Panning across as a wall cloud takes shape under a supercell near Tucumcari, NM. What a beast! This storm produced some very large hail and a couple of tornadoes during its multi-hour life cycle. Most supercells only last a few hours, but they’re typically a very memorable few hours. This one ended up lasting well into the night, producing incredible storm structure well into Texas.
Today we’ll have two regions we are watching. The first is across the Central Plains and Midwest where a lot of storms should form in a favorable regime for hail/damaging winds and perhaps a tornado this afternoon and evening. Storms will grow upscale with time into linear segments.
Further south on the dryline from S KS to TX is a boom/bust day where only a storm or three may form. If any get going large hail is the primary hazard with damaging winds a secondary threat. Tornado threat near zero down there today.
The ‘severe but not tornadoey’ pattern continues today with more storms across the Plains and into the Midwest. This is the type of pattern that should continue into the weekend, with a slowly increasing tornado threat by Sunday and Monday.
For today, storms should form in the afternoon and evening and move south and east into the overnight hours. Like we said yesterday, severe storms are severe for a reason — so even these deserve some respect today/tonight. The ingredients are all just slightly higher today (a trend that continues into tomorrow) — so ingredients are just that much more favorable for some storms to pack a bit of a punch.
I’m still in awe of this experience and excited to see the Moon Joy that continues to be spread as the Astronauts give talks and share more of their captures and experience from their Lunar Fly By Mission. NASA just released their latest plans for Artemis III.
From NASA: ‘The mission is planned to carry out a series of objectives designed to demonstrate critical systems needed for a future lunar landing. During the Artemis III mission, the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket will launch the Orion spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with four crew members. Instead of using the interim cryogenic propulsion stage as the upper stage of the rocket, NASA will use a “spacer,” a representation of the mass and overall dimensions of an upper stage but without propulsive capabilities. The spacer will maintain the same overall dimensions and interface connection points as the upper stage between the Orion stage adapter and launch vehicle stage adapter.‘
It should be an exciting time as we await the next launch- one step closer to getting people on the Moon again!
The last picture is an Eagle nest that is located on the road leading in and out of Kennedy Space Station. It’s a hard picture to take as you’re driving past- but the employees all keep an eye on the nest. You can see the parent keep guard of the baby just below the nest.
#nasa #nasaartemis #artemisii #artemis2 #natgeoyourshot
Listen…this isn’t a headline grabber day in a lot of ways with such limited moisture around — but severe weather is severe.
Lots of very-high-based cells should take shape across the Panhandles into Western/Northern Kansas this afternoon and evening. The initial threats will be small hail and damaging wind gusts with hail becoming an increasing threat into the evening as storms move east into higher moisture. The higher risks of severe storms are in the days to come, but this is a day where you don’t want to be outside when one of these things move through as they could pack a brief punch.
The Storm Prediction Center has outlined daily risks through next Monday (and likely beyond as confidence increases). This is the active turn that we've been talking about for a couple of weeks.
As with any pattern like this, not everyone will see severe weather every day. Not everyone will see severe weather. But there will be some people who experience large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes over the next couple of weeks. This is May, it's what springtime does around the Plains.
It's a good day to clean out your shelter again, change the batteries in your weather radio, and identify the best possible warning sources (we are not a warning source) for the day of storm threats.
You only need two maps and a calendar to see what’s coming.
Aloft, upper-air support will be moving over the Plains on a regular basis starting this weekend. At the surface, moisture is gradually increasing through the back half of the month. And when you look at the calendar and see those late May dates, the conclusions draw themselves.
The Storm Prediction Center already has risks outlined for Saturday and Sunday, and daily severe weather risks across the Plains are likely for a stretch after that. Nothing stands out as particularly notable just yet, but that’s more about model predictability than the atmosphere lacking potential. Pinning down exact surface features relative to the upper flow is a losing game at this range. We have the broad outlines and the time of year, and that’s enough.
A more active stretch is coming, just as we mentioned last week. We’ll sharpen the details as they come into focus.
Two different stories playing out today, one in Texas and one back home in New Mexico.
In Texas, a sagging frontal boundary will spark widespread storms along and behind it. Moisture is limited and shear is on the weaker side, but very steep lapse rates aloft are providing plenty of instability to work with. The result should be several organized storms capable of large to giant hail. As the day wears on, storms will line out and shift toward more of a damaging wind threat. The tornado risk is low but not zero.
There's just enough shear to organize a handful of supercells, and in this kind of environment, a rogue storm interaction or some other atmospheric tomfoolery could spin something up. It's the kind of threat you respect without losing sleep over.
In New Mexico, the story is simpler. Moisture hitting the front ranges will create orographic lift, and a few storms should pop. They may briefly organize but with dewpoints in the lower 40s, we're talking a sporadic wind and hail threat at best. Not expecting fireworks, but worth keeping an eye on if you're near the mountains this afternoon.
A dryline sets up today with only modest upper-level support. Convergence in the dryline zone and just enough moisture could squeeze out a few storms that move east and south. However, no promises from the atmosphere today.
The catch is a familiar one. Right off the dryline, the low-level environment is dry, which means high cloud bases early on. By the time storms push far enough east into better moisture, the cap is likely strengthening. That leaves a pretty narrow window for anything significant, and an even narrower one for a tornado. Large hail is the headliner again today, with damaging winds as a secondary threat.
