The Storm Prediction Center in Norman has upgraded the storm threat in northwest Kansas and southwest Nebraska to moderate for Saturday.
Forecasting models are suggesting conditions in that sector will support the development of tornadoes and large hail – as big as baseballs in some cases.
Among the cities included in the moderate are Hays, Stockton, Colby, Hill City, Atwood and Norton.
Suzanne Fortin, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service in Wichita, said she wouldn’t be surprised if the moderate zone for Saturday is eventually increased to include Russell and Rush counties in central Kansas.
Here’s video of the large tornado that struck Cleburne, Texas, last night. It was shot by Paige Burress, a University of Oklahoma student who chases with the group Texas Storm Chasers
The tornado was one of a dozen twisters that struck north Texas Wednesday night, killing 6 and injuring dozens. Another 7 people were still missing Thursday morning. All of the fatalities occurred in the town of Granbury, about 30 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
A preliminary assessment of the Cleburne tornado by the National Weather Service indicates it grew to more than half a mile wide and earned an EF-3 rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale. EF-3 tornadoes have winds of up to 165 miles an hour.
You’ll hear a chaser comparing this tornado to the deadly tornado that wiped out Greensburg, Kansas, on May 4, 2007. Actually, this tornado wasn’t as large or as strong as the Greensburg beast, but the two twisters did have one thing in common: they both took hard left turns to travel straight north late in their tracks.
That left turn to the north took the 2007 tornado right into Greensburg.
The Iowa Environmental Mesonet compiled a compelling map showing how many days it had been since each National Weather Service branch issued a tornado warning. It reflects the extent of the on-going lull in tornado numbers.
…..but I consider a quiet tornado season to be great news.
We’re being spared the death and destruction tornadoes too often cause. It’s only a matter of time before one of nature’s most violent forms of weather returns, but we should be grateful for the lull while it lasts.
Ask the residents of Joplin or Greensburg or Tuscaloosa how much they miss tornadoes.
Kansas hasn’t had such a quiet start to tornado season since the previous century.
Only 4 tornadoes have touched down in the Sunflower State so far in 2013, according to the National Weather Service. None have been near Wichita and all have been weak and short-lived.
It’s the fewest tornadoes to date in the state since 1997.
Meanwhile, Iowa is posed to break its record for longest stretch since a tornado touched down. Thursday marked the 350th day since a tornado touched down. The current record is 355 days, between between May 5, 1955, and April 26, 1956.
The record would be tied on Tuesday and broken on Wednesday.
This is “Tornado Week” on The Weather Channel. Check the network’s listings for programming about tornadoes. The website features a story today about the “Top 10 Tornado Cities.”
Wichita is the only Kansas city on the list. The irony of that is how often I’ve been told over the years that Wichita is “immune” from tornadoes.
As if April 14, 2012, or April 26, 1991, weren’t enough to shatter that myth.
The air felt funny. Unsettled. A quixotic combination of hot and cool, with humidity clinging to me as I walked to my car.
It told me trouble was looming. I drove to the office and urged co-workers to finish their stories as soon as possible, because severe weather was likely later in the day. Some may have heeded my advice. Others probably rolled their eyes and went on with their day.
But forecasters had been warning of the potential for severe weather on that Friday – and the conditions that morning told me they were right.
The tornado that touched down just before 6 p.m. two miles south-southeast of Clearwater wasn’t the first of the day, but it was the worst. It was on the ground for more than an hour, grew to EF5 in intensity – the highest rating on the Fujita Scale – was up to a half-mile wide and traveled 46 miles. Haysville, south Wichita, McConnell Air Force Base and Andover were hit, along with houses in unincorporated areas.
The tornado killed 17 people – 13 of them in the Golden Spur Mobile Home Park in Andover – and injured 225.
This footage is some of the most iconic of the tornado, shot from Terradyne Country Club.
I joined a few co-workers on the south side of the Eagle building, watching the tornado move through south Wichita. It was almost entirely obscured by rain, so it was difficult for us to tell how much damage it was doing. Within minutes, however, I was heading to Broadway and 55th Street South, where a mobile home park had been leveled. I called my initial story in from a pay phone at a heavily damaged convenience store.
Hospitals bracing for injured victims from Haysville and south Wichita wondered why so many wounded were coming from Butler County. It took a while for word to filter in that Andover had been hammered as well.
Here is another video of the Andover tornado, shot from a house on 2nd Street in Andover and first shown only three years ago. The tornado appeared destined to wipe out the heart of Andover before veering to the right. It stayed south of Central for most of its trek, sparing most of the city.
The tornado nonetheless caused an estimated $300 million in damage, including $62 million at McConnell. It was one of 55 tornadoes to touch down that day. A second F5 tornado that raked north-central Oklahoma that day was even more violent than the Haysville-Wichita-Andover tornado. Known as the Red Rock Tornado, it traveled 66 miles and was nearly 1 mile wide. The tornado was so strong it scoured pavement off a highway.
A portable Doppler radar measured 257 to 268 MPH winds inside the vortex. At the time, they were the strongest winds ever measured on Earth.
The warm front is shifting farther north than initially anticipated, prompting the Storm Prediction Center to place more of Kansas under a moderate risk for severe weather today.
“Discrete supercell storms are expected, with a resultant risk of very large hail and a few strong tornadoes,” an SPC statement about the severe weather threat reads.
That means you can expect isolated thunderstorms to pack dangerous potential today.
The moderate zone in Kansas starts just east of Wichita and covers all of southeast Kansas. The southern half of eastern Kansas is included as well.
AccuWeather vice president Mike Smith cautions that some of the tornadoes could form after sunset today, especially in the eastern portions of the threatened area.
Here’s an SPC map depicting the tornado threat. Keep in mind, anything over 5% is pretty substantial. The diagonal lines represent the chances of a tornado happening withing 25 miles of a given point in the highlighted area.
Stay tuned to conditions in your area. Your safety may well depend on it.
