

[Timmy Supercell]

Some of the storms have been hitting early in the morning hours, it's hard to get even a few minutes of video of these. On April Fool's (around 3:30?) we had a cloud-ground strike near the street and it sounded like cases of dynamite exploding when it banged. lol

[Phil]

11 minutes ago, Timmy Supercell said:

Some of the storms have been hitting early in the morning hours, it's hard to get even a few minutes of video of these. On April Fool's (around 3:30?) we had a cloud-ground strike near the street and it sounded like cases of dynamite exploding when it banged. lol

Did you get much wind with the April fools day storm? We had gusts near hurricane force with the pressure surge and mountain waves behind the front.

Was enough to make our ears pop while indoors. Last time we had winds that strong was March 2nd 2018.

[Timmy Supercell]

1 minute ago, Phil said:

Did you get much wind with the April fools day storm? We had gusts near hurricane force with the pressure surge and mountain waves behind the front.

Was enough to make our ears pop while indoors. Last time we had winds that strong was March 2nd 2018.

Some post-frontal winds yes, 50-60mph in parts of the area. At my immediate location not as strong as winds I thought I heard early on 3/24 with a northwesterly squall line at the same time of morning. Those were actually outflow gusts, I was convinced I'd be out of power for a few hours but I lucked out. 

[Phil]

7 minutes ago, Timmy Supercell said:

Some post-frontal winds yes, 50-60mph in parts of the area. At my immediate location not as strong as winds I thought I heard early on 3/24 with a northwesterly squall line at the same time of morning. Those were actually outflow gusts, I was convinced I'd be out of power for a few hours but I lucked out. 

Fascinating how different things are on that side of the mountains.

Yeah I’m shocked we didn’t lose power either. Those gusts managed to rip a roof off a building in DC and shake cars enough to trigger their alarms, but lights didn’t even flicker. The trees here are very accustomed to strong NW winds but even I’m impressed how well they held up.

[Hawkeye]

A decent line of storms moved through over the last hour and dropped pea size hail.

[Clinton]

I got woke up to some golf ball sized hail at 1:30 this morning, it didn't last real long but hoping it didn't do any damage.  I will have to look things over real good when the sun comes up.  Rainfall amounts were better than I thought they would be I picked up .58 inches. 

[Clinton]

The Ohio Valley and lower lakes region is under the gun today.  Better moisture and shear could lead to some rare early April tornados in Michigan.

Day 1 Convective Outlook  
   NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
   1252 AM CDT Wed Apr 05 2023

   Valid 051200Z - 061200Z

   ...THERE IS AN ENHANCED RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS FROM LOWER MI
   ACROSS THE MIDDLE/LOWER OH VALLEY INTO THE MID-SOUTH...

   ...SUMMARY...
   Scattered severe storms posing a risk for tornadoes and large hail
   are expected in a corridor across eastern Illinois through Lower
   Michigan today. Additional thunderstorms accompanied by potentially
   damaging wind gusts, hail, and a few tornadoes are possible from
   Ohio Valley into the Lower Mississippi Valley.

   ...Synopsis...
   Current satellite imagery shows deep upper troughing across the
   western CONUS, with a strong shortwave trough moving through the
   northern/central Plains. This shortwave is expected to continue
   northeastward into western Ontario while maturing into a deep
   mid-latitude cyclone. A large area of enhanced southwesterly flow
   aloft will accompany this cyclone, stretching from the southern
   Plains into the Upper Great Lakes/OH Valley. 

   Surface low associated with this cyclone is currently over central
   IA. Expectation is for this low to progress quickly
   north-northeastward into WI while occluding. An additional
   triple-point low is forecast to progress more northeastward, taking
   it across northern Lower MI and into northeastern Ontario. An
   associated cold front, which will likely extend from southern WI
   southwestward through the TX Hill Country during the early morning,
   will progress eastward/southeastward. As it does, it will interact
   with a broad warm sector that extends across much the MS and OH
   Valleys, supporting numerous thunderstorms throughout the day.

   ...IL to OH and Lower MI...
   Thunderstorms will likely be ongoing ahead of a composite outflow
   boundary at the start of the period, which is expected to extend
   from northern Lower MI southwestward into northern IL. An early
   morning hail risk is possible ahead of this boundary from eastern IL
   into southern Lower MI, where prefrontal storms should encounter an
   environment characterized by steep mid-level lapse rates and strong
   vertical shear. Some tornado risk would exist with these storms as
   well, particularly if a semi-discrete mode can be realized later
   into the morning when surface temperatures should be slightly
   warmer. Strong low- to mid-level flow will support a damaging wind
   gust potential with both the prefrontal storms and more linear
   development along the composite outflow.

   Some additional development is possible over this region later in
   the afternoon as the primary cold front pushes through. Strong wind
   fields will be in place, leading to some potential for damaging
   gusts. However, only limited air-mass recovery is expected, and
   mid-level temperatures will likely be relatively warm from the
   preceding convection. These factors are currently expected to keep
   storm coverage limited. 

[East Dubzz]

My rain gauge isn’t in the best spot, but it seems to have picked up on about .30” of rain last night. Slightly more - maybe like .32”, which seems in line with what DBQ is reporting, so maybe it is pretty close.

[Black Hole]

Nothing happened for me in Tulsa, unsurprisingly. Some good storms to my east again though. Looks quiet for a while now. 

[Tom]

Just an unbelievable amount of snow that fell in Wasatch Mtn's of UT near Park City, up by Alta, UT, they got 67" over the last few days.  I read that this part of the mountain range gets dumped on from enhanced snowfall from the Great Salt Lake when winds veer NW.  

 

[westMJim]

A quick recap of this morning’s rain/storms. Not really much in the way of storms here this morning. There was a couple flashes of lightning and one good clap of thunder. Fast moving clouds and several short periods of heavy rain fall. From 7 AM until now there was a total of 0.40” of rain fall here in MBY.

The current temperature here in MBY is 68. So far it looks like the official high at Grand Rapids is 67, Lansing 64, Muskegon 66, Holland 68, At Detroit it is much warmer at 79, Several locations in far SE Michigan are in the mid to upper 70’s At Flint and Saginaw the high so far is 67. While there are some locations in northern Lower at around 60 over at Alpena it is a much colder 40, At the Sault the high so far is just 36. At Gaylord there was still 9” of snow on the ground while at the Sault there was 20”  Marquette still has 37” on the ground.

Here are a couple of web cams from the UP

https://www.mtu.edu/webcams/view/

and 

https://www.exploremunising.com/web-cams/

 

[Clinton]

Sad news from SE Missouri this morning.  5 killed by early morning EF 2 tornado.

https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/tornado-in-southeast-missouri-causes-fatalities-injuries

[Clinton]

On 4/3/2023 at 8:51 PM, Andie said:

Your map reminds me of an article I read a few days ago addressing how “tornado alley” has shifted.  
The spring storms in Texas have changed recently. They’re less prone to circulation.  We get more threat of hail than anything and often it isn’t as bad as forecast.  

I would love for someone to weigh into why tornado alley has moved east after being in the center of the country for so long. And is it long term or a brief anomaly? 
 

 

Lots of articles coming out now about tornado alley shifting east.  Over the last 40 years there has been a significant increase in tornados east of the classic "Tornado Alley" with a slight decrease in Tornado Alley itself.  Seems most scientist favor the idea that Tornado Alley is expanding more so than shifting.  I found this article interesting.

https://abc7ny.com/where-is-tornado-alley-moving-east-climate-change-weather/13085938/

[Timmy Supercell]

This is some pretty broken up stuff in far eastern KY. But we are getting some thunderstorm activity and outflow winds. Main line is hardly even there now though.

[Timmy Supercell]

50 minutes ago, Clinton said:

Lots of articles coming out now about tornado alley shifting east.  Over the last 40 years there has been a significant increase in tornados east of the classic "Tornado Alley" with a slight decrease in Tornado Alley itself.  Seems most scientist favor the idea that Tornado Alley is expanding more so than shifting.  I found this article interesting.

https://abc7ny.com/where-is-tornado-alley-moving-east-climate-change-weather/13085938/

It had to have started at least in the 1970's with the Super Outbreak featuring Kentucky's only F5 tornado in history. A few have gotten close to that rating since, like Mayfield, but still. 

[Phil]

2 hours ago, Timmy Supercell said:

This is some pretty broken up stuff in far eastern KY. But we are getting some thunderstorm activity and outflow winds. Main line is hardly even there now though.

Early spring climo is tough near/east of the Appalachians. A month from now we’ll be rockin’.

[Andie]

3 hours ago, Clinton said:

Lots of articles coming out now about tornado alley shifting east.  Over the last 40 years there has been a significant increase in tornados east of the classic "Tornado Alley" with a slight decrease in Tornado Alley itself.  Seems most scientist favor the idea that Tornado Alley is expanding more so than shifting.  I found this article interesting.

https://abc7ny.com/where-is-tornado-alley-moving-east-climate-change-weather/13085938/

Lots of Mets weighing in on the drought and how the lack of moisture has moved the storm center and tornados east. 
Once that drought is over it will move back. No idea when that will be.  

This has been a dry spring east of Dallas.  I’m expecting another hot dry summer.  
57*
Humidity up some  42%
 

 

 

[Timmy Supercell]

29 minutes ago, Phil said:

Early spring climo is tough near/east of the Appalachians. A month from now we’ll be rockin’.

Funny how uniform the lines stayed during the Dec '21 storms out here or Feb '22. 

[Stormy]

I'm a day late, but that line of storms had mostly dissipated till it got here the previous night except for a few cells, one of which actually moved overhead just after 1:00 am. Had a brief downpour, decent lightning, gusty winds and some hail up to penny sized. It became severe-warned overhead. System total rainfall only 0.22". Kind of meager as expected.

It finally reached 71⁰ after dark as the warm front just made it here the evening prior and it stayed at 70⁰ till the storm/cf blew through. The next town 12-15 miles south was over 20⁰ warmer for awhile!