Today's Weather: Tornadoes, Hail, Rain, Fire?

15 years ago

I finally got around to getting on the computer to check today's weather page and found it to be a typical Oklahoma weather forecast, with a chance of: rain, hail, severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and even an elevated risk of wildfire. It is amazing that we can have so many kinds of weather in one day, but that's pretty typical for us.

In Love County, it is very windy and there's still good moisture in the air, but our chances of getting rain seem to be decreasing as it appears the rain will be veering more towards the northeast.

Northwestern OK has a Red Flag Fire Warning for several counties, and much of the rest of OK may have thunderstorms with possible high wind, hail, or even tornadoes. I believe some counties have high wind warnings too. The frontline will be very fast moving and local weather could change quite suddenly.

The high winds (currently out of the south here) sure are bringing down the autumn leaves today. I'm going back out to the garden shortly, but with one ear on the fire radio. I was hoping for rain today (and planned to dream of rain last night in an effort to 'wishcast' the rain into coming here). Instead, I hardly slept at all because we had 4 fire calls between 5 p.m. last night and 5 a.m. this morning. And I had deer in the veggie garden this morning...trapped INSIDE by the fence meant to keep them out. So, now we have some garden fence repairs to make. It's never dull around here.

As always, I've linked the enhanced weather page. Y'all keep an eye on your local weather....especially if you're in the part of the state with a high risk for severe weather today.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: NWS Enhanced Weather page

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Comments (6)

Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
15 years ago
I hope those of you about to leave your jobs and head home are watching your local weather.

A tornado watch has been issued for 39 counties, including most of central OK.

Hope everyone stays safe.

Hot, gusty winds in southern OK, gusting up into the upper 30s and the front's not here yet. No tornado watch for me.

Dawn
ilene_in_neok
15 years ago
We had lots of lightning and thunder and some heavy rain but all is well here. Hope everyone else made it through OK. There were several storms that went through NE Okla last night.

Dawn, did you get any rain? --Ilene
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My mistake. I thought these were for today, but they are for tomorrow. The NWS has already converted the Fire Weather Watch to a Red Flag Fire Warning and they have already added three additional counties: Murray, Carter and Love. Currently the Red Flag Fire is for 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday. I'll go check the Tulsa weather office and see if they have similar warnings going. If they do, I'll come back and add the info. I've linked the text below. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Red Flag Warning Text
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Carol, I was thinking of you and your family and the Lone Grove tornado when I left the house for the tornado shelter because the first report of a tornadic circulation was at Petersboro in Montague County--virtually the same spot that the storm which produced the Lone Grove tornado also first appeared on radar before it crossed into western Love County and headed for Lone Grove. I followed the storms from the tornado shelter via the radar on my laptop (I lost reception, though, when I closed the steel door), a fire radio set on the Love County repeater station, and a weather radio. If the storm had followed the typical tornado pattern of moving from the southwest to the northeast, we would've been hit somewhere between Burneyville and Thackerville, and spotters in both areas did report tornadic circulation that never came down to the ground, thankfully. This storm, though, headed due east, hooked a little southeast once or twice, then corrected back to due east. We had two major cells move east from Montague County (baseball sized hail and a tornado touchdown) to Cooke County (rain, wind, hail, possible tornado) to Grayson County (golfball to baseball sized hail, tornado near the airport) to Fannin County. I am grateful they went east, and mostly through lightly populated areas. For a while we thought Gainesville was really going to get pounded. Robert, LOL I don't know. That would be an interesting thing to figure out. Maybe they described them in terms of inches? I wonder if there are a lot of historical reports of large hail? I can remember very large hail dating back to the late 1970s when I was in high school/college, but I don't remember any prior to that, although I am sure there was some. Dawn
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A few minutes ago TWC updated Dr. Forbes' TorCon Index, changing the '6' previously assigned to Western/Southern OK to Western/Central OK, so I wanted to note that change here. The TorCon Index updates throughout the day, so I've linked it below so anyone who is interested can check it as needed. I believe TWC's Great Tornado Hunt 2012 team plan are here in Oklahoma today again since this is where they're most likely to find the severe weather they're seeking. I don't know if those of you with plant damage from yesterday would be better off pruning off damaged foliage today or not. You might want to leave it on the plant to help protect still undamaged portions of your plants in case more severe weather hits your area today. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: TWC's TorCon Index
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Carol, I read some research recently that said onions performed better in a research study if they had weeds growing near them as opposed to being grown in well-weeded soil? Wow! When I think of all the time I apparently wasted weeding onions...... We have had 2.1" of rain in the last two days, so I think we are up to about 12.5" for the year at our house. I am feeling a lot better since getting rain last week and this week. The strong winds last night and today caused a lot of the youngest corn plants to lodge, and a few of the older ones too, but I expect all of them will straighten back up on their own in the next day or so. If they don't, I'll find some time to walk through the rows and straighten them back up sometime before the next round of bad weather arrives. It is hard to think about the garden at a time like this. I feel like my brain is on overload just from watching it all unfold. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to actually know people involved in all the troubles in Moore....like Paula does....now that is a lot of stress on her shoulders these last few days. I will say that after the Moore tornado had ended, I went out to my greenhouse and watered the plants in there and it did feel soothing and therapeutic to do so.....right up until I had to close and secure the doors because we then had a Tornado Warning that, thankfully, amounted to nothing. Reed, It is just one of those years, isn't it? We have to have a back-up plan for the back-up plan. Some years (okay, maybe all of them) are just that way. Krista, I was concerned about y'all and all that hail, rain and tornadoes. I am glad you didn't lose more plants. I think you may find that gardens and plants sometimes tolerate more water than you'd think they would. On April 29, 2009, the great drought of 2008-09 ended at our house when 12.89" of rain fell in a 24-hour period. It was followed by a lot more rain over the next few weeks. Our soil stayed so heavily saturated for so many weeks that I thought the whole garden would die.The garden was like a swamp and the soil developed that sour smell of soil that has been too wet too long, but the plants didn't die. Some plants looked awful for a long, long time because roots that are heavily saturated with water cannot take up nutrients since they are already waterlogged, but eventually it all dried out and everything survived, rebounded and produced...later than usual, but it all still produced. We have no way of knowing if your garden will survive the waterlogging like mine did that year, but at least it offers you some hope. On the other hand...life isn't fair. Last year two very poorly timed 3" rainfalls just a week or so apart were the nail in the coffin for a lot of my onions and potatoes that already had endured too much moisture while young. I wouldn't have thought that 6" of rainfall would hurt them, but it did. That's one of the interesting things about gardening....all the surprises, both good and bad. I don't know that gardening is relaxing. : ) Well, it can be. It just isn't necessarily "always" relaxing.
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soonergrandmom
15 years ago
OK here. We had wind, thunder, lightening, and a short burst of heavy rain but the rain was short-lived. They were getting hit a lot worse in Vinita and Miami. We always laugh at how much bad weather seems to be stopped by the turnpike. It's like an invisable weather line (or maybe the weather doesn't like the toll road.) Mesonet says we got .44 (in Jay) but I would guess ours was a little more.

I used the leaf blower and piled up all of the leaves in my front yard yesterday but didn't get them picked up. I was afraid the wind would send them flying, but they were so tightly packed that they didn't move much.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
15 years ago
Hi Y'all,

I watched the radar, the NWS weather page and the skies all the whole day long....endlessly.....and went to bed with it still being 79 degrees at 10:30 p.m. and wind out of the south.

However, there were very dark clouds to our west/northwest from about 6 p.m. and lightning from about 8 p.m. I think the rain squall line moved across between 11 and 11:30 p.m. and we had a pretty lively thunderstorm for a little while. Our Mesonet station only recorded .21 but my rain gauge has .75, so I am delighted. The forecast gives most of us a chance at rain again this weekend too!

I did notice in the late afternoon and early evening hours that some places had wind gusts over 50 m.p.h. and about 15 counties had some form of hail, with the worst of it being from golf ball sized to tennis ball sized. No hail here, thankfully.

Today, even though the ground is wet, it is still very dry. The lovely humidity that came with our south winds is pretty much gone, and our humidity is already in the 30s and dropping, which is not a good thing. When the humidity hits about 18 percent, my skin feels like it is cracking.

Yesterday, DH ran to town to sign a request from the county's fire chiefs to the county commissioners requesting implementation of a burn ban. I think 3/4s of the 14 fire chiefs have to sign the request before the commissioners will vote on whether or not to have a burn ban. I'll sleep better once they put a burn ban in effect because the fire pagers hopefully will go off less at night.

Our autumn foliage was gorgeous yesterday morning. This morning, most of it is on the ground, with the wind having stripped the leaves off the cedar elms, ash, redbuds, peaches, hickories, honey locust, wild cherries, plums, pecans and some of the oaks. Our post oaks, red oaks and blackjack oaks still have their leaves, though, and some of those trees' foliage isn't even changing color yet.

I guess cold weather is settling in and tomorrow will be much colder than today.

The rain was terrific. I hope the areas hit by high wind and hail didn't receive too much damage.

Dawn
ilene_in_neok
15 years ago
Dawn, I'm glad you finally got some rain. But I wish it had been more. Now that the dry spell has been broken, maybe you have a chance for more later on. I know that sounds silly, but it seems to be the way things work sometimes.

We almost always get less storm activity than Nowata, which is just about 30 miles to the east of us. It seems funny that a town named Nowata gets so much "wata". ;~)
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
15 years ago
Ilene,

There's an old saying around here that "it takes a flood to break a drought", and there seems to be some truth in it. Many times, after a dry year or two, we'll have one incredibly rainy month, with at least one day of very heavy rainfall (usually 5" to 9" in one day), and the drought will finally break. So, I'm looking forward to having that happen....preferably before the late winter planting season arrives!

I have been at the fire station all afternoon, so haven't even looked at the weather forecast, but it is more humid and we've had wind out of the south, so I think the forecast rain might be on its way. I really hope so!

Dawn

Today's Weather: Tornadoes, Hail, Rain, Fire?

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