Severe weather outbreak across the US Plains and Midwest
Featured image: Oklahoma tornado on May 16, 2015. Image credit: TVNweather.com
US Plains and Midwest are again experiencing severe weather outbreak. Preliminary reports mention at least 27 tornadoes on Saturday, May 16 (Oklahoma, Minnesota, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming) and baseball-size hail.
Severe thunderstorms are expected across parts of the Mid and Upper Mississippi Valley during Sunday afternoon and evening (local time).
Large hail, locally damaging winds gusts and tornadoes (one or two of which could be strong) are possible, NWS Storm Prediction Center said. Heavy rainfall and flash flooding is also a threat.
Baseball-size hail was reported south of Goodlett, Texas at 16:47 local time (21:47 UTC). The same cell dropped baseball-size hail in Quanah, Texas. Very large hail was also reported in Castle, Oklahoma later in the day.
A massive tornado was observed and recorded near Elmer, Oklahoma around 18:00 local time (23:00 UTC). It tracked from south of Elmer to near Tipton to north of Manitou and briefly crossed a bend in the Red River into extreme northern Texas along its path. Sporadic damage was reported along its path, although the twister did not hit any towns directly, Weather.com said.
Storm chasers Dick McGowan and Shay Philips intercepted this powerful tornado as it crossed highway 283 right in front of them. After the tornado dissipated they checked on several farms and relayed damage to NWS and law enforcement.
Video credit: TVNweather.com
Video credit: StormChasingVideo.com
A multi-vortex tornado was reported near Murdock, Minnesota at 17:51 local time (22:51 UTC) as well as one brief tornado there.
There are reports of structural damage and power outages in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma after a tornado struck at around 23:30 local time on Saturday (04:30 UTC on Sunday).
Live updates: Tornadoes Reported In At Least Seven States
I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.
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