2025-05-17 EVENT: OK/TX/KS/AR

[Warren Faidley]

Been watching this classic "pre-day" / sneak attack event for about a week. SPC finally dropped a slight and 2% tornado risk yesterday. I believe this may be upped to a 5% in later outlooks.

An approaching shortwave, front dropping down from KS, well-defined dryline and manageable CIN will do the job. HRRR places updraft helicity in the area after 5pm.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I am targeting northwest OK (will refine target later). Problem is I land in DFW this morning at 11:30 so just hope I can get up there in time. It’s going to be tight and hoping the 12Z HRRR run is right in showing initiation at ~5pm. Hopefully it holds off a little longer and/or boundary placement means I won’t have to get quite as far north and west.

 

[Corey Elsby]

Will definitely have to watch frontal placement during the day. HRRR was also closer to I-40 than Woodward. 12Z NAM is slightly south as well* really will depend how much advects N thru the day. 70 dews currently in S Oklahoma.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Sometimes you see something days in advance and start getting jiggy that it's not being picked-up by the models or the SPC. Well, so much for that. I guess you can say that "sneak attack" mode is now "high awareness" mode. Good to have two targets zones though, hopefully it will thin out the crowds.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Nice wave showing up in S OK at 700mb. Can see evidence on the NAM of big storms blowing up down there and RAP seems to support. Not a lot of LLJ but I think I am going to try and jump on anything along the US70 corridor tonight.

 

[Jason N]

Whats evident out there right now is the environment in Nrn OK right now, compared to down south, not sure how far north this line is going to travel in the next 2-3hrs.


but a beautiful presentation on METSAT on the storm IVO Lindsay OK.



3CAPE and Vorticity lining up well @ 21Z



Probably a wall cloud on this storm... velocities at the time of this image were still not too strong. IVO White bead, OK

 

[Randy Zipser]

As a reminder of the OK Storm Chasing Bill (still pending), both Channel 5 and Channel 9 were on-air when the tornado was caught on video yesterday (May 17) west of I-35 in Garvin County. Here are links for those reports:

https://www.koco.com/article/storm-chaser-nick-smith-captures-tornado-touchdown/64801150

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Made a pretty good forecast and was on the storm that produced the Paul's Valley tornado. Wasn't in a very good position when the tornado touched down. The storm seemed pretty cold before really taking off near I-35.

You can read my full recap here: Storm Chase Log: Pauls Valley Oklahoma Tornado - Ben Holcomb