Overview of the April 24th Storms

The first high risk of the decade, and the year was issued not only locally, but nationwide. As seen from Below. The Storm Reports are below. As you can say I was, along with the SPC had a outbreak of severe weather in the forecast across the area including West KY, and West TN, and Mid TN. High Risk events are quite rare, and only occur one in about a year and a half. The last one was on Super Tuesday 2008, and we all know what happened on that fateful day. If you look at the reports the action was quite limited in Far West KY and NW TN. This is not a bash on the SPC, as they do a great job, and they know more about severe weather than I do. There are a few lessons that could be learned. Besides the High Risk as a whole didn't bust, as there was a brief tornado in Pembroke KY, and a Tornado hit the north outskirts of Parsons TN. Overall storms didn't get as violent as expected in West KY, due to the mass of rain that formed in the early afternoon, this brought down instability, and also the way the storms formed in West KY limited real bad weather. In Mississippi where there was a devastating tornado a supercell formed alone, and was able to survive a long time, because no other storms ran into it, and there was great instability for it to survive. In West KY the instability was kept under 1000, so therefore most storms didn't remain tornadic very long, and nothing really got going bad.

In great shear environments there was enough for a few worthy storms. A big time bow echo developed briefly, along with areas of rotation. This caused 60-72MPH wind gusts across areas east of the lakes with some damage. A brief tornado in Pembroke KY also occurred. A supercell in the line did some wind damage, and produced quarter sized hail from Clarksville to Guthrie. There was siginficant damage to one business, and some damage to homes in the Bible Hill area, into the northern outskirts of Parsons TN that will probably be surveyed. Also at least some wind damage, with funnels in the area (possibly a weak tornado) in the Eastern Sumner/Western Macon County TN area. I will update everyone with any surveys.

Some things to learn:
- High Risk events are not guarantees for severe weather, but it does mean that the setup for a high end tornado event and, or, a big time derecho is there. If everything falls in line as expected a historic event can occur. That if everything falls in line as expected is a key word. Sometimes we don't know how the storms will form, or act even 6 hours before the event. Still if a MDT, and HIGH risk is issued expect at least the potential for some nasty severe storms. In many High Risk areas there is a small portion of it that doesn't quite the severe weather as expected,but usually in the SE US someone gets something significant. this was the case with this one, it doesn't mean the whole thing went bust so if you are in the High Risk in the future beware.
- Heavy Rain before the event can tamper with the instability. It lowers how unstable the atmosphere is, and that limits the amount of inflow a storm can get, which influences how big it becomes, and how long it lasts.
- Sometimes HIGH SHEAR/LOW CAPE events can produce sig. events. Parsons area tornado of this event was an example, so was the Super Tuesday outbreak. As I found out though the further you get into spring the more instability it does take to get severe weather though. A 500CAPE may work in Feb. but not in May.


I will give updates on any surveys that could be done in TN, and KY.

Please pray for the MS people. As a devastating tornado did hit throughout the central part of the state. Keep them in your thoughts throughout the day and week to come. Sadly that can be a result of a high risk day.