Dawn, all we got during the night was l inch of rain. I think we are on the edge of the severe prediction but they are saying rain almost everyday this week.

Hope all you good folks escape the bad stuff!

Glenda,

Yippee! Rain is always good! It has been very dry here and we have a forecast like yours with a chance of rain every day. It is about time. We're having sprinkles here this morning but they don't amount to much actual moisture.

We 'need' five inches of rainfall in our area in May just to bring our 2010 rainfall up to 'average', but of course, I hope 5" doesn't fall all in one day.

I hope you (and everyone else) stay safe today. Once these storms crank up, anything can happen.

I'm watching The Weather Channel this morning and the VORTEX 2 team is pre-positioned at Perry, OK.....thought I'd throw that out there in case anyone here lives near Perry. It isn't that they necessarily expect the worst weather to hit near Perry, but rather that it is just a good place for them to watch, see what happens and try to position themselves to track/intercept the supercells as they develop.

I've linked the Norman office's page below so y'all can see what they're saying. They update often as conditions warrant.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Norman NWS Webpage

It's very humid here (central OK) and it just has "that feel" that all of us who have lived in Oklahoma long enough have experienced at one time or another. Much like May 3, 1999, except as I recall that day started out warmer than today began. That gives me the willies. Thank you, Dawn, for always giving us the heads up. I'd heard severe weather was expected, but it's interesting to know the storm teams are positioning themselves for it.

Suzie

Suzie,

You know me and the weather...I watch it like a hawk all the time. Glad the info is helpful. I try to post a heads-up if I am home near a computer. Some people, like Diane (Owiebrain) are in remote areas where the NOAA Weather Radio alert can't reach them consistently, if at all, so I am always especially watchful for storms moving towards those folks.

I've been out in the garden, attempting to harvest sugar snaps and I say "attempting" because the wind has picked up in the last hour and is giving the peas and their trellis a thorough shaking. They are waving back and forth, dancing on the wind. It makes picking peas a bit challenging. Down here in southern OK it was a very cool morning, and then around 10 a.m. or so it was like someone flipped a switch. Our dew point has gone up 5 points in a couple of hours is now is at 68. That's bad, and if dewpoints hit the 70s, that's very, very bad.

Y'all be careful up there. The NOAA weather radio is cautioning that the storms likely will be hitting OKC during afternoon rush hour, and that's just the worst possible time.

I know many of you are well-experienced in dealing with weather like this and do think sometimes you intuitively 'feel' it coming once you've experienced that odd feeling in the air.

If you watch The Weather Channel and have followed this year's usage of Dr. Forbe's TorCon Index, y'all should know he's giving NE OK an 8 on a scale of 1-10. That's just about the highest chance of tornadic development conditions he ever gives anyone. I think he gave one area a 9 week before last and they got hit pretty hard by storms.

I have that uneasy feeling in my bones, but more for y'all up there than us down here. I think the KS-OK state line area may be in the bullseye, and Kansas and Missouri are in just as much danger as northeastern and eastern OK.

Dawn

I sure do appreciate the heads up! I try to keep a good eye on the weather but sometimes life just gets going too fast and weather-watching gets pushed out of my mind. Then storms hit and we lose our satellite connections -- which is how we get both internet and TV so we have no idea of what's coming since NOAA radios never, ever get reception here. It's like driving blindfolded.

On our way home this morning from an appointment, I kept repeating "something wicked this way comes" to myself. I was creeping myself out. LOL Really, though, the air just has that feel to it. It's going to be a bad day for a lot of people in Okieland, I think.

Hang on to your hats, everyone.

Diane

Diane,

Down here in our part of the state, the last time I checked, storm development is not really expected until after 7 p.m., so yours should be even later than that. I'll post as long as I have internet service (maybe it won't go out!) and you'll be able to see it as long as yours hasn't gone out.

Our dewpoint has hit 69, it is 84 degrees and our heat index is 88. The wind is in the 20s gusting in the 30s. The air has that odd feeling...you know the one I mean, and we are onlhy in the slight risk area here in our county. I wouldn't want to be in NW or NE OK right now or in Central OK after 4:30 or 5:00 p.m.

Dawn

My daughter just texted me from Seattle and asked what's going on down here because her Twitter and Facebook accounts are "exploding" (her words) with posts from people in Oklahoma about the potential for severe storms. So someone is paying attention :).

Suzie

Suzie,

Well, isn't that something? I guess the folks who use Twitter and Facebook have found a useful purpose for it anyway! I remember the 'old days' (not all that long ago) where the only tornado warnings we got were when the local fire stations sounded their sirens to alert us to severe weather. If you lived too far away to hear the sirens that was your problem. lol Now, with alert signals on weather radios and such, most people can get an alert directly from the NWS

We have that storm alert system through our local TV station where they'll email you a storm warning or watch. Of course, I wasn't looking at my email during the storms, but when I logged on this morning I had 18 messages from them....one for each watch or warning issued for southern OK yesterday. I did have the local channel on the TV and they did live weather coverage from about 5 p.m. until the 10 p.m. news ended. As the evening quieted down, they tried to let the viewers go back to CSI Miami, but had to keep cutting in as the final storm was playing out just across the Red River in Grayson County, Texas.

Dawn