Fall Severe Weather Outbreak

WOW! Take a look at the regional surface map for the southern plains today. (the link is down in yesterday's blog entry)

Southeast winds have transported copious amounts of moisture into the southern plains. Dewpoint temperatures (a measure of the moisture available) are in the upper 60s to middle 70s.

Above the ground at jet stream level, winds are blowing out of the southwest as a storm system moves in along with a cold front.

This change of direction in the wind as you go up in height is called wind shear (southeast at the surface to southwest aloft).

Severe thunderstorms in this area will potentially rotate due to this wind shear and thus there is a pretty good chance for tornadoes today in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

As of 8 am there is already a huge line of showers and storms from Kansas City, MO to Oklahoma City, OK -- as well as a Tornado Watch for most of central OK.

There has already been one intense rain report filed this morning from Butler County, Kansas. The observer 7.5 SW of Leon saw 0.88 inches of rain in one hour with more moving in according to the report. Remember you can look at intense rain or hail reports too by clicking on View Data at the top of the CoCoRaHS page. Then scroll down and click on the report of your choice.

COCORAHS OBSERVER ALERT: Our observers in Missouri, Kansas and esp. Oklahoma need to be alert to changing weather conditions today and if you can safely do so, be prepared to file intense rain and hail reports via CoCoRaHS. Deploy all hailpads in these areas and make sure the rain gauge is ready to measure! Tomorrow this threat may shift to our observers in Illinois and Indiana.

As exciting as the weather can be, and as much as we want any and all repots, please only do so if you can safely.