Monday, May 23, 2011

Severe Weather Update - Oklahoma

A new Tornado Watch has just been issued for northeast and east-central Oklahoma, as well as a part of northwest Arkansas, including the Tulsa area.  It is valid until Midnight.


Thunderstorms have begun to form along an outflow boundary from early morning thunderstorm activity over Osage County, OK.  The image below is the latest radar from the Tulsa area site:


The red dashed line shows the current location of the remainder of the outflow boundary.  Additional thunderstorm development could occur at any time over the next 2 hours along the boundary, including right over or very near Tulsa.

Very large hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes will be possible with any severe storm that forms in this region.  Most of this activity will move Northeast to East/Northeast, but then turn more Eastward over time.

Further West, thunderstorms continue to form over western Oklahoma, in a broken line fashion so far.  Below is the latest radar from the OKC area site:


Very large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes are possible with this activity as it moves Eastward this evening.  A Tornado Watch continues for this region until 10pm CDT:




4 comments:

The Planet Pink said...

So, if I'm understanding right, we have the threat of severe weather from the storms already formed to the west, plus the threat of storms popping up at any point along that boundary line? Ugh. So far the storms along the line have been to the east of us. Is it naive to hope that continues? Also, the tornado watch goes until midnight, but clearly the storms to the west will be past us by then. Is there really a threat of storms along that boundary until midnight? Or is midnight just a conservative expiration time and the main threat will really end earlier? sorry for all the questions. We're still at home trying to decide what to do and the whole watch and wait thing makes me nervous.

The Planet Pink said...

Just replying to myself to subscribe to comments via email. I always forget. :-)

Rob White said...

Planet Pink, if it were me, I'd stay put. Things are popping up all around you and it's starting to look like a big mess. The storm over Osage county heading toward Pawhuska has some organization to it, but that should stay to your North.

If anything tornado-wise were to happen this evening (and I'm not saying it will) in your area, I'd say it would be of the variety that you could "ride out" in your center of the house storm closet.

The stuff out West is remaining isolated / more widely spaced at this time but I still suspect that it will congeal into a larger complex of storms by the time it arrives in your area.

We'll know a lot more about how things are trending for this evening by about 7 o'clock.

As far as the watch expiration times, they are usually for 6-8 hour intervals and since they can be easily cancelled and/or replaced anytime during the valid time, I wouldn't worry too much about that specific ending time.

The Planet Pink said...

Thank you so much! Your advice really helps!