From the National Weather Service: Severe storms expected tonight and Wednesday afternoon…
This hazardous weather outlook is for portions of the Missouri
Ozarks and extreme southeast Kansas.
This afternoon and tonight:
The hazardous weather risk level is…significant.
Weather hazards expected:
-significant hail risk.
-significant thunderstorm wind damage risk.
-elevated to significant tornado risk.
-significant lightning risk.
-significant flooding risk.
Discussion…
Supercell thunderstorms will develop along a dry line from south
central Kansas into north central Texas this afternoon. These
storms will rapidly become severe and track northeast between 30
and 40 mph. Current indications are that these storms will
begin to move into extreme southeast Kansas and far Western
Missouri between 7 and 9 p.m. Hail to the size of baseballs…
wind gusts to 70 mph…and tornadoes will all be possible with
these storms. At this time…it appears that the greatest
tornado threat from early to mid evening will be along and west
of a Fort Scott, Kan., to Joplin to Anderson, Mo., line.
By late this evening…these supercell thunderstorms will begin
to transition into a line of thunderstorms. This line is
expected to track across much of extreme southeast Kansas and
the Missouri Ozarks from late this evening into the overnight
period. A significant threat for damaging winds will exist with
this line…with wind gusts up to 70 mph possible. Isolated
tornadoes and hail to the size of golf balls will also remain
possible.
In addition to the risk of severe weather…there remains a
risk of flash flooding…particularly across southern Missouri.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., has issued a “high risk” of tornadoes on Tuesday across parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, saying that “an intense tornado outbreak is expected.”
The bulls-eye for Tuesday’s tornado threat seems to be north-central Oklahoma. Once formed, many of these storms should quickly produce large and long-tracking tornadoes. Those storms would move in the direction of already hard-hit Joplin, Mo., as evening progresses.
Expect the first storms to get under way along the dryline in central Oklahoma around 4 p.m. local time, and begin to rotate soon thereafter. Individual rotating storms are most likely in Oklahoma, while a bit farther north in Kansas, storms may join forces to form larger threatening systems, which would increase the possibility of damaging winds.
The Storm Prediction Center uses the designation of “high risk” sparingly, usually only a handful of times per year, and only in situations where confidence is extremely high that lives will be at risk.
This is the fourth such “high risk” day so far this year, and in each earlier case at least 52 tornadoes were reported. The outbreaks in North Carolina and Alabama were both high-risk days. Looking back over the past 30 years, there were significant tornado outbreaks on 85 percent of “high risk” days.