DanLarsen34

This outbreak (4-30) now ranks as the third largest of the year, just behind April 13 and March 3 based on filtered tornado reports.

Today is yet another in a long line of tricky days to forecast. Too many storms and the tornado threat will be tempered significantly. Storm mode leans a bit more discrete, which some models have shown, and we could be seeing a pretty significant outbreak across OK, AR with a couple of intense tornadoes. Different set-ups obviously, but kind of reminds me of the March 3 Dixie outbreak earlier this year. We didn’t really know until storms got going that day that the storm mode would be worst case and a sizable outbreak was going to happen.

SPC’s mid-day report mentions they considered a tornado driven moderate risk, but held off for now because of a lack of a strong signal in UH on the HREF. https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html

Keep an eye on the convection out ahead of the main line. Definitely some cellular looking activity already popping up. This cell west of Baton Rouge looks promising.

First tornado watch of the day. 60-40 probabilities for LA and Western MS.

Thought I’d get a thread going on this in the forum. We’ve got an enhanced risk across MS and AL today. Damaging winds appear to be the most significant threat within the ongoing QLCS. However, SPC has mentioned the potential for significant tornadoes too, both within the line and with any warm sector supercell development ahead of the line. SPC has 10% hatched tornado probabilities across the aforementioned states.

I know most of this thread has focused on the threat tomorrow/today, but SPC amended their day 3 outlook to an enhanced risk during the afternoon (which is very rare) and mentioned the threat of a strong tornado. Will be interested to see if they stick with that for Thursday when the day 2 outlook comes out in a little bit. What do people on this thread think about the Thursday threat?

This tornado is going to pass over some of the same areas hit by the Smithville EF-5 on April 27-2011.

I can’t stress this enough. If anyone on this forum lives in Eastern Mississippi or Alabama, you need to have an emergency plan in place now! This is an extremely dangerous situation as we’ve got strong/violent tornadoes in progress. Have a horrible feeling about this...

This could be really bad guys. Day “busted” relative to what could have happened, but things are starting to go bonkers with strong/violent tornadoes in the middle of night across MS and AL.

That’s about as textbook as it gets for a violent tornado on radar. Thank goodness that area doesn’t look too heavily populated.

Storm mode still sucks, but that cell heading towards Vicksburg looks like it’s producing an absolute monster. Going to need a tornado emergency ASAP.

Incredible how messy things have stayed. Had a moment there where it looked like things might kick off, but that’s passed for now. Big things could still happen later, but I don’t think many would have expected one warning in the moderate risk area at peak hours, even three hours ago.

Think we are about to be in business guys...

Regarding the main risk area a bit further to the east: that grungy stuff in LA is going to have a hard time organizing. Something might organize and become dominant, but hard to see several cells breaking out of that. I'd keep an eye on that area of clearing NE of Houston to the LA border for more discrete development ATM.

The only things that stand out as keeping this from a potential high risk IMO is: 1) too many storms across the warm sector in LA. We're definitely going to see a few intense supercells, but those unorganized storms going up in LA could keep a lid on the number of storms that could become discrete or semi discrete. 2) How far north the warm front goes. The parameters near and south of the warm front are very high end, but to get high risk coverage, it will need to move a quite a bit further north from where it is now.

I wouldn't be surprised if we got a long lead-time, long duration PDS watch across the moderate risk area soon. The parameters in place are already INSANE across NE TX and LA. Mesoscale analysis on the SPC page is showing 50-60kt bulk shear, 3,000-4,000 CAPE, with effective helicity values of 400-600 across most of the open warm sector. https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/new/viewsector.php?sector=18#

Understand the concern that they should have went high, but it’s still uncertain whether today’s high ceiling will be reached. The models haven’t been in great agreement about how long the storm mode stays discrete across LA. Given that their forecasts are probability based, that’s arguably enough of a reason to hold off until the afternoon update. I don’t envy their position. Today has a high of a ceiling as any set-up we’ve had in at least five years, but they don’t want to get burned overplaying it like they did with those four high risks in 2017 that underperformed.

Is anyone concerned that these early storms going up across the moderate risk area might keep a lid on things? We’ve seen so many Dixie events ruined by this in the past, particularly 4-27-2014 which, outside of the Vilonia tornado, didn’t do nearly as much as it could have.

Great summary! I have a feeling if something goes in the eastern target, it’s going to put down the most significant tornado of the day. If I was chasing, I’d seriously consider taking a gamble on that target.

This radar grab is ominous to say the least. We’ve got several semi-discrete cells with well-defined hook echoes. Kind of reminds of 4-16-11 in North Carolina. We might be looking at a significant tornado outbreak!

If storm evolution in real time is favorable before the mid afternoon update, wouldn’t be surprised to see a moderate for some part of the enhanced tornado risk area.

Given the damage we’ve seen and, unfortunately, an incredibly high number of fatalities in that county, it’s very likely we had our first violent tornado in over a year today.

This is from Lee County, AL near Beauregard from earlier today. I’m not a surveyor, but this looks like AT LEAST EF4 damage. Almost every tree is snapped, debarked, or denuded. Structure is completely gone.

This is insane. Everything is rotating right now. This is a major tornado outbreak! Going to be a miracle if we make through the day without at least one violent tornado.