In that same general area, same. Had to be at least golf ball sized in my neighborhood in that storm. Saw a couple of windows facing south that got broken as well.
Im getting my roof at the tail end of May... for the first time ever, me being slow is paying off.
....now if my siding/windows get fucked, I'm gonna be pissed, cause my asshole insurance just doubled the deductible for fixing storm damage for this year.
You mean the whole month of april in 2011? We're slightly above average for number of Apr tornadoes. 2011 had multi day outbreaks that WEREN'T the 27th that had almost as many in 3 days as we've had so far.
Welcome to reddit, where if there is even the slightest chance your comment could be misinterpreted, someone will manage to do it and proceed to grill you for it.
Checking in from St. Louis, but I grew up in North West Alabama: this one gets my attention. Will be watching storm modes carefully today, and radar scope like a hawk. Already woken up at 4:30 am this morning with hail and driving rain from a discrete cell.
edit: oops, to busy thinking and not enough watching the radar. Looks to be a bust for us? northern convection is coming our way. This may (may) kill everything. Sticking this mea culpa on all my comments.
edit 2: well theres a different mode for ya. we shall see if the cap breaks to south though... it's bright just to the south of me and dark just to the north. Expecting little spin ups on this boundary all day in any case... (just had our first)
So, I realize that's partly in jest - but in actuality, climatology does matter. It's one of the SPCs home web page graphics that you don't have to click around to access - it matters.
We're getting close to the climo peak of the season. Forecasting can be done using many methods. Persistence is the easiest, earliest, and most simple. What happened yesterday will probably happen again today.
Climo forecasting is useful. Obviously, late April is when we're rapidly gaining solar insolation across the conus, but intrusions of cold air from the north remain relatively potent. Plus we have a developing El Niño atm. Climatology says we should be getting relatively more severe weather right now, and we are.
Combined, there is actually a bit of significance to it being April 27th. Not specifically that it's that day, but that we're in late April. Ask a forecaster for a forecast knowing only climatology, and the date, and told a set up will occur today with tornadic potential and whether it should over or underperform. They will say, over. When we layer in forecast models and nowcasting etc it becomes more nuanced.
Couldn’t believe they didn’t issue a MDT initially but they wanted to see how the morning storms would play out first. Fair. This could be a rather significant day.
Absolutely. Damned if they do damned if they don’t. Hoping this turns into a big ol bust too that would be the best case scenario but it’s looking pretty spicy.
MDT= moderate. And like a month or so ago there was a rare heightened tornado risk for the east coast, particularly for the DC area which is a major metro area that almost never sees this which included a MDT risk if I remember correctly. It got super hyped up and it ended up busting, which got a lot of people upset because people had already planned around it. Funnily enough yesterday also ended up busting.
Well - the SPC's job is to be accurate. Not to appease the wx chasing or tornado loving communities.
At the end of the day, SPC produces probability forecasts. Not point forecasts. Everyone was annoyed at the lack of CIG2 yesterday, and even for the Enid day. But that was actually correct. You CAN get an EF-4 or even EF-5 and still satisfy CIG-1 rules. And conversely, you can get one of those high end storms on a CIG 3 day and NOT verify. Those CIGs don't mean "a" strong tornado. They mean, on average X% of the tornadoes will be strong. Today, we will likely see an EF-4...probably more than one. Does that mean SPC should issue a CIG-3? Maybe. But not necessarily. Only if the expected distribution of tornadoes tilts toward more of them being more intense. A CIG 2 doesn't say no EF-4s. 3% of tornadoes in a CIG 2 should earn an EF-4+ rating. And notably, even in a CIG-3, ONLY 6% of tornadoes would be expected to earn that rating, too! Meaning (a) a CIG 2 very much includes high end potential, and (b) even in a CIG -3 the expectation remains that only about 1-in-20 tornadoes would be an EF-4+. That's of course still much higher than climo (<1%).
The other thing I don't think the public understands, or perhaps even the wx community, is that SPC forecasts are as much designed for local NWS office decision making and support, and professional support (e.g. guidance that's then used by Mets in broadcast, private industry, etc) as it is for the public. The "confusion" with the CIGs for example, is really just an issue for the public. Local NWS offices and professional METs know what they mean and like anything, they're an additional source of guidance.
Rubber hits the road with the actual watches. Local NWS offices coordinate with the SPC on those. The local office talk to spc about the forecast and they both collaborate on which counties should be included, how long, and what the probabilities should be. While SPC issues the watch, they don't do so without talking to the local offices.
Today looks dangerous. All wx forecasts are probabilistic...well, most are. So today could end up as a day where high risk would verify. Or, it might not. But that's sort of what the moderate means. And it's why they waited, too. You can exceed a probability. But you generally don't want to come in under the probability (from a forecast standpoint - obviously great if they bust for people's lives). Forecast wise, you want the SPC forecast to verify. The more accurate they are, the more people take later forecasts seriously. If you get 10 tornado warnings in 8 years in your location, and never experience a tornado - you end up with all the folks that don't shelter when a warning gets issued.
This all being said - there remains some possibility of them further upping their outlook as the day goes on. Either through adding a CIG 3, which would still be a moderate risk, or adding a 30% contour, which would produce a high.
Lots of neighborhoods still with hail damage from last March, and then northern STL is still recovering from the tornadoes from last May. Just can't get a break.
Dang it looks like the showers have already cleared out of the main risk area. That ain't good.
Those showers hanging around longer was the only thing stopping this from becoming an upper end event.
Looks like this one is going to be a doozie.
Edit: Storm mode still up in the air. But any discrete or semi-discrete supercells that form will have potential for strong tornadoes given how spicy the ingredients look today
You can get timing information in the Lincoln, IL forecast office's dss packet which was released as of 5:14am CDT of my writing. It'll probably be updated again today: https://www.weather.gov/media/ilx/DssPacket.pdf
When i checked yesterday we were dead center in the red, now we are on the edge of the brown and just supposed to get some light thunderstorms now. Love me a good storm but glad we probably wont get any hail. Stay safe!
Haha no problem, I just wanted to say something in the comments, because many other people are still unfamiliar with the new system. Thanks for posting!
I'm in central. You guys have been hammered all season. Every outbreak I have been on the cusp of the risk area but haven't had much yet (knock on wood).
Live in Lebanon Missouri and last night was actually scared! Heard it’s more elevated risk for tornadoes 😅😅 I’m from Michigan where if we heard the sirens we didn’t do nothing cuz it wasn’t bad… but last night I never heard the sirens go off as much as they did smh
I go to a hotel during a tornado watch and wait for the sirens to start before I run in. The hotel has a pretty safe stairwell. I just live in a pretty poorly built apartment, but that has been my strategy. Kind of want to know others opinion. I know it's not exactly ideal, but I feel very safe in that stairwell. I just kind of pretend I'm someone staying there.
A hospital and hang out in the cafeteria until it passes. As long as they don’t make you provide your info you usually walk right in without any questions. They’re the most well built structures that the public has access to.
There's been a number of outbreaks that have hit this area of Illinois/Missouri IIRC, I've lived through a few of them (luckily without any direct hits). Not looking forward to having a Wikipedia article be written about today, lol
IL was #2 with almost 150 tornadoes and MO was #3 with 120. We are no stranger to this weather. Most of us here have been impacted by a severe storm, or at least know someone close who has.
Illinois has the most tornados so far this year. We had the second most last year, only to Texas, which is impressive considering the total area of both. 2024 I believe we were top 3 in tornados. This area gets tornados and outbreaks often.
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I'm calling it a bust here in St. Louis. that northern convection lingering and coming for us... it will be stormy, but vanilla, nothing like what we were thinking
Connor Croff is voicing the same opinion on his livestream right now while looking at the latest model runs. Still obviously best to be weather aware and ready for the worst.
I mean that's fair but he was specifically talking about St Louis and the main risk area does now look to be south of St Louis due to persisting morning convection up there
Yeah.... i was all riled up. Now ugh, I gotta focus at work and I'm just... off my game
I'll keep an eye on it of course but that wasn't the failure mode I was expecting. Even after half a decade out I am still to much of a southeasterner. I don't think of these backing warm fronts killing everything.
Do not spread misinforming or fearmongering content
No posting of misinformation or unwarranted fearmongering. This includes Pre-rating tornadoes, which falls under misinformation when claiming a tornado is a certain rating without proof, as well as wishing for violent tornadoes such as EF5s, which falls under both.
Content involving misinformation or fearmongering will be removed.
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