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Severe weather across the southern and central Plains

By Scott Bachmeier •

1-minute GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images with time-matched SPC Storm Reports plotted in red [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) showed widespread thunderstorms that produced tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds (SPC Storm Reports) across parts of Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma (as well as far western Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas) on 06 May 2024. This was declared a rare High Risk day for severe weather by the SPC (as also discussed in this blog post).

A longer animation of 1-minute GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (below) extended several hours past sunset. The coldest overshooting top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -70 to -75ºC range (darker black to embedded shades of white). These thunderstorms produced the deadly EF4-rated tornado in Barnsdall, Oklahoma around 0240 UTC, hail as large as 4.00″ in diameter near Moonlight, Kansas around 0126 UTC and a wind gust as high as 82 mph near Chester, Oklahoma around 2209 UTC.

1-minute GOES-16 “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images with time-matched SPC Storm Reports plotted in white [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-16 Visible (and after 1911 UTC, Infrared) images combined with GOES-16 Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and Lifted Index (LI) Derived Stability Indices and the Total Precipitable Water (TPW) derived product (below) showed the instability and moisture within the warm sector of a large midlatitude cyclone that was centered over the Northern Plains — ingredients which helped to fuel the development of the severe thunderstorms.

5-minute GOES-16 Visible (and after 1911 UTC, Infrared) images, combined with GOES-16 CAPE, LI and TPW derived products [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Categories: GOES-16, Severe convection