***Update, 2:05 PM CDT:
A severe thunderstorm with a history of producing wind damage is moving East/Southeast at 35-40 mph to the East of Bartlesville at present. Wind gusts as estimated by radar have decreased during the past 15-20 minutes, and are now indicated in the 40-50 mph range.
The storm has also been developing further Westward over time, and it appears likely that at least the Northeast half of the Tulsa area will be impacted by this new development sometime during the 3 o'clock hour. This portion of the storm is not currently severe, but will need to be monitored for strong wind potential as it moves toward the city...
--------------------------------------Original post below:
A severe thunderstorm is moving Southeast at 45 mph. It will be on top of Bartlesville shortly. Very strong, damaging winds are indicated with this storm. The radar has been estimating wind gusts of 70-80 mph consistently for the past 10-15 minutes (as indicated by the brighest green shading on the right half of the above image, just to the Northwest of Bartlesville). Large tree limbs of 4-5 inches in diameter were downed when this storm passed through Cedar Vale and Chautauqua, KS recently. Additional wind damage reports have recently been received from just North of Bigheart in Osage County, Oklahoma as well.
This type of activity occasionally produces brief tornado spin-ups along the leading edge of the storm, however the main threat with this storm will be very strong, potentially damaging winds.
If the storm continues on its present track, it could eventually affect parts of the Tulsa Metro area toward 2:30, particularly the Northeast half of the city. It could also build further southwestward as it advances toward the city... so residents of Tulsa should keep an eye on this storm as it approaches from the Northwest.
5 comments:
I actually sort of enjoy these type storms, as long as there's no spin up. We've slept to thunder and lightening the last two nights. Tends to be the trend around here this time of year I guess.
I wouldn't be too worried about that with this one. I only mentioned the "spin-up" factor earlier because of the tornado warning that had been issued at about the same time by the NWS. In my opinion, that was overkill and shouldn't have been done...
Might be some marginally severe hail and wind gusts of 30-40 mph with the activity that is about to move into Tulsa. Could intensify a bit more, but right now it's looking non-severe...
Rob, what is a "thunderstorm complex" exactly? I ask because it is mentioned in a hazardous weather outlook for our county from Friday-Sunday. They say we may be effected by several of these and I was curious what they are.
That's referring to an organized area of thunderstorms (you could use 'area', 'complex', 'system' or any similar word like that to describe the same thing).
Such a system usually starts out as several isolated or scattered storms in one area that congeal into a larger mass of storms as they progress downstream.
This is exactly what happened last night in Kansas and Oklahoma and is likely to happen again tonight somewhere out over the central Plains.
Such a complex can be severe or non-severe and are often prolific heavy rain producers.
Back in the good ol' days (15-20 years ago) we called such a system a "Mesoscale Convective Complex" or "MCC". Just google that and you'll find a ton of more specific information.
I'll try to work on a post on the topic soon as well, as they are typically more common during the summer months that we are entering...
Thanks!!
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