Windspeed

Though we needed the rain, this is just too much at once. 4 inches since yesterday and potentially another 2-3 tonight if this southeasterly training maintains into mid AM hours. Edit: Fortunately the persistent heavy downpours tapered off to lighter showers around midnight.

2019 hurricane forecast & landfall probabilities raised by Colorado State https://www.artemis.bm/news/2019-hurricane-forecast-landfall-probabilities-raised-by-colorado-state/

High risk for flooding has been issued today for portions of Texas and Louisiana by the NWS/WPC due to the tropical disturbance over the western GOM.

Meh, the disturbance in the western GOM probably has degraded from "iffy" to unlikely at this point. There is still disorganized convection and perhaps a broad mid-level low, possibly even weak surface circulation near Brownsville. Despite current trends the HWRF continues to develop a deeper asymmetric tropical storm that gets pulled NNE-NE into LA, but unless the disturbance takes a drastic turn in consolidating convection, I'm giving up expecting anything other than weaker lows merging over ETX and MS Valley. Still significant impacts from severe storms and flash flooding over next 2-5 days to watch from those points, east.

There may be enough time for a TS to become fairly organized prior to landfall Thur/Fri along the NW to central gulf coast. Though in a sheared environment and asymmetric in structure, the low may support severe supercells that ride over the Southeast and Tennessee Valley into the weekend.

Based on this video and the report above, it appears the tornado did weaken and rope out as it moved into Canton proper. Probably cycled as the couplet seemed to reintensify NE of the city. If so, they are fortunate, as it clearly looked intense in the earlier video. Still likely caused damage as there were high winds and RFD on the right side of the meso that clearly moved through the area based on early photos, but hopefully the folks at the trade event took shelter.

Video of the Canton tornado when it was SW of the city.

Donut hole moving right over Canton. The couplet looks broader, perhaps weaker than before on velocity, however, unsure if due to distance moving away from radar or circulation of a large tornado.

There it is...

Kemp cell should be tor warned. Tight couplet.

Broad rotation / meso may be trying to form on that DeSoto cell heading towards downtown Dallas. Also a meso tightening near the Heath cell east of Dallas. Other than that, most of the circulations are weak atm.

Here is the sky chopper footage of the wedge as it was passing through the Linwood area. You can see chunks of debris reflecting light while being lofted up around the main circulation.

Tornado's circulation may have just barely missed Linwood their NW. It was very close. May have scraped a residential area. Edit: That entire community is essentially residential housing. The couplet clearly got into it.

KMBC chopper got a decent shot of the wedge within the rain curtins and it is quite large.

Yikes...

Near Lucas, KS...

Rotation increasing on the third cell to the west of those mentioned above as well.

Strong rotation now on both north-central Kansas super cells.

Rotation is tightening on the Cromwell cell that is now warned.

This may be the first cell to produce. Velocity rotation looks to be tightening. And there's now a tornado warning on it.

The cell northeast of Seminole looks better and better.

The environment and low level jet improve east of HWY-81. If the SW Oklahoma cell can hold together, it may very well go tornadic between Rush Springs and Chickasha.

Though we only have the one cell, the orientation of potential development of future cells in that line of cumulus up into the I-40 corridor is concerning.

May storms are still infrequent. We have seen named subtropical and purely tropical systems in December as well. But the average still favors June through November. We would really need to see the standard deviation spread on the calendar beyond a single system, even if we have had a named storm in May the last few years. Water temps are still not quite there until around late May for any increase in climatological favorability.

Though not our area, I feel it's still worth a brief mention here in case anyone focuses mostly just on our region. There is a high risk for a significant tornado outbreak in the southern Great Plains today. First SPC High Risk since 2017. A lot of troubling parameters in play for this to verify. If anyone has relatives out there, never hurts to give attention. There will be a main thread in the Central/Western Subforum to follow as the event unfolds.