Tornadoes Didn't Hit Big Towns, But Extreme Weather Continues

News9 in Oklahoma City captured these twin tornadoes
north of Oklahoma City Monday. Photo via Matt Mahler
on Twitter. 

That highly anticipated tornado outbreak in Texas and Oklahoma did roar into being on Monday, but thankfully, none of the larger tornadoes went right through major towns.

There was plenty of damage from the 22 tornadoes reported in the region so far, but no deaths. A particularly nasty tornado hit the outskirts of Magnum, Oklahoma, causing lots of damage.

Tornado warnings are still going out in eastern Oklahoma this morning, and more twisters are a definite possibility, especially in Missouri and Arkansas later today.  

FLOODING WORSE THAN TORNADOES

As I alluded to yesterday, the flooding in the region is actually worse than the tornadoes. There is widespread, serious flooding going on in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, and the rains keep falling.

Areas in red can expect several inches more of rain over
the next seven days with continued serious flooding. 

The weather pattern is "stuck" again, with a ridge of hot high pressure in the Southeast and a deep dip in the jet stream in the West. This is creating a parade of storms moving diagonally southwest to northeast in the middle of the nation.

This is, of course, very bad news, as the severe storm risk will continue all week in the Midwest.  Worse, repeated bursts of heavy rain will fall on already flooded areas, worsening the situation Parts of Oklahoma got six inches or more of rain just yesterday.

Parts of Interstate 40 west of Oklahoma City were closed by flooding this morning. Water was invading the Ponca City, Oklahoma police station. Cars were swept off roads by flooding in Joplin, Missouri, says the Weather Channel.

Parts of Missouri, Iowa and Kansas can expect at least six inches more rain in the next seven days. This is on top of serious flooding going on already in those states.

COLORADO SNOW, AGAIN

In the cold air to the west of the storminess, odd late season snow continues to fall in Colorado, Wyoming and in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Denver reported three inched of new snow, one of only seven times since 1882 that an inch or  more of snow has fallen in the city.

Unfortunately, the wet, heavy snow was snapping branches on trees that had already leafed out. Car crashes on snowy highways led to the temporary closure on Interstate 70 through the mountains.

SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA

In one more unusual weather event in a week of odd weather, Subtropical Storm Andrea formed yesterday well off the Southeast U.S. coast. It's weak and will probably dissipate tomorrow, but this is yet another year in which a tropical or tropical type storm formed ahead of the normal hurricane season, which starts June 1.

VERMONT/NEW ENGLAND UPDATE

The Storm Prediction Center has Vermont in
a marginal risk zone for severe thunderstorms
Thursday, with a somewhat greater chance off to our west

Luckily, little in the way of severe weather developed in New England Monday, despite much of the region being under a severe thunderstorm watch. Storms did cause some tree damage in and around Providence, Rhode Island.

Here in Vermont, we were lucky that most places didn't get any additional torrential downpours during the day Monday.

The storms Sunday night dumped up to three inches of rain in a few hours in parts of central Vermont, leading to minor flooding and road washouts.

Sunday night's heavy rain will prolong the Lake Champlain flooding. By Sunday, the lake had fallen to 100.25 feet, which is just four inches or so above flood stage. It looked like the very long, but minor flood that began on April 20 would end soon.

But the lake is temporarily rising again, getting up to around 100.4 feet by this morning. It'll start to fall again soon, unless we get more heavy rain.

The next shot of rain is Thursday, when another round of showers and thunderstorms will blow through. There's even a marginal chance of perhaps a few more severe storms. We'll see.

All those storms in the Plains will keep ejected northeastward toward us over the next week, so we'll get frequent bouts of rain with just short intervals of dry weather in between. Luckily, they won't be as intense as they were in the Plains by the time they get here, but we'll still have to watch occasionally for locally heavy rain through next week.