Tornadoes touched down Monday night in rural Oklahoma and heavy hail struck parts of Kansas as an outbreak of dangerous storms led to the possibility of strong tornadoes remaining on the ground for several miles.
Forecasters issued a rare high-risk weather warning for both states, the first for Oklahoma in five years.
“You can’t count on waiting to see tornadoes before sheltering in place tonight,” the National Weather Service said.
Oklahoma was under a particularly dangerous situation (PDS) watch, the second in just nine days. The day before PDS as is last month resulted in four deaths and 22 confirmed tornadoes.
At least four tornadoes were spotted in north-central Oklahoma, including one about a 45-minute drive north of Tulsa. The National Weather Service office issued a tornado emergency warning Monday evening for the nearby towns of Bartlesville, Dewey and Barnsdall.
The weather service warned that “a significant and potentially deadly tornado” was headed toward these cities, with wind gusts up to 70 mph.
Additional tornadoes had been spotted earlier in the evening near the town of Okeene, population 1,000, while another storm in Covington had “produced tornadoes intermittently for more than an hour.”
The greatest risk of devastating weather is in areas of Oklahoma, such as Sulfur and Holdenville, that are still recovering from a tornado that killed four people and left thousands without power late last month. The Plains and Midwest have been hit by tornadoes this spring.
A dispatcher in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma, said a tornado damaged only one home, but it was not immediately known if anyone was in the home or if anyone was injured. Throughout the region, wind turbines spun rapidly in the wind and blinding rain.
Meanwhile, hail the size of an apple and 3 inches in diameter was reported near Ellinwood, Kansas, a town of about 2,000 people 100 miles northwest of Wichita.
The weather service said more than 3.4 million people, 1,614 schools and 159 hospitals in Oklahoma, parts of southern Kansas and far north Texas face the most serious threat tornadoes.
Schools and colleges across the state, including the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Public Schools and several metro area school districts, closed their doors early and canceled classes and activities late after -noon and evening.
The Oklahoma State Emergency Operations Center, which coordinates storm response from a bunker near the state Capitol, remains activated following last weekend’s deadly storms, and the commissioner of State Public Safety asked state agencies to let most of their Oklahoma workers leave early Monday.
Monte Tucker, a farmer and rancher in the far western Oklahoma town of Sweetwater, spent Monday putting some of his tractors and heavy equipment in barns to protect them from hail and letting his people know neighbors that they can come to his house if the weather becomes dangerous.
“We built a house 10 years ago, and my stubborn wife put her foot down and made sure we built a safe room,” Tucker said. He said the entire ground floor room was constructed with reinforced concrete walls.
Bill Bunting, deputy director of the Storm Prediction Center, said an elevated risk from the center is not something you see every day or every spring.
“This is the highest threat level we can assign. And it’s a day to take very, very seriously,” he said.
The last time a high risk was issued was March 31, 2023, when a massive storm system ravaged parts of the South and Midwest, including Arkansas, Illinois and rural Indiana .
The risk Monday in parts of the Southern Plains is the worst in five years, said AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jon Porter.
“If you look at a meteorology textbook on how to start a significant tornado outbreak in the Southern Plains, you’ll find that all the ingredients you need are there today,” Porter said.
The number of storms and their intensity are expected to increase rapidly in the evening across western Oklahoma and into south-central Kansas, Bunting said.
“The types of tornadoes this storm can produce are particularly intense and can last a long time,” Porter said. “These are tornadoes that can sometimes last 45 minutes or an hour or more, creating paths of destruction as they move forward.”
The elevated risk is due to an unusual confluence: Winds gusting to about 75 mph blew across Colorado’s populated Front Range region Monday, including the Denver area.
The winds are created by a low-pressure system north of Colorado that also draws moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, fueling the risk of severe weather across the Plains, said Greg Heavener, a meteorologist coordinating warnings for the region. Denver from the National Weather Service. desk.
Colorado is not at risk of tornadoes or thunderstorms, he said.
Dangerous weather in the Plains will move east, potentially creating an overnight risk in places like Kansas City and Springfield, Mo., through Tuesday morning, Porter said.
“It’s not going to be an atmospheric pattern where the sun is going to set and the storms are going to die down and there’s not going to be any additional risk,” noted Victor Gensini, professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois. University.
The whole week promises to be stormy across the United States. The eastern United States and the South are expected to bear the brunt of the severe weather during the rest of the week, including in Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati, where more than 21 million people live. This should be clear this weekend.
Meanwhile, floodwaters in the Houston area began receding Monday after days of heavy rain in southeast Texas that flooded neighborhoods and led to hundreds of flood rescues.
Grub5
