Severe Weather Recap - April 4-6

The large trough and associated low pressure system and other surface features that had been in the eyes of chasers for nearly a week before even coming onshore has come and gone over the Plains. This past Sunday (April 4) through Tuesday (April 6) all had the potential to be some of the best days of chasing thus far for 2010. Now I realize given the way the early season (January-March) have turned out this isn't saying a whole lot, but comparatively many chasers were quite excited about the prospects. There were obviously some concerns with the setups on each day, as it is often hard to find a day that doesn't have some sort of concern. The lack of upper level support for Sunday and Monday were hard to miss, and with such a stout elevated mixed layer (EML) this allowed for a pretty good lack of significant storms until during/after sunset. The upper level support did arrive for Tuesday, but winds became largely unidirectional for most areas with only a narrow axis of good directional shear along the warm front in Iowa. The moisture concern which was largely discussed didn't show itself at the surface, but given the impressive EML that was in place the moisture just wasn't deep enough in my opinion. I could go on with a few more concerns and of course mention the positives that were in place for the events, but we'll continue on into what actually occurred each day.

In the end I can somewhat luckily say that I had to work throughout all three potential chase days, thus was not active in chasing any of the storms. I think it is fairly safe to say though that if I wasn't working that I would have likely favored going chasing for at least 1 or 2 of the days.

Sunday will actually be credited with the only tornado reports on the Plains, although not yet confirmed to my knowledge by the Kansas City or St. Louis NWS offices. (Note: There was a tornado report on Monday 4/5 in western Illinois) These tornado reports came from a rather impressive supercell that began its' life ~40 miles northeast of Kansas City and continued into western Illinois during the early overnight hours. A total of 4 tornado reports came from this storm as it passed through Howard, Randolph & Audrain counties between 7pm and 8:15pm. This storm also produced some of the largest hail reports (2.5" in diameter) and damaging winds. The storm was fairly photogenic, although any tornadoes were likely hidden within shrouds of rain. The worst part of this storm was likely its' speed (45 mph) and location within the hilly/winding roads of central Missouri. There were additional storms across parts of northern Oklahoma that came after dark and produced some large hail and damaging winds, but nothing of tornadic nature and largely photogenic.

Monday and another day featuring a warm front draped along the Iowa/Missouri borders and then a dryline play in Kansas/Oklahoma. No tornado reports and no significant severe weather to speak of out of the entire day/night with a majority of storms occurring across southern/central Iowa and only producing 1.0-1.75" diameter hail and some wind gusts of 60-70 mph. This will largely go down as a bust for most people as the only storms were well out of any target area by chasers.

Tuesday was turning out to be the day, with upper level support finally arriving and significant surface moisture still in place the hopes were high for most people. The SPC had targeted the warm front with a 10% tornado risk and kept the conditional hope of 5% tornado risk for the remainder of the dryline in Kansas/Oklahoma. Storms did initiate along the dryline/pre-frontal trough and the warm front in Iowa; however once again there were no tornadoes to speak of. Several tornado warnings were issued in Iowa, with there being some impressive damage that has been surveyed to be damaging straight-line winds of 95-105 mph! Other reports of damaging winds and large hail occurred across eastern Kansas and parts of Oklahoma, although storm motions of 45 mph were a disadvantage along with largely linear storm mode with embedded supercells over Kansas. The storms over Oklahoma came after dark once again given the strong inhibition (EML) that continued to be in place. Although not a lot of reports from chasers have came in regarding the storms on Tuesday, I think it'll be hard to get any highly photogenic storms out of what occurred.

With what is likely one of the worst starts in regards to tornadoes in several years, the largely linear and high precipitation storms thus far haven't produced anything amazing to my knowledge. The Kansas City metro has been off to a pretty good start in regards to just severe/strong thunderstorms with several days of morning and afternoon convection with some marginal hail and strong winds. Even today we managed to pull off a severe thunderstorm and 1.75" hail in Platte County with little instability and a surface observation of 58/44. Can't say I'm dissapointed in hearing the thunder multiple times thus far, and I'll look forward to warmer temperatures and an eventual return to slower moving and more discrete storms later in the Spring!

Now all eyes can turn to the next trough to enter the Plains, which should come sometime early next week! In the meantime, we'll focus on sunny skies and warming temperatures for Kansas City.