2024-04-15 EVENT: NE/KS/OK

[Mike Smith]

Gotta love the satellite feed being down. From COD:

That's just the half of it. NWS radar network was down during the night with ~80% of the radars offline (some radars, like ICT's were down but were not shown).

The NWS is literally falling apart. We must have a Natural Disaster Review Board to advise NWS and the administration -- otherwise, things will only get worse.

 

[Matthew Crowther]

New HRRR has the best storm way down by I-20. The 10% hatched tornado zone has very little. As noted above the dryline up north is either retreating or is stationary. Glad I decided to sit this one out.

 

[Dan Robinson]

FYI the PSU site has a good satellite page that is still working:

GOES-EAST REGIONAL PSeUdo-Color IMAGE

 

[Warren Faidley]

Is there going to be live thread for this event to switch to? Might be a good one to practice on.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Satsquatch.com also is pretty decent for satellite data and they have a working feed. The free Unidata AWIPS has been down all weekend, i believe for unrelated issues. I'd go one further and say our country is coming apart and we're watching the managed decline of the USA. I don't know how data outages on what I'd consider a decently weather critical day is going to help their mission of protecting life and property.

 

[Jesse Risley]

Is there going to be live thread for this event to switch to? Might be a good one to practice on.

Yes, @Jeff Duda and I will have a nowcasting event this evening on Zoom. This will be a pilot program to discuss this evening's severe weather event. We will begin at 4 PM MT/5 PM CT/ 6 PM ET. There will be a discussion of the synoptic and mesoscale features of the event, targets, etc. Everyone is welcome to join.

https://zoom.us/j/97977022252

 

[Warren Faidley]

Thanks, I was referring to a live "NOW" thread in ST like we use to do.

 

[Tom Dulong]

The RAP is zeroing in on that area near Childress as well, then exploding the state line area up US83.

Gotta love the satellite feed being down. From COD:

Sat feed back up from COD as of 17:30 UTC

 

[Jamie H]

Thanks, I was referring to a live "NOW" thread in ST like we use to do.

This could also be useful for learning for those of us who lack practical experience.

 

[Dan Robinson]

The environment down along I-20 looks excellent. If a storm goes down there, it will be good. The cap is shown killing it after a couple of hours though. I can't make it down there in time anyway, and going down there is going to make getting back for Tuesday difficult.

It looks like the dryline in Kansas might stay west of the cloud deck. The OUN sounding shows better moisture depth upstream, and that's on the move northbound. Definitely better looking than last night, though it does appear the show will be entirely after dark.

 

[Warren Faidley]

I suggest we just go ahead and make this a NOW thread?

SPC just issued a MSD for the Childress area south, quite a ways. At some distance south, I'm assuming you start losing favorable upper level shear.

 

[Matt Zumbrunn]

I still think a couple supercells are going to blow up in SW KS and some of the CAMs are hinting at it as well. As referenced before the models last time I checked (outside working right now) showed a good environment in the SW KS region. For better or worse I had picked Great Bend, but couldn't make it happen today although if I left now I could still be in position before convection initiates.

 

[John Farley]

Is there going to be live thread for this event to switch to? Might be a good one to practice on.

See Jeff's post at the end of this thread:

ANNOUNCING: live storm chasing commentary (2024)

The next major feature implementation by the Stormtrack staff is live storm chasing commentary. We are aware that there is already a market owner on this, Ryan Hall. What we are proposing is a similar activity - a handful of Stormtrack folks performing live coverage of severe weather events...

stormtrack.org

 

[JamesCaruso]

The environment down along I-20 looks excellent. If a storm goes down there, it will be good. The cap is shown killing it after a couple of hours though. I can't make it down there in time anyway, and going down there is going to make getting back for Tuesday difficult.

It looks like the dryline in Kansas might stay west of the cloud deck. The OUN sounding shows better moisture depth upstream, and that's on the move northbound. Definitely better looking than last night, though it does appear the show will be entirely after dark.

Sweetwater has a less-than-optimal T/Td depression though... Towards Abilene is much better, but east of there the road network and terrain are tough to navigate... I dislike that whole area southeast of Rotan...

Not much convergence on the SW KS portion of the dryline - I think the models handled that fairly well. Maybe a better shot when the dryline retreats later...

CDS looks like a great spot right now as Warren has been saying, but it's still cloud-covered...

NAM3km much more aggressive w/ convection than HRRR, which only has an impressive cell further south in TX.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Cell(s) exploding down near Big Spring. It will be very interesting to see if they rotate and what happens as they move NE. The game is afoot.