Pushed by a strong jet stream high above, the storm will drag a strong cold front eastward across the southern Plains and into the lower Mississippi Valley. The clash of the cold front with the unseasonably warm and humid air over the Mississippi Valley will produce ideal conditions for rapid thunderstorm development. The strong jet stream and strong wind shear, or winds changing direction with height, will help produce rotating thunderstorms capable of spinning down tornadoes this afternoon and evening.
Thunderstorms will first develop early this afternoon from eastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma, spreading north and east into Arkansas, northern Louisiana and southern Missouri. The greatest severe weather threat will develop in central Oklahoma to central Texas by late afternoon with hail, gusty winds and tornadoes. Then, storms with significant wind damage will develop early this evening as the cold front sweeps through the Plains. Another threat with the storms will be heavy rain that will lead to flash flooding.
These potent early-season storms are due to a highly active, progressive weather pattern setting up across the central U.S. More typical of April or May instead of mid-February, a strong storm system will develop over the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle this afternoon.
Thanks to Weatherbug
It looks like storm season has come early to the Belly Button of the Mid-South. As the UK sinks under snow drifts inches upon inches deep, our own weather patterns are developing too.
Last year, for the second year in row, we were told that there were unseasonably early active thunderstorm and tornado cells. So, here we are in year three. I want to draw the obvious correlations, but I’ll refrain. After all the Little Ice Age was only spotted centuries later…
Now, I’m not afraid of a little thunderstorm, or a wee gust of wind. I’m an Englishman, a male of my species, hard-headed and an adrenaline junkie. However, one thing I’ve noticed about The States, as compared to the UK for example, is that they do things BIG over here. Everything is Bigger. The cars get 17 miles to the gallon, because they’re actually trucks. The houses have too many bedrooms, and cost too much to heat and cool (in carbon and cash). In fact the houses are so big Americans don’t number their houses in literal integer order like the UK does.
I love the big sky, strectching on forever over my head, and I love the feeling of freedom; being in a country so vast anything seems possible. But bigness (if I might be so bold) has its down sides (not just shitty gas milage and childhood obesity), and these storms are one of those problems.
Every year in my environs (not Memphis per se, but surrounding counties) people die and sometimes lots of people die. Flash floods sweep away houses, cars and hikers. Thunderstorms with wind gusts into high double digits fell tree branches…indeed, trees, crushing cars and houses. And people. And tornadoes rip across the landscape, searching for trailer parks to decimate.
There are few more frightening things than the sound of the tornado siren going off at night. See, a tornado is dark because of the moisture and the debris. And at night time Arkansas sits brooding, pregnant with menance just across the Mississippi, not a quarter mile wide at my house. Vast thunder clouds form, blocking out the setting sun, turning the world prematurely gray. And you know, because it’s amazing how rapidly one becomes an amateur meteorologist when life is on the line, that out there somewhere the hook echo on the tail end of thunder cloud is starting to rotate. And someone is going to die.
Last updated:
Tuesday, 10 Feb
2009 - 16:27 UTC
Oooooooooklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plaaaaiiins….
Genuine Laugh out Loud moment in the office there. Thanks Eva!
The most terrifying experience of my life was being half a mile from a tornado touchdown in Ohio. Being British I had no idea what to do – the sky turned a weird greenish colour, the wind was howling, the lamp post outside the window was whipping around in circles, and the TV was showing a tornado symbol approaching a big map of the area… except I’d only just arrived and no idea where I was on said map…
Luckily my cousin arrived home just as I was diving into a cupboard (no basement, it was an apartment building). She’d driven home under funnel clouds and past falling trees to get home because she knew I wouldn’t have any idea what to do. She told me to open the windows (to equalise the pressure so the glass doesn’t blow out), switch off the TV, and get into the bathroom (against an internal wall with lots of pipes in it for added strength).
Really, really terrifying stuff. Good luck with the storm system Ian! I shall stop complaining about our light dusting of snow now.
You can tell how scared I was by the effect on my ability to write coherent sentences, even lo these 12 years later…
Ian, I had that stupid song in my head all through my lunch break. It’s all my own fault, of course, but I’ve decided to blame you instead.
ColonialsEveryone makes rude ignorant jokes about England being permanently wet. Phooey.Item: when I had an allotment in Essex, irrigation was a serious issue. Essex has the same annual average precipitation as … Jerusalem.
Item: the only time I’ve ever been soaked through by a downpour in the time it’s taken me to cross the street was in … Los Angeles.
Here’s one modified from the same musical:
Guinea pigs and chooks better scurry
When family Gee’s in a hurry
In their Volvo with a Daaarrr-WIN fissh
I don’t know what’s worse at the moment:
my versifyingviolent thunderstorms and flash floods, or the continued drought and threat of brush fires.I can has Darwin Fish for Volvo?
… Then I can has Evolvo!
Calm down, Henry ;)
Btw, the idea that opening windows will help, if a tornado passes over or near (or through) your house, has been discredited. Here’s a good list of tornado safety (a bit of an oxymoron in some cases) tips from NOAA.
Henry, I would have thought that the Nature offices would have bestowed all sorts of Darwin paraphenalia upon the editors this year. But if you want a Darwin fish for the Evolvo, I can certainly oblige.
I can has Darwin Fish ordered now by iPhone on teh interwebz. Sorry for multiposti is hard writin on moving planet.
@Cath: I remember the first time too. Me and my housemate in our third story, wooden apartment block (no basement), wondering where the hell we were on the map showing impending doom spiralling towards us. So we went to the pub, and the BBC interviewed me about it :D
@Eva: Ditto, only I blame Henry
@HG: Item: the UK and Holland both have more tornadic activity than the US! Item, the only time I have been caught in a tornado was in the US…in Washington, D.C. Same for hurricanes too actually. Been through two or three of those now.
@Kristi: Um, the singing. Sorry mate…
@HG: There’s a gravity well near Epsom. Decreases the angular momentum of the planet locally, allowing clear texting and emailing.
Ha! Just discovered how to edit comments! Now HG’s ranting is hiding from public view. Something we should perhaps consider with HG period…
That works both ways. The question you have to ask yourself is … Do I feel lucky?
…I…I gots to know…!
What happened to the poetry, Henry? It had an, er, calming effect.
Note to NN, why am I getting alerts that commentds have been made when there is no new comment on my thread? Hmmmm?
What I have in my hand is a copy of Nature. the most powerful journal you can buy. So I’m asking you again, DO YOU FEEL LUCKY?
tell me punk…did I reject 6 submissions, or was it only 5…tell ya the truth, in all the excitment I kinda forgot to keep count…but considering a rejection from this journal can blow your head clean off, you gotta ask yourself just one thing, punk…
splortle.
Well, that was fun. Not. Tornadoes killed at least 8 people in southern Oklahoma. We got the tip of the tail of the storm, and there was hail in it, as well as some mighty gusty winds. In fact, I can see that I’ll have a little fence repair project to complete this weekend.
@HG: I even had my lip curled when I wrote that…
@Kristi: We only ended up with bad winds and some big thunderstorms. Kept me up most of the night with the apartment block literally vibrating at times. Looks like the major body of the storm (we just got the cold front!) just reached western Arkansas, so we’ll get it overnight again…
You’re still alive then.
Bugger.
I missed.
splort
Transcontinental weather-chaos as a weapon of war…
..oooh…Futures story!
Bring. It. On.
Bugger…that’s two (plus another one I got last night, but forgot again)…plus a book review for Jenny.
Well, keeps me off the bottle anyway!
Transcontinental weather-chaos as a weapon of war…
I have a theory that the wet weather in Britain is caused by American’s driving on the wrong (i.e. right-hand) side of the road.
btw brooksie … didn’t know you were an Iris fan :)
(cute song, Hell’s coming with me)
“American’s driving on the wrong (i.e. right-hand) side of the road.”
No, no, that is obviously the right side, and that’s why it’s called the “right side of the road”
@Chris: Funnily enough, I found driving on the right hand side of the road easy. But now i can’t drive on the left when I go back to the UK. I tried a couple of years ago when I was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, and it was horrific. FOr me and the other people on the road!
@Asa: I was using it as a quote from the movie “Tombstone” :)
@Eva: Do you know why the Brits drive on the left? So you can see the sword arm of an approaching horseman. Probably apocryphal, but a great thought!
I hear that the European Union will soon introduce the Driving Direction Directive which shall require Brits to start driving on the right. This has been thrashed out for years in committee but eventually they reached a compromise in which the switch to driving on the right would be staged, starting with heavy goods vehicles, and then buses.
LMAO. I tell you one American system that would work, and help traffic flow: Turn Right on Red (which would, of course, be Turn Left on Red on the UK). Apparently, in fits of typically British anti-colonialism, this frequently gets shot down in Parliament with cries of the risk to pedestrians. As if British drivers will suddenly go blind just because congestion has been eased.
No way. Turn left on red causes so many pedestrian deaths in Australia it’s not funny.
Seriously! Well..then again…
At ScienceOnline09, Bill Hooker tried to tell us that somewhere in Melbourne there is a “turn right on red” intersection.
“Wouldn’t that be left?” asked Henry and I.
“The wrong turn”, said Bill to Henry.
“Right”, I said, “Left.”
“No, wrong is right.”
I am still confused.
Naturally, I had my facts all messed up. What I was trying and failing to remember was the “hook turn”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn, which has pretty much nothing to do with what I thought it had to to with.
I blame old age and stress, since I don’t drink that much any more.
A Bill-hook turn?
boom boom
this frequently gets shot down in Parliament with cries of the risk to pedestrians
Many of the residents of (and visitors to) Cromer have the blood of pheasants surging through their veins. They wait, on the pavement poised, until your car is within yards of presumptive impact, before launching themselves across the road.
Sounds, unfortunately, like the population of certain areas of DC.
Members of certain immigrant groups wind up under the wheels the trucks with depressing regularity…
After spending last weekend recording various Kinks songs, I feel that Big Sky should get a mention here. You do remember the Kinks don’t you?