Those numbers are significant. I was watching the news about an hour ago, and they think it will fire up north of Tulsa.

First, I'll say that you always should get your weather info from the National Weather Service products. This is their field of expertise and they do a superb job. I hope the employees of the NWS know how grateful all of us are for the job they do each and every day. Their skill in correctly predicting severe weather outbreaks is phenomenal and keeps us all much safer than we otherwise would be.

However, when you want and need additional info, there are many media sources available.

I'm going to link a source that I like a lot. It is the Weather Underground website founded by Dr. Jeff Masters. You can follow severe weather at the Severe Weather portion of this website, and also via Dr. Masters' blog. Today's blog is about yesterday's storms including those that hit our state and some of our gardeners, so I thought y'all might like to see it. You might note that Dr. Masters mentions OKC Channel 9's coverage in his blog today.

In addition to the blog written by Dr. Masters, if you click on the "comments" section of his most recent blog post, you will find many extremely dedicated and incredibly knowledgeable people who often are posting real-time information 24/7 and often faster than other media during severe storm outbreaks. Some of them are meteorologists, some are met students, but most are just weather afficionados that like to talk about the weather the way all of us here on this forum like to talk about gardening. They have a level of technical knowledge and understanding that is simply amazing. Often, one of them will post a model run, chart or radar or something and say "this area is about to get tornado-warned". Within minutes, the official tornado warning will pop up. I have been amazed to observe this many times. I have lurked at WU for years and always have it on my laptop computer during an outbreak like yesterday's. During Tropical Cyclone season, this blog is incredibly busy but they still manage to squeeze in weather talk about other severe weather that is occurring outside the hurricane area.

By the way, if you have been listening to TWC this morning, they keep saying that the area of "southern OK" from OKC to McAllister to Ardmore may be the area where tornadoes are most likely, though anywhere in the moderate risk area is in danger. So, I think I'll go outside and open the storm cellar and let some fresh air in. I also need to spray orange oil again to keep the ants out.

Stay safe today, y'all.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Weather Underground-Dr. Masters' Blog

Thanks Dawn, I will have to check out that website. I will say this about weather. You can't control where it will fire up/happen, we just have to sit back and ride the ride. Especially as it seems Fox News, and NWS are putting out conflicting reports right now. Stay safe down there!

Dawn, today my daughter will be spending the afternoon with me since my office has a storm shelter in the basement. My wife will also be staying at work late, if need be as they too have a shelter. We won't be sitting it out in a bathtub. That is for sure.

I, literally, was sleeping most the day yesterday down in my back. I woke groggily and logged onto facebook to check my friends' updates.

A notice from NWS would have saved our lives if a tornado had touched down yesterday. As it was we hit the shelter while it passed.

I am SO grateful for their tireless dedication. I could tell they were exhausted yesterday. And again today? Oh my.

Dawn,

we have a full cloud cover over Edmond right now. Is this a good thing? Shouldn't that stop some of the build up?

Reed- I was always told cloud cover keeps everything under wraps a bit. We have cloud cover here too, but if it breaks and the atmosphere heats up, watch out! I don't blame you for not wanting to ride things out in the bathtub! Its such a terrible choice IMO! But I have done it plenty of times too!

Bre

Bre, You're welcome.

Here's the thing about weather forecasting--they use multiple models plus many other tools like hodographs and often the NWS forecasters and TV mets are looking at multiple data inputs that offer conflicting data. So, they study the data intensely and give us their best judgement of what will happen and where it will happen. They base their judgement on an entire multitude of factors, including their understanding of which forecast models perform best, historically, under which conditions. Sometimes they are right on the target and everything unfolds exactly as predicted. At other times, the data keeps changing and it is harder to pinpoint the most likely areas where storms will begin initiating, but they do the best they can with whatever conditions they face. All it takes, for example, is for the dryline to move more quickly or slowly than expected, and everything can change. Or one front or another stalls or whatever, and then you have to figure out how that will affect the weather over the next few hours. That is one reason I look at multiple sources, but always trust the NWS. They update quickly as they determine what changing conditions will give us. I cannot imagine how they do what they do in the stressful periods like yesterday was and like today will be. They truly are heroic.

Occasionally the severe weather heads right for an NWS facility and they have to leave their posts and seek shelter themselves, handing off temporary responsibility for their area to an NWS forecast office in a non-storm-warned area. Can you imagine how that must feel? I bet they hate it, but we need for them to stay safe so they can keep all of us safe.

Local media, of course, looks at the data as it applies to them. Last night, our local CBS station met was very concerned about certain portions of southern OK today in his TV station's viewing area....but still pointed out that storms can occur anywhere. Station in the Tulsa area will be most concerned about the initiation of storms that affect their viewing area. Same with stations in OKC. To add to that, I'll say that I am completely amazed at how well the OKC stations try to cover the entire state, even the smaller and very lightly populated areas. It cannot be easy. The Tulsa stations probably cover the whole state too, but I rarely watch them since i am so far south.

My son, who is a professional firefighter in the Dallas area and a volunteer firefighter when home here in southern OK, often says that the best warning you get is when storm chasers materialize near you. He has a great point. Because storm chasers (some of whom also are professional meteorologists) have access nowadays to so much sophisticated data, they often can pinpoint very precisely the locations where storm initiation is most likely and they position themselves accordingly. Whenever I see a storm chaser type vehicle in my town, and especially on our rural road, I take special note and open the storm cellar to air it out.

I expect today will be like the last couple of days and storms likely will start firing up in several places within the span of just a brief period of time. I'll be keeping an eye on the dryline for sure.

Y'all know I'll post stuff here as it starts to happen. When you see something posted here, that is just a heads up to say "go check your NWS forecast"......

We'll be safe and very careful. We keep our tornado shelter stocked with supplies year-round, and before storms begin today, I'll fill up the cooler (it already has drinks in it) with ice. Once a tornado warning pops up anywhere remotely close to us, I'll hustle the dogs and cats into interior rooms with no windows, including into closets (though obviously the dogs get the big walk-in closet in the master bedroom while the cats get smaller interior rooms and closets, and I don't put the dogs and cats together either, lol). By the time it is serious enough for us to worry, we'll be in the tornado shelter.

Well, I'll be in the tornado shelter. My son and husband likely will be out storm spotting or sounding the tornado warning siren at the fire station two miles from our house. I spend an amazing amount of time in the cellar alone.,...because I am the smart one....and if we are lucky they run for the house and jump into the storm cellar at the last possible moment. It makes me crazy, but when you are in a remote, rural location, many of the local firefighters and law enforcement officials are the only storm spotters we have, so instead of running to the fraidy hole like me and seeking shelter, they are out there scanning the skies and reporting certain cloud formations and rotation via their fire radios. It is an important service all storm spotters perform, but can be a dangerous one. When I am in the storm cellar, if I have radar up on the laptop or cell phone I can tell them what I am seeing relative to their position, which means basically I am nagging them to "get home and get in the shelter now!".

That storm in Shawnee was terrifying and I believe some of the damage matches EF-4 damage that we saw with the Lone Grove/Carter County tornado a couple of years ago. However, it could be the Shawnee tornado was only an EF-2 or EF-3 since traiIer houses generally do not fare as well in terms of damage as conventional homes do. I kinda thought the storm chasers that were chasing it got too close at times too, but that is their passion and they aren't likely to back off and stay further away.

Reed, I am glad all three of you will be in a location with a shelter. I was so worried about y'all when I knew you all were in the bathroom together sheltering from the storm. Your family was fortunate yesterday. Maybe next year we'll be discussing how to landscape around a new storm shelter? : )

Between y'all being in the shelter earlier in the day and Paula's family being in the shelter later in the day, I was on pins and needles.

Bon, One thing that worries me about all the great warnings we get from the NWS is that it can make us relax and be complacent. We all still must never forget that a tornado can form right over us at any second when we are in or near a tornado watch area, and we will see it before the NWS knows it has formed. We cannot always expect advance warning, though we often get it. That is in the inherent danger in getting used to the fantastic warnings......we forget that sometimes your first warning is when the sky over your head starts rotating. I have seen that twice in my life and it is horrifying. In both cases, the rotation over our head did not come down to the ground where we were, but we went to the shelters each time. The first time, it went about a mile and hit a warehouse near the place where I worked at the time. More recently, when it happened here, the rotating supercell awed our entire neighborhood but didn't touch down until it was a couple of counties NE of us. Afterwards we all laughed at ourselves and at one another as family after family admitted the same thing "I was headed for the tornado shelter, but then I just stood there in the yard and stared at the clouds rotating overhead". We all were a bunch of dummies that day for sure! Another fire chief from a different VFD actually left his relatively safe location that day, drove several miles to our house and then he and Tim sat in his truck in our driveway and watched the clouds rotate overhead. Later on, I told them both that they are crazy.

After a stormy day, we count our blessings over and over again, don't we? So much can happen to us at any given time in these storms and most of the time we are lucky and the absolute worst-possible-case scenario doesn't happen to "us". I just hate that it has to happen to anyone.

The people who lost loved ones, who are injured, who have had their homes and property destroyed are first and foremost in my thoughts today. A close second? All of us here and the need for us to be watchful, to be cautious, and to seek shelter EARLY when a tornado warning is activated for our area. When you have to leave your home and run to a nearby underground storm shelter in the yard, you should do it before dangerous debris is flying through the air.

Dawn

The trailer park in Shawnee that got demolished yesterday is 3 miles east of my house. That is worlds away when you consider that our biggest loss was peaches and chard, but sure felt prety close at the time. Most of my coworkers live in west shawnee, but all are safe. Some of our patients were hit pretty hard. I sure wish everyone could take a break from the storms today, but since that isnt possible I will pray that no one gets hurt.