Heads Up: Two Tornado Outlooks

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I have two tornado outlooks I want to share with you so you can prepare.

Friday and Friday Night
As we have had a break in the tornadoes that were frequent in March and the first week of this month, it looks like we'll have a day with tornadoes possible in eastern Kansas, central and eastern Texas, and northeast and north central Texas, including the Metroplex. 

At of this point, and this is quite preliminary, the greater chance of tornadoes will be in the red area marked "enhanced." There is a lesser, but still significant, risk in the orange area. 

As for Saturday, it is too soon to make a forecast as yet. 

Late April and May
The product below is known to meteorologists as "the chiclets." It is a long range severe thunderstorm and tornado outlook that has been surprisingly good this season. 
I'm not going to try to decipher this for non-meteorologists but it suffices to say that the period from April 25 to May 25 (the end of the forecast period) -- if this forecast is correct -- will be extremely active. This product was not available during the highly active tornado season of 2011 but I suspect it would have looked something like this had the chiclets been available. 

Why am I telling you this? If you haven't already, I urge you to finish your 2023 tornado season preparations. 

Here is a reminder of what I recommend:
  • Sign up for StormWarn. It is just $25 for a year of peace of mind. If you are in the direct path of a tornado or 80+ mph thunderstorm-generated winds, it will ring two phones of yours with the warning. Think of it as a tornado alarm. Unlike a weather radio, it will alert you in the middle of the night if you are in life-threatening danger. It will not alert you to 1" hail 20 miles away at 3am.
  • A weather radio. They will wake you up. I recommend the programmable version to filter out the false alarms as much as possible. 
  • An app like AccuWeather's. Enable "location" to it will tell you if a tornado warning has been issued. 
  • Enable the FCC's Wireless Emergency Alerts on your smartphone. On an iPhone, touch "notifications" and scroll down. These aren't perfect but they are helpful.
I recommend you have at least three of the above, as none of them are perfect or close to it. It is still early in the 2023 tornado season, so any purchase of StormWarn or a weather radio will carry you through the season. If you have friends or relatives in the area discussed above, call them and refer them to this forecast. 

Now that you have arranged to get the warning, if  the tornado alarm goes off, make sure you have shoes and a flashlight nearby to take into shelter. 
While I'm not saying we will have a "metronado" year like 2011, when tornadoes struck densely populated cities over and over, I am saying this looks like a very active season. Please make your preparations now.

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