Three Straight Days of Dangerous Storms For Saturday and Saturday Night 10:50pm Tornado watch until 5am. This includes Dallas and Ft. Worth 5:35pm Radar at 5:30pm. Gold counties = tornado watch. Pink counties = severe thunderstorm watch.  4:20pm Update The red tint is the tornado watch which calls for "intense" tornadoes, 4" in diameter and thunderstorm-generated winds of 80 mph. As of 4:15pm, thunderstorms were beginning to develop in the southwest part of the watch.  I will not be able to provide my continuous coverage this afternoon, so please monitor trusted weather sources.  11:45am update There is an enhanced  risk of tornadoes in the yellow area and any tornadoes could be strong. Update: the solid cross hatching is where the NWS is forecasting violent  tornadoes.  The brown area has a significant risk and there, too, the tornadoes could be strong. The primary threat should be after 3pm.  This the hail forecast. Where you see the bold cross-hatch...

Below, I mention that today is the first day of three active days of weather. I'd like to give you  preliminary looks at Sunday and Monday. Sunday The yellow area has an enhanced  risk of tornadoes and any tornadoes that occur could be strong. The brown area has a significant risk and the hatching means any could be strong.  In Nebraska, the brown area includes Lincoln, Beatrice, and Superior. In Oklahoma, the brown area includes Blackwell and Medford.  Monday The National Weather Service expects an outbreak of tornadoes on Monday. There is the serious risk of violent, long-tracked tornadoes -- particularly from southeast Iowa (including Iowa City, Ft. Madison and the Quad Cities into northwest Illinois including Galesburg, Quincy, Peoria and nearby areas. There is also the likelihood of damaging thunderstorm winds and large hail.  I will update this blog tomorrow and Monday, of course; I will also provide more frequent updates on Twitter/X @usweatherexpert ...

Go read the headline a second  time. Yes, it says the opposite of what nutritional science has been telling us for 30+ years.  I'm always amused by people who criticize weather science's forecasting ability when nutritional science seems to change almost weekly. For younger readers, this is how bad it got: Of course, more recently, the advice is the opposite. And, remember, nutrition is not a predictive science.  This is also a cautionary example about science from LinkedIn earlier this week: A scientific "consensus" is meaningless. Science is about what can be replicated and proven -- it is in no way a popularity contest. 

The brown area has a significant risk of tornadoes. Where the hatching is located, any tornadoes may be strong. Keep up on the weather in this region. 

It is terribly unfortunate the emergency manager(s) made the decision to sound the tornado sirens in the City of Kansas City.  My daughter was visiting a friend south of downtown KC and she let me know the sirens were going off. Where was the tornado? Twenty-five miles to the northeast with the tornado was moving away  from Kansas City! This is 1960's siren philosophy, "tornadoes are unpredictable so if we are going to sound the sirens in any part of the county, we'll sound them over the entire  county!" A report after the Joplin Tornado found the over-use of their tornado sirens was a factor as to why so many died.  Independence is an east suburb of Kansas City. This is ridiculous. It hurts the credibility of the warning system. It needs to stop!

The tornado risk in the central U.S. is now minimal. So, this ends my storm coverage for the night. In the early morning, I'll have a post up about the highly unfortunate tornado false alarm in Kansas City. Third Tornado Watch of the Day until 11p Second Tornado Watch of the Day The watch is in effect until 9pm. In addition to tornadoes, softball-sized hail  and  thunderstorm-generated wind gusts to 80 mph. Put your car in shelter and bring in trampolines and lawn furniture. 12:45pm First Tornado Watch of the Day Note also the forecast of tennis ball-sized hail. 11:50am The yellow are has an enhanced  risk of tornadoes and, if one forms, it could be strong. The yellow area forecast is unchanged since earlier this morning.  The brown area has a significant chance of tornadoes and, in the hatched area, the tornadoes could be strong. In Iowa, it has been extended north and, in Oklahoma, it has been extended south and east to include Oklahoma City and Tulsa.  Very l...