Severe Weather On Hold for Now

In the wake of such a tragic outbreak of tornadoes across the state, most Oklahomans are yearning for some quiet weather. Tornado season played catch up in a big, devastating way. I know I speak for the rest of the WARN team when I say we are heartbroken for Moore, Shawnee, Carney, and other communities that have taken such a tremendous blow. We were all having déjà vu of May 3rd, 1999. When you predict this kind of severe weather, you hope to be wrong, especially when a tornado of this magnitude hits a populated area. While nothing as devastating as in central Oklahoma, the tornado damage I came across on Monday while storm chasing is a major headache for some Green Country residents near Wyandotte.

To add insult to injury in Moore, a band of heavy to severe storms sat over the OKC metro area Thursday morning, causing flooding rains and even some wind damage – the last thing the recovery effort needs. Back in Tulsa, we're dealing with some rain and thunder as I write this, but nothing severe. While storms remain in our forecast into the Memorial Day weekend, the severe threat is very low.

The jet stream is starting to jog back to the north over the Plains, pushing the stronger winds aloft/dynamics for severe weather away from us. A rogue storm or two may reach severe limits, but the potential for anything like earlier this week just isn't there. The focus for most of the storms will be further west across western Oklahoma, but the computer models hold together some of those storms to cross into Green Country for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Thus, we have rain chances, but not guarantees.

Speaking of rain, we have seen a lot of it over the past 5 days. See the attached rain totals map. The totals around OKC have gone up significantly since this morning. Southeastern Oklahoma picked up much of their rain at once causing some flooding concerns there. The rainfall through Tuesday morning helped the drought in areas of central and northern Oklahoma as seen in the latest Drought Monitor (attached). However, it would do our state some good if we could distribute the flooding rainfall to the east over the west where they are still awfully dry. In fact, the drought is worsening out west while it's improving in the east. What a disparity.

If you've got outdoor plans for Memorial Day, be sure to have a contingency plan in case of a rainy spell. Fortunately, Memorial Day itself looks like it'll fall in a lull of active weather. Just watch out for a few showers or storms Saturday and Sunday as a bit of weak mid-level energy sparks their formation.

The jury is still out on next week's storm potential, but an active pattern may be on the horizon again. The jet stream takes another dip out west, which will enhance the threat of severe weather for the Plains. Whether or not those storms fire up here or further northwest is in question. Severe weather season can go well into June so we have to keep our guard up for more rough weather. We all just hope it won't amount to anything like the start of this week.

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If you'd like to donate to the relief efforts, here's a great resource to check out.