5/7/06 NOW KS, OK, TX

[samuel stone]

From Goodland NWS

TRAINED SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO 3 MILES SOUTHWEST OF WALLACE. IN ADDITION TO THE TORNADO...LARGE HAIL UP TO GOLFBALL SIZE HAS BEEN REPORTED WITH THIS STORM[/b]

I was kind of watching this area prior to this report, as LCL's were really not that high and CAPE of up to 2000 j/kg, helicity of 100 m2/s2 made a marginal favorable enviromet with the only main draw back being the weaker mid-upper level wind fields but I have seen Tornadoes in 20 kt 500mb winds.

 

[Michael P. Morris]

This particular storm appears to have interacted with the northern edge of a distinct dryline bulge indicated by the Cu field on the satellite loop. Directional shear in the area is strong but speed shear is rather weak per the Granada profiler, but the enhanced low-level shear on the bulge probably provided enough ambient vorticity to be stretched into a couple of apparently weak and short-lived tornadoes. The weak shear regime seems to be supporting a rather rapid upscale transition as the northern storm looks much more multicellular in recent scans. They are kind of in a data hole right now, but the surrounding obs show dewpoint depressions of ~20 degrees F, so I expect some decent wind and hail reports for the rest of the evening.

 

[nickgrillo]

The 0-6km shear of ~25kts (per SPC mesoanalysis) across northwest/westcentral KS will likely support some organized multicell and perhaps a short-lived supercell structure or two through the rest of the afternoon. I guess I am kind of regretting not going out to the boundary just for photography ops... However, I was worried last night if we could even get enough low-level moisture up againest the sfc trof to augment surface-based instability. Current SPC mesoanalysis shows > 1000 j/kg of sbCAPE invof the now short linear segment meandering across Logan Co KS (owed to 52-53F tds and strong diabatic heating earlier). Relatively large dewpoint depressions have also led to high LCLs in the moist sector (e.g. > 1400 m AGL) so there should be quite a bit of evaporational cooling in any moist downdraft (leading to stronger cold pools and eventually evolution to a linear mode). So, any supercell should indeed be very short-lived. In addition, the very meager upper flows (~30kts at 300mb) isn't helping much either, and the high LCLs (albeit steep lapse rates in the lower levels along the boundary owed to strong insolation earlier) will end in high based, outflow dominant storms. I won't be surprised to see some quite decent downburst winds with these storms today (as well as large hail given the modest low-level buoyancy).

 

[nickgrillo]

Very nice supercell structure to the northwest of Garden City right now (really wishing I was there right now) which has developed a strong cyclonic low-level couplet in the past couple of scans (with a TOR just issued by DDC). The storm is moving southeast quite slowly and the ambient conditions are improving some with the approach of the shortwave trof. Low-level shear has increased to > 150 m2/s2 across western KS (and in the inflow sector of this supercell) and 0-6km deep-layer shear has improved as well (with ~35kts invof the potentially tornadic storm) with strong surface-based CAPE as well as low-level CAPE -- ~ 75j/kg in the 0-3km layer -- to help maintain strong updrafts.

EDIT:

* AT 656 PM CDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO 10
MILES NORTHWEST OF HOLCOMB...MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 20 MPH.[/b]

Tornado on the ground as of 10 minuites ago. The storm continues to show strong low-level rotation (although a bit more lose than previous SRV scans) and is making a DIRECT path for Garden City (the core should be packing some golfball hail too).

 

[Eric Flescher]

Just for the sake of being specific, always indicate the state one is talking about on the forum. I can guess but a word would help

ex. AT 656 PM CDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO 10
MILES NORTHWEST OF HOLCOMB...MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 20 MPH.

HOLCOMB?????????????????????????????

 

[Scott Lincoln]

Looks like Garden City, KS dodged the tornado bullet, but its probably going to get hail to golfball sized.... based on estimates from GR2AE. Looks like the storm surged to the south right before the hook went over the city. Any brief tornadoes that occured would have been likely in the area between Holcomb and Garden City.

 

[rdale]

"3d" TBSS from the I-10 TX storm, GR2AE indicating a large area of suspended 60+ dbZ values with MESH of 3.22"

http://radioweather.us/tbss3d.png