Synopsis: Severe Weather Impacts the Plains

Synopsis: Severe Weather Impacts the Plains

Written By Lee Davis 

May 18th 2015

Area affected included: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Minnesota.

Radar at the time of the Elmer-Jackson, OK Tornado.

May 17th was a very active of Severe Weather, including large, long lasting tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail. The severe weather was predicted days before it happened. The National Weather Service (NWS) had issued SPC outbreaks with an Enhanced risk for the states of Oklahoma and Kansas. At the end of the day their were 32 reports of tornadoes. Thankfully no lives were taken by these powerful tornadoes. High Instability and moisture existed in the models but on the sounding plot there was no indication of low-level shear. Low level shear is necessary in the development of tornadoes.That changed eventually as the sounding began to indicate the increase in low level shear. 

The day started with storms moving up from Texas. The first tornado of the day was located near Silverton, Texas around 1:15pm CDT. As the day progressed storms began to form along the Texas/Oklahoma border. In Wyoming a tornado was reported at 1:30 pm in Park County. No injuries were reported in this storm. In Minnesota, two tornadoes occured around 4:30 and 6:00. Some damage was reported in these tornadoes, including a roof being lifted off its foundations. One of the tornadoes was reported as multi-vortex tornado and was located west southwest of Murdock. Later that evening another small brief tornado occurred Northwest of Murdock, MN. Earlier around 2pm CDT, a tornado was reported near Lelia Lake, TX. Around 6pm CDT, a storm dropped a tornado near the town of Elmer, OK. These storms formed quickly and became very dangerous. Immediately as the storms formed severe thunderstorms warnings were issued. Many of the storms packed a punch with destructive winds over 60mph and large hail, including baseball and softball sized. The National Weather Service conducted a damage survey for the tornadoes that occurred on May 16th 2015. The Elmer, Oklahoma tornado was rated an EF-2 at first. The tornado flattened several trees and caused damage to several barns and houses. The tornado continued for 35 miles. The tornado was reported as a wedge at first. On radar the tornado showed a large debris ball and high levels of rotation. In the photo above you can see the well defined hook echo. At the time of this radar scan the storm was at its peak intensity. In addition the radar showed a debris ball at the time of the scan. The storm moved between several towns including Tipton, Headrick and Manitou before lifting up near Snyder, OK.

Several more tornadoes were reported throughout the evening, many were small and short lived. Eventually the storms which had previously produced tornadoes, merged together and a line of storms began to move towards the metro of Oklahoma City,OK and Tulsa, OK. The severe threat continued but the the tornado threat had gone down considerably. Several super cell thunderstorms began to form east of the long line of thunderstorms. One or two tornado warnings were issued for these small super cells but none produced long lived tornadoes like the Elmer tornado earlier that afternoon.


This is not the first time this season that the states of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas have seen severe weather. This was just another example of the active severe weather season that has hammered the Plains this year. The severe pattern continues next week throughout the Plain states. Check back next week for our next blog!