April 17-18 Severe Weather Update

Severe weather is underway from portions of northern Texas all the way into Indiana.  This system will continue to create severe weather over these regions this evening before beginning to shift eastward tonight.  The Storm Prediction Center has issued a moderate risk of severe weather for both today and tonight as well as tomorrow and tomorrow night.  The threat for today from the Storm Prediction Center is shown to the right, where the moderate risk exists across extreme portions of northern Texas, central Oklahoma, southeastern Kansas, and a section of Missouri.  The threats come in all forms today and tonight.

Tomorrow and tomorrow night, all threats will once again exist but the risk of tornadoes should be lower than today's threat.  To the right our the risk maps from the Storm Prediction Center depicting an area of moderate risk from northwestern Mississippi and southeastern Arkansas northward through extreme western Tennessee and Kentucky as well as the Missouri Bootheel and finally into eastern Illinois and western Indiana as well as a small portion of southwestern Michigan.

The rest of this blog post will attempt to put together what I believe will happen tonight and into tomorrow.  I expect thunderstorms to continue to increase in coverage this evening, eventually forming into a line of storms tonight which will continue into tomorrow morning.  The main concern here will be with the early discrete cells as well as with any cells that can form in front of the main squall line as the environment is set up well for rotating updrafts to lead to tornadoes within some of these storms.  Outside of these discrete cells, the squall line's main threat will be wind damage but some large hail as well as a few tornadoes will also be possible.  To the right is my threat area, with the red shaded area depicting the area with the greatest risk for severe weather, including tornadoes.

Tomorrow the squall line will continue to push eastward bringing about likely widespread wind damage reports in areas.  Once again, if discrete cells can get going in front of the main squall line, the tornado threat could be higher.  This is possible across the southern portions of the threat area.  However, there will likely be a tornado threat associated with the squall line itself as well, as a highly sheared environment with high helicity values will exist.  My threat area for tomorrow and tomorrow night is shown to the right, with the best threat for wind damage and a few tornadoes shown in red.


If you live in any of these areas please remain alert to the weather conditions over the next 36 hours.  Be sure you know what to do in case severe weather.

Lastly, I will leave you with two target cities where I would head to if I were storm chasing tonight or tomorrow.  For tonight, given where storms have already fired and where I believe they will continue into the overnight, I would say the best chance of seeing severe weather, including tornadoes, would be starting in Ardmore, OK and heading west throughout the night towards Fort Smith, AR.  For tomorrow, I would start in the afternoon around El Dorado, AR and continue towards the northwest heading into the evening toward Oxford, MS.  Now these are just my initial thoughts and obviously with storm chasing initial preparation should be altered as the most current information and conditions arise.

Stay safe everyone!