Chinook

I thought tornado potential would maximize after 00z, but it looks like there are not a lot more tornado warnings that are going to happen soon.

Here are two cross-sections (colors are total wind speed) across Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. These show that the low-level southerly jet increases from 34 kt just above the surface (at 00z, not shown) to about 56 kt or 58 kt in a span of 6 hours on Wednesday evening. I have always found it amazing that as the surface temperatures cool, the winds pick up, but above the surface, not at the surface, in these special situations. SPC upgraded to 30% for wind on Wednesday

some tornadoes reported west of Garden City, KS

So this happened very quickly southeast of Goodland

The models generally have a low on the high plains on Wednesday evening, with 60-70F dew points in the warm sector. It seems that 0-6km shear and storm-relative helicity may be increasing strongly in the evening hours. I think we will have at least some severe weather in the central plains.

this storm is quite far from radar stations

one or more tornadoes have occurred near Akron, Colorado- this would indicate a likely tornado was just a couple of miles west of town.

Tornado reported near Akron CO at 2:57PM

tornado watches for high plains, western Dakotas

tornado at about 2:00PM near Deer Trail, CO

possible tornado close to KPUX

Near Karval, Colorado

reported tornadoes for all of these

just checked the velocities- it is about +100mph vs -100mph

Tomorrow- convection allowing models have a wide variety of solutions for the storms that will happen in areas of northern Texas. Some storms could be forming in an environment of 4500 J/kg of CAPE and 30 kt of shear.

As for me, I've had 2.45" of precipitation this month, and as I mentioned on Monday, some snow stuck to the grass surfaces and roofs of houses. The amount for Fort Collins-CSU has been 3.24" which is significantly above the 2.42" for the climatology for May (1981-2010.) As a side note, I don't know how exactly the Spring severe weather patterns have been so continuously screwed up for something like a decade. As I mentioned in the "predict the first high risk" thread, I was expecting much better severe weather patterns to pop up in this year. And I also mentioned "when was the last significant tornado outbreak to happen in the traditional tornado alley?" Really, the last day of a large amount of tornadoes in tornado alley was April 14, 2012. By my estimation based of the SPC pages, there have been somewhere between 7 and 11 tornadoes in Kansas and Oklahoma combined since the beginning of the year, 6 in Nebraska, and several preliminary tornado reports in the Dallas vicinity.

My place has gotten snow on the roofs today, in the afternoon. Wow, afternoons should be 70 degrees by now!

tornado reported about 9 miles north of KNQA Memphis radar-- looks like the rotational signature might be weakening.

tornado debris near Memphis radar

NWS forecasts have some snow for the Cheyenne Ridge and Palmer Divide. I'm hoping I don't see any of it. Things have been cool and rainy and snowy in recent weeks, but I can't complain, it's better than fire.

Convection-allowing models generally agree that there will be an organized line of thunderstorms in central and east Texas, possibly using CAPE values of 3000-4000 J/kg.

This is a classic signature of a gust front, but there have not been a lot of severe reports in Kansas City so far, so it may not have been too bad.