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The tornado outbreak I wrote about last night is occurring across the Midwest this afternoon, and the threat is expected to expand as storms are able to break through the cap.. It doesn't look like Minneapolis will get the worst of the weather, but there are several large cities under the gun for destructive tornadoes, softball size hail, and damaging thunderstorm wind gusts well over hurricane force as these storms develop.
As of the writing of this diary, there is a large, violent tornado on the ground in rural Kansas, crossing into Furnas County, Nebraska. These are sparsely populated areas (Furnas County = ~4600 people), but any tornado hitting any area with human settlement is dangerous. The biggest cities under this risk right now are Grand Island NE (50k people), and Norfolk NE (25k people). More of these large, long-track tornadoes are possible this afternoon and evening in more populated areas, such as Omaha NE, Lincoln NE, Sioux Falls SD, areas west of Des Moines IA, Wichita KS, the Tulsa OK area, and the OKC Area.
The newest updates will appear at the top of the info below the fold.
As usual, keep politics, meta, pie fights and dickish comments out of here or you'll find yourself in the hidden comments. Several folks have questioned the reasoning and validity of this promise, and G2Geek gave a pretty good explanation.
Be sure to visit Got A Grip's excellent diary on tornado safety.
Updates
Update 21 849PM CDT
Tornado warning for Palo Pinto and Young Counties in Texas, about 60 to 70 miles west of DFW. Tornado spotted on the ground near Possum Kingdom State Park, moving east towards Graford, TX.
Update 20 844PM CDT
Tornado warning in southern South Dakota for Bon Homme, Charles Mix, Douglas and Hutchinson Counties. Tornadoes possible in the leading edge of this line of storms moving north-northwest.
Update 19 734PM CDT
Tornado warning for Madison and Platte Counties in northeastern Nebraska. Possible tornado over the town of Humphrey, moving north-northeast. Humphrey, Enora, Madison, and Norfolk are in the path of this possible tornado.
Update 18 701PM CDT
New tornado watch going up for Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota and one county in Minnesota (Rock Co.). The watch will go until 200AM CDT.
Update 17 623PM CDT
Confirmed tornado on the ground west of Osceola, NE (click link for geographical reference), moving north. It looks like the town of Silver Creek, NE will take a direct hit by this tornado.
Update 16 613PM CDT
New tornado warning for Throckmorton County in north-central Texas, northeast of Abilene and about 100 miles west of the DFW metro area.
This is a base velocity radar image (showing precip) on the left, and the same image showing wind velocities on the right.
Update 15 610PM CDT
Here's the large, dangerous tornado that imonlylurking posted in the update below.
imonlylurking for weatherdude:
Update 14 6:02pm CDT
New warning for Benedict/York Nebraska, very large tornado on the ground, impacting BENEDICT...POLK...STROMSBURG...OSCEOLA...SHELBY AND SILVER CREEK.
Update 13 540PM CDT
Dinner time, so I'll be gone for 20-30 minutes. I'll leave you with this satellite image from the College of DuPage.
Update 12 530PM CDT
Confirmed tornado on the ground near Selden, KS in the northwestern part of the state. This tornado is moving southeast towards Hoxie, Seguin and Tasco.
Update 11 526PM CDT
New tornado warning for Greeley, Howard, Sherman and Valley Counties in central Nebraska. That storm near Hazard and Pleasanton turned into a northward-moving line with lots of individual rotations in it. Some towns in the path of these storms include Ord, Cotesfield, Loup City, Sherman Reservoir Dam, Scotia, Arcadia, Greeley and North Loop.
Update 10 520PM CDT
New tornado warning southeast of Grand Island, NE for Hamilton and York counties in south-central Nebraska. Possible tornado near Stockham, moving northeast at 25 MPH. Funnel clouds have been reported with this storm. Henderson, Hampton, Bradshaw, York, and Benedict will be impacted by this storm over the next 30-45 minutes.
Update 9 510PM CDT
As per a request in the comments, this is the general area in Nebraska/Kansas where the severe weather is occurring right now. The worst storms are generally in the green area, with the tornadoes I've been covering occurring in the red areas.
This zone will continue shifting off to the east and northeast throughout the evening and night.
Update 8 506PM CDT
Tornado warning for Sheridan County, KS. Possible tornado near Hoxie, moving east at 5 MPH. Hoxie and Tasco are in the path of this storm.
Update 7 447PM CDT
Sorry I didn't notice this earlier, but a PDS Severe Thunderstorm Watch is in effect for a large swath from central Oklahoma (including Oklahoma City Metro Area) and down to the northwestern DFW suburbs, down to Abilene. The PDS wording is in effect due to the expectation of baseball sized hail and thunderstorm winds over 80 MPH.
Update 6 435PM CDT
The storm described below has formed a new tornadic circulation a few miles off to the east, almost right on top of Pleasanton, NE. The possible tornado will move north towards Hazard, Sweetwater and Litchfield over the next 20-30 minutes.
Update 5 427PM CDT
The tornado from the past few updates is now completely rain-wrapped, so spotters can't chase it anymore, and anybody in its path won't know it's there until it's almost on top of them.
Update 4 410PM CDT
Unconfirmed reports of damage coming out of Elm Creek, anywhere from "total destruction" to "just roof damage." Here's live coverage from Nebraska TV, an ABC station that covers a large chunk of the state.
Update 3 358PM CDT
Confirmed tornado moving very near Elm Creek, NE right now. Very impressive hook echo on the radar.
Update 2 331PM CDT
Tornado warning for Buffalo, Dawson, Phelps and Gosper Counties in Nebraska. Very strong rotation quickly developed and there is either a tornado developing or already on the ground with this storm. The towns of Overton and Elm Creek are in the path of this possible tornado.
Update 1 311PM CDT
A large tornado is still on the ground in Furnas County, NE. The tornado will pass near Stamford shortly and will cross portions of State Route 89, US 136, State Route 4, US 183, and will threaten the towns of Ragan, Atlanta and Holdrege in southern Nebraska within the next hour.
Wind velocity radar image, showing winds blowing towards the radar (green) and away from the radar (red). The tornado is located where the bright green and bright red appear next to each other, in this case, south of Stamford.
Watches
- PDS Tornado Watch #523 -- until 800PM CDT -- Northern KS and central/eastern NE
- Tornado Watch #524 -- until 1000PM CDT -- Most of KS, west IA, NW MO, east NE
Notes
+ A tornado watch means that conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form.
+ A PDS Tornado Watch denotes a Particularly Dangerous Situation. This enhanced wording means that an especially dangerous tornado outbreak is expected, with violent, long-track and long-lived tornadoes anywhere in and around the watch area.
+ A tornado warning means that a tornado has been detected on Doppler radar, a funnel cloud has been sighted, or a tornado is confirmed on the ground.
+ A tornado emergency means that a violent tornado is on the ground and expected to move through a populated region.