Sunday Severe Reports
It was a stormy Mother’s Day in parts of the country, with almost 130 storm reports on Sunday. Twenty-six of those were tornado reports spread across the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa and South Dakota.
One of those tornadoes struck the town of Delmont, SD, around 10:45 AM Sunday. NWS officials already went out and rated the tornado an EF-2 with maximum estimated winds of 130 mph. Tornadoes also hit the towns of Lake City, IA and Van, TX – with a potential tornado hitting Nashville, AR.
Severe Threat Next Few Days
The severe weather continues south and east today, but the threat has decreased. Two areas of severe weather is possible – one in the lower Great Lakes/Ohio Valley, and another from the lower Mississippi Valley westward into southern Texas. Large hail and damaging winds are the main threats, but an isolated tornado can’t be ruled out, especially in the northern Slight Risk area.
Tuesday, the best chance of severe weather will be across southern Texas, where large hail and damaging winds are possible. The chance of a severe storm also exists across portions of the central Gulf states, and in parts of eastern North Carolina and Virginia.
Severe Threat Late Week
GFS modeled 500mb heights for Friday afternoon.
Another large trough will be developing across the western United States heading into late week, and once again that will likely lead to more severe weather across the Plains heading into next weekend.
Because of the potential, the Storm Prediction Center has already outlined an area of potential severe weather on Friday from western South Dakota (which we’ll get to your crazy weather in a moment) to western Texas.
Saturday the severe weather threat shifts a little eastward, from Nebraska to Texas. Both days we’ll be watching the potential for large hail, damaging winds and maybe some tornadoes. We’ll watch to see how the situation develops as we head into the week and will keep you updated here, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
Black Hills Snow
While parts of the country saw severe weather for Mother’s Day – others saw snow, and lots of it. Rapid City, SD woke up to this scene Sunday, and it continued snowing from there. Overall, the NWS office received 13.6″ of snow from Saturday into Sunday, making it the second largest May snowstorm on record.
It would also put them good enough for third place on the top (full month of) May snow totals for the NWS office, right ahead of 2008 and an inch behind the 14.6″ seen in 1905.
Snow was seen this weekend from Colorado to even North Dakota this morning. Some amounts varied from 4″ in Denver, 5″ in Wishek, ND, and an impressive 24″ at Fort Robinson, NE.
For those in the Rapid City, SD, area – that snow will likely not last long on the ground, as temperatures are expected to approach 60 by midweek. And as we showed above, the Rapid City area could see the potential of severe weather by the end of the week! Going from one extreme to the next in the land of great faces, great places – South Dakota!
Heavy Rain
Not only have we been dealing with severe weather and snow, but heavy rain as well. Check out some of these 14-day rainfall totals from the Oklahoma Mesonet – almost to over a foot of rain in spots! That has lead to numerous reports of flooding over the past few days across parts of the state.
Of course, that heavy rain isn’t just isolated to Oklahoma, as parts of Texas and Arkansas have seen over a half foot of rain in the past 14 days. Areas just southeast of Dallas, TX, near Corsicana, saw radar estimated amounts of a 12″+ last night alone!
And who is expected to get the heaviest rainfall over the next five days? Well, that would continue to be parts of the south. We will have to watch out for flooding conditions once again over the next few days.
For today, here is the area that the Weather Prediction Center has outlined for the best chance of seeing flooding rains – an area that includes Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.
Sadly, storms are in the forecast each of the next seven days in the Houston area. Better find those umbrellas and ponchos!
(CHECK OUT YOUR FORECAST: wx.aerisweather.com)
Remember you can always find me on Twitter (@dkayserwx) or on Facebook (Meteorologist D.J. Kayser).
– Meteorologist D.J. Kayser
