Severe Thunderstorms and Heavy Rain in the Southern Plains; Fire Weather Threat in the Southwest U.S.

Thunderstorms, some severe, may produce heavy to excessive rainfall and isolated flooding over portions of the Southern Plains today and Saturday. Dry conditions, combined with gusty winds and low relative humidities will continue to support an elevated to critical fire weather threat in the Desert Southwest into to early next week. Read More >

May 28th Ottawa County Tornado

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A tornado touched down around 545 pm CDT in southern Ottawa county and proceeded to become very large as it move slowly southeastward to a point just west of highway 81. The tornado then turned north and eventually moved back to the southwest toward the intersection of county road 106 and highway 18. The tornado was on the ground for around one hour and at times was between one quarter and one half mile wide. No serious injuries or fatalities occurred however over 100 head of cattle were lost. Damage to structures within the path yielded EF3 damage however supplemental data provided by mobile doppler radar sampled winds suggest that this could have been a violent tornado. As a result, the preliminary rating for this is a EF3 tornado however we will note that supplemental radar wind data suggest that it could have been stronger. This path is re-constructed off of radar, reports and known damage where evident and is not meant to be precise.