2026-04-23 Event: IA/MO/KS/OK/TX

[Dan Robinson]

I didn't look at this day at all beforehand, but there was a pretty obvious boundary those storms were firing right on top of. The radar loop almost had a Jarrell-esque look with updrafts unzipping back to the west on the boundary as the tornado was ongoing. I thought we'd be seeing more tornado reports from those new updrafts, but as of yet haven't heard if any others actually produced.

 

[William Monfredo]

It appeared the Enid storm's updraft was right on the boundary with the hook on the western flank of the storm.

Nice point about the radar images & the positioning of features. I also noticed that last year to good effect...
for example...during the hybrid event on June 16th, south of North Platte, the Wellfleet/Dickens, NE tornadoes.

 

[Randy Zipser]

The attachment below shows a neat satellite depiction from GOES-EAST of the Cbs exploding over NE KS, SE NE and NW IA during the afternoon of 2026-04-23. I could not find a similar satellite sequence online for the OK tornadic storms, however I did see a brief video clip of that on WeatherNation this afternoon, so this does exist; on that graphic, the dryline, cold front, and triple-point were also displayed for reference. If anyone on ST knows where to access and can post the OK satellite imagery, I'd be most appreciative.

Daily | CIRA Satellite Library

P.S. I found this post on Facebook showing the OK storms; note the city lights of the OKC metro area at the bottom of the clip:

36K views · 267 reactions | Satellite imagery of the damaging tornadic supercells in northern Oklahoma earlier this evening and tonight. Details: This animation contains the GeoColor and infrared (band 13) products from the GOES-19 weather satellite. It spans the three-and-a-half hour period from 23:00 UTC on 2026-04-23 to 02:29 UTC on 2026-04-24. | Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

 

[Luke Penney]

COD NEXLAB: Satellite and Radar is my go-to site for satellite imagery for the US (and some places beyond it). You have to do it not too long afterwards, because they only go a certain number of images into the past. (To get imagery from April 23 today, you can max out the number of frames and decrease the frequency of frames a little so it goes back far enough: COD NEXLAB: Satellite and Radar.)

 

[Randy Zipser]

COD NEXLAB: Satellite and Radar is my go-to site for satellite imagery for the US (and some places beyond it). You have to do it not too long afterwards, because they only go a certain number of images into the past. (To get imagery from April 23 today, you can max out the number of frames and decrease the frequency of frames a little so it goes back far enough: COD NEXLAB: Satellite and Radar.)

Thanks for that reference, Luke. I'll bookmark it.

 

[Mike Smith]

The Enid storm started developing well to the southwest of the ongoing Blackwell storm/tornadoes.

The Enid Tornado evolved on radar in much the same way as the 2022 Andover EF-3. What is interesting is there was rotation near the ground visible in the velocity data (on both storms) before there were reflectivity echoes over the area.

Makes getting maximum lead time challenging as who looks for rotation in a "no echo" area?

 

[Mike Smith]

BTW, did anyone see any of the 3 new NSSL DoW's on the storms?

DaNa and the NOAA press release said the data would be available in real-time; he has since clarified to "in the future." But, if they got data I'd like to see what they found.

 

[Boris Konon]

The Enid Tornado evolved on radar in much the same way as the 2022 Andover EF-3. What is interesting is there was rotation near the ground visible in the velocity data (on both storms) before there were reflectivity echoes over the area.

Makes getting maximum lead time challenging as who looks for rotation in a "no echo" area?

The 2022 Andover EF3 was spawned from a LP supercell. The Enid storm looked like it was on the wet side of classic. So "ghost" hooks apparently are not confined to LPs!

 

[Randy Zipser]

The attachment below shows a neat satellite depiction from GOES-EAST of the Cbs exploding over NE KS, SE NE and NW IA during the afternoon of 2026-04-23. I could not find a similar satellite sequence online for the OK tornadic storms, however I did see a brief video clip of that on WeatherNation this afternoon, so this does exist; on that graphic, the dryline, cold front, and triple-point were also displayed for reference. If anyone on ST knows where to access and can post the OK satellite imagery, I'd be most appreciative.

Daily | CIRA Satellite Library

P.S. I found this post on Facebook showing the OK storms; note the city lights of the OKC metro area at the bottom of the clip:

36K views · 267 reactions | Satellite imagery of the damaging tornadic supercells in northern Oklahoma earlier this evening and tonight. Details: This animation contains the GeoColor and infrared (band 13) products from the GOES-19 weather satellite. It spans the three-and-a-half hour period from 23:00 UTC on 2026-04-23 to 02:29 UTC on 2026-04-24. | Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

With regard to Jason Stevenson's comment on the Facebook post "Ripples to the south...please don't pee on me and call it gravity waves!," the venerable Dr. Howie Bluestein might just disagree! Shortly after Howie published his excellent book, The Architecture of Clouds, in 2024, I had an e-mail discussion with him about that very phenomenon. These "ripples," or "cloud roll" formations, according to Dr. Bluestein, are a field of parallel Altocumulus or Cumulus humilis due to gravity waves associated with low-level jet (LLJ) moisture plume advection, and are commonly observed for several hours before supercell development on tornado outbreak days.

Since there are many examples of this for historical tornado outbreaks, could their presence also be a good, reliable indicator or precursor that severe weather is likely or imminent near the vicinity or region within, say, the next 6-8 hours? For that reason, perhaps logging onto DOD NEXLAB: Satellite & Radar website might be useful as a way to confirm a short-term forecast or nowcast while chasing in the field. Every tool or observation that could possibly give chasers "maximum lead time" to get into the right position should be taken advantage of...