April 24-30th Severe Potential

[hlcater]

Agreed. Busts happen... it's a part of forecasting. SPC puts themselves out there every day... and the one event that there was a tornado bust on, people like him are on them as if it's a regular occurrence. Luckily NWS/SPC have developed thick skin and they don't let the criticism cause them to be excessively conservative in the future because that's when busts are really dangerous.

 

This also makes sense, while I wouldn't say I'm mad about the PDS watch, If I were in their shoes I would've gone 60/40 for tornadoes instead of 90/80. That being said, I do think that high end of a watch was unjustified, and at the end of the day it is there decision and not mine and I have to respect their decision considering they could have possibly been playing it safe in case the cells were able to remain discrete. It is better to bust over than to bust under with inadequate warning/preparation.

[wildwestpb]

As someone who lived through and lost his neighborhood , and almost lost his entire family to the May 3rd, '99 storm, I am happy with a bust.
I don't fault SPC for forecasting as they did, it was a very difficult set of conditions today.
I would rather have a bust from something overforecast, than being underforecast and it become an extremely life threatening system.

[ClicheVortex2014]

This also makes sense, while I wouldn't say I'm mad about the PDS watch, If I were in their shoes I would've gone 60/40 for tornadoes instead of 90/80. That being said, I do think that high end of a watch was unjustified, and at the end of the day it is there decision and not mine and I have to respect their decision considering they could have possibly been playing it safe in case the cells were able to remain discrete. It is better to bust over than to bust under with inadequate warning/preparation.

The thing is, too, the people at SPC have been doing this for a loooooooooooooooooooooong time. Dr. Forbes also predicted a tornado outbreak, and he's been in the field of severe weather for over 40 years now. What we were talking about here is obviously no secret to them; they obviously took these things into consideration.

[NC_hailstorm]

More hype and hysteria as usual,TWC been hyping this up for the last 5 days.

Nice squall line though.

[Amped]

Is the tornado threat over? I mean outside of a few brief spin ups.

Slim chance one of the cells on the south end of the line outside the watch box will spin up something impressive.

[Cypress]

IMO it is inexcusable and downright maddening that the SPC went forward with these forecasts. We have all talked on here for days about the problems and sure enough it all came to fruition as we had nothing but messy storm modes throughout the afternoon and now have everything going linear. To issue such dire forecasts with talk of even a high risk and a PDS Tornado Watch was absolutely ridiculous

 

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/reports/

 (over 300 at post time)

 

[OUGrad05]

16 year old learning here. Are those bad or good?

Bad, the VBV profile is even worse than the models showed,

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[Amped]

Please send me the lottery numbers!!!

Everyone knows it will be a bust after the fact. I think everyone expected more than 2 Tornado reports today even though the setup was far from perfect.

 

Luckily we had a few decent events in February.

[jojo762]

Bad, the VBV profile is even worse than the models showed,

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I'd say it is about the same for OUN as what as modeled... DFW is worse though by a little bit.

[SouthernNJ]

Not sure if it did anything, but TOKC showed a circulation

very low near Mustang and western OKC between 8:05

and 8:13 CDT.

[ClicheVortex2014]

Everyone knows it will be a bust after the fact. I think everyone expected more than 2 Tornado reports today even though the setup was far from perfect.

 

Luckily we had a few decent events in February.

And in November. And December.

 

This event has made me excited for the summer severe season. Hope the current summer forecasts verify.

[Jim Marusak]

Agreed. Busts happen... it's a part of forecasting. SPC puts themselves out there every day... and the one event that there was a tornado bust on, people like him are on them as if it's a regular occurrence. Luckily NWS/SPC have developed thick skin and they don't let the criticism cause them to be excessively conservative in the future because that's when busts are really dangerous.

agreed, it's something professional forecasters face every day. we don't like it when we bust, we absolutely hate it. but one of the things the better forecasters do is learn from the mistake, take notes (mental or otherwise), and learn from it for next time something similar happens. 

 

as for a bust today, yes the tornado portion busted. but as for the number of wind and hail reports to this point, those in and of themselves look like enough to consider the moderate risk should be confirmed.

[SluggerWx]

Tornado in NE OKC Metro - by all indications on RADAR it's pretty significant rotation.

Edit: confirmed

[SluggerWx]

Actually there could be two.

[hlcater]

Another thing of note, Did any models have the morning convection over NE KS and NW MO evolving into an MCS? I didn't see it anywhere on the models and it somewhat caught me off guard. It's still going out in KY, albeit decaying.

[LocoAko]

Tornado in NE OKC Metro - by all indications on RADAR it's pretty significant rotation.

Edit: confirmed

 

Yep. Had a debris signature in all of the dual-pol variables and everything. Pretty impressive for a QLCS. Circulation passed right by me in OKC but luckily wasn't too tight at the time.

 

 

Edit: Still looks to be on the ground in latest KTLX scan. 

[nwohweather]

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Absolutely not. As an experienced chaser who has intercepted multiple tornadoes I have enough forecasting experience to make such statements. Bottom line is if someone without a met tag would have posted such forecasts they would have been labeled a weenie instantly lol.

I agree busts happen and we all know that and I don't expect those guys to be perfect. However media outlets and the SPC should have shown much more caution instead of going guns blazing with a PDS Watch

[Chicago Storm]

Another thing of note, Did any models have the morning convection over NE KS and NW MO evolving into an MCS? I didn't see it anywhere on the models and it somewhat caught me off guard. It's still going out in KY, albeit decaying.

Most guidance had it.

[MattPetrulli]

Absolutely not. As an experienced chaser who has intercepted multiple tornadoes I have enough forecasting experience to make such statements. Bottom line is if someone without a met tag would have posted such forecasts they would have been labeled a weenie instantly lol.

I agree busts happen and we all know that and I don't expect those guys to be perfect. However media outlets and the SPC should have shown much more caution instead of going guns blazing with a PDS Watch

The only weenies are NE snowlovers and don't get me started on that. I mean, I can see why they issued it. It's probably better to be over busted instead of under busted since at the time OUN soundings didn't show the VBV as much as forecasted and we had discrete cells going up in OK. 

[MattPetrulli]

I'm an amateur forecaster. This is a hard bust for me, but hey always learn from your mistakes. Can't ignore that VBV next time. 

[jojo762]

The only weenies are NE snowlovers and don't get me started on that. I mean, I can see why they issued it. It's probably better to be over busted instead of under busted since at the time OUN soundings didn't show the VBV as much as forecasted and we had discrete cells going up in OK. 

It was a really tough forecast, and they really just made their best guess on it given how things had evolved. They knew that everything would become linear eventually, just expected more time in which storms would be discrete, and therefore would tap into the increasing low-level wind fields in the evening.

[hlcater]

Most guidance had it.

Thanks, I was focused so much on the plains threat I must've missed the MCS in the east.

[MattPetrulli]

It was a really tough forecast, and they really just made their best guess on it given how things had evolved. They knew that everything would become linear eventually, just expected more time in which storms would be discrete, and therefore would tap into the increasing low-level wind fields in the evening.

Probably the toughest forecast I've had. 

[cgidd8]

This is the best of what I got today. Taken just west of Cache, Oklahoma facing the northwest.

[MattPetrulli]

This is the best of what I got today. Taken just west of Cache, Oklahoma facing the northwest.

Rainwrapped wall cloud close to the ground was a common sight today. Nice shot though. 

[Misstertwister]

Bad, the VBV profile is even worse than the models showed,

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So by bad, you mean you're disappointed because the VBV profiles negate tornadoes

Whereas bad to me is good cause I don't want tornadoes

[Misstertwister]

Are we all really that surprised. I know tors can happen in the Plains and serious events too but more often than not the environment is so ripe that storms explode and go linear quickly.

I think the main reason we didn't get much if any discrete cells was due to the fact that Gary England hardly commented on this the last 7 days so he knew!!

[rolltide_130]

Are we all really that surprised. I know tors can happen in the Plains and serious events too but more often than not the environment is so ripe that storms explode and go linear quickly.

I think the main reason we didn't get much if any discrete cells was due to the fact that Gary England hardly commented on this the last 7 days so he knew!!

 

Not trying to be that guy, but it's an issue of the wind profiles, not instability, that causes storms to go linear quickly. 

[Dsnowx53]

It was a really tough forecast, and they really just made their best guess on it given how things had evolved. They knew that everything would become linear eventually, just expected more time in which storms would be discrete, and therefore would tap into the increasing low-level wind fields in the evening.

 

 

With the large cut-off low and thus very meridional flow, the flow was very much parallel to the front, which is exactly the opposite of what you want for discrete convection. It was a classic linear setup. I'll be honest, I was very perplexed as to why a PDS tornado watch was issued.

 

Of course, the mod risk will still verify as this was a great setup for hail. 

[BuffaloWeather]

Does anyone know why the NWS issued a PDS watch for strong tornadoes a few hours before the event started when everyone here on this forum could tell it wasn't going to be a big time tornadic outbreak? Is there something you guys were seeing that wasn't evident to them?