Posted on 05/20/2019 5:37:16 AM PDT by cba123
Update (6 a.m. Monday): In an outlook issued early Monday morning, the National Weather Service stated a tornado outbreak is expected across the southern plains, including much of Oklahoma and parts of Texas throughout the day and into the overnight hours.
Forecasters have the Tulsa and Oklahoma City metro areas in "moderate" risk categories for severe weather, with a rarely used "high" risk area stretching from west Oklahoma City to roughly Snyder, Texas. A tornado risk exists across an arc from west Texas to the Oklahoma-Missouri-Arkansas border, but the "high" risk area carries greater chances for violent, long-track tornadoes.
Please see link for full story.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
And this data includes denser population, better radar and more observers than in the past.
My perception is that the most severe storms are moving south and east of the tornado belt.
From my many years in Oklahoma, the really bad tornadoes are rated EF-U.
" ...SUMMARY...
An outbreak of tornadoes, some potentially long-track and violent, is expected today into this evening over portions of northwest Texas into western and central Oklahoma. More-isolated but still potentially dangerous severe weather, including tornadoes and destructive winds and hail, is possible in surrounding parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas."
Seeing other forecasters suggesting things making me believe this could be the worst day since Alabama's April 27, 2011 outbreak.
Or RF-U
(R = “really”)
Experienced some weather near Enid, once.
Ugh, my niece and her husband live in Lawton, OK right in the center of that mess...
It’s the proper term for multiple tornadoes in a single day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_outbreak
Very unusual step, but probably the right call under the circumstances. Some of the supercells will be moving through the OKC area in mid-to-late afternoon, about the same time kids would be getting on school buses to go home.
One of the worst school-related tornado disasters occurred in Belvidere, IL in April 1967. A powerful twister plowed into the high school as students were loading onto buses and heading home; the death toll was even higher than a school in Murphysboro, IL that devastated by the Great Tri-State Tornado in 1925: https://addins.wrex.com/blogs/weather/2011/04/remembering-the-1967-belvidere-tornado
Obviously, officials in OKC are trying to avoid a repeat of that tragedy by keeping the kids at home. However, I have not heard of other systems (outside Oklahoma City) that have closed schools for the day. I would predict that many of them will send students home at mid-day or early afternoon, before the worst of the weather arrives.
Update: dozens of public school systems, community colleges, churches, and public service organizations across Oklahoma are closed today, or will cease operations around mid-day, ahead of the expected severe weather outbreak: https://kfor.com/weather/closings/
Seems kind a like trying to predict an earthquake in someways
Told my daughter not to drive back to DFW from Lubbock today. Too risky.
Ah, but we must ask, how many earthquakes should be considered acceptable and what level of CO2 in the atmosphere will get us there?
It’s true that better observation bunmps up the tornado numbers but the bump is mostly in EF-1 and EF-0 which would have been ignored in the past. You are also correct that the severe tornadoes are forming further east. They say the dry line is moving east but that’s probably a long term weather pattern that could switch back.
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3750771/posts
Good call. Better to stay safe.
Weather looking not bad in Fallstown thus far.
TXnMA
I am on the other thread but have roots in Wichita Falls
The weather channel said they will be live all today , tonight and tomorrow
here is another thread
Got a brother down on Lake Fork. He is tired of it.
Coming right at you is a nasty cell passing north of Springfield.
We’re hunkered...
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