Severe storms erupt across central US

AccuWeather

Severe thunderstorms produced prolific hail across parts of the Plains on April 25, but cold air undercut the threat for tornadoes.

Transcript

00:00 We're going to head out to the

00:02 plains with meteorologist and

00:03 storm chaser Tony law back who

00:05 joins us on the road from Quinter,

00:07 Kansas. Hey Tony.

00:08 Hey Melissa, yeah, we're just

00:12 rolling through this tiny town at

00:14 Quinter on I-70 eastbound right now,

00:16 kind of throwing in the towel on the day

00:18 today and I'll explain a little bit

00:20 why here coming up in a bit, but really,

00:23 it has been kind of a more of a hail day

00:26 today thanks in part to a lot of these

00:28 storms being undercut by cool air at

00:30 the surface and that is really gotten.

00:33 The tornado risk in Kansas for the

00:34 most part down and the hail threat was up.

00:37 Will show you some of the video didn't

00:39 get the biggest of the hail that fell

00:41 today in Kansas, but we did see some

00:43 of that hail on a storm north of

00:45 Goodland, Kansas early on in this event.

00:47 Today most of this hail we saw was

00:49 anywhere between nickel and quarter size.

00:51 We had hail reports in Kansas as

00:52 big as 2 1/2 inches.

00:54 That would be tennis ball size hail,

00:56 but again, a lot of these storms

00:57 were rotating but were getting undercut.

00:59 There was one brief tornado out

01:01 of this storm north of Goodland,

01:03 literally only touched down for a

01:05 few seconds before it lifted again.

01:06 Most of the tornadic activity,

01:08 believe it or not,

01:09 actually remained back in Colorado,

01:10 where we've had several

01:12 landspout tornado reports.

01:13 Come out of Northeast Colorado there,

01:14 but again,

01:15 the storms just dealing with a lot

01:17 of cold air at the surface in

01:19 conjunction with those storms moving

01:20 over the warm front north of the warm

01:23 front or we had outflow from the storms.

01:25 Earlier this morning that

01:26 cooled the atmosphere.

01:27 At the ground level that kept these

01:29 storms elevated and thus produced

01:31 more hail than a tornado threat.

01:32 We're seeing that continue this evening.

01:34 There are a few isolated storms

01:36 still along the dry line that

01:37 may pose some concern.

01:38 The severe weather threat certainly

01:40 not done by any stretch,

01:41 but a really big day in store

01:43 for us tomorrow, Melissa.

01:44 That is what we've got to get ready for here,

01:47 so we're going to throw in the

01:48 towel for today, head East,

01:50 and get set up for tomorrow.

01:51 Alright,

01:51 sounds like a plan Tony and of course

01:53 rest up that voice too because like

01:55 I said, we've got a couple of days ahead

01:57 of you. Well, we do have these

01:59 thunderstorms that are still on the move,

02:01 and I just want to break down some of

02:03 the different things that Tony talked about.

02:05 I wanted, though,

02:05 before I break down all of the

02:07 thunderstorms highlight that there

02:08 are thunderstorms well north into

02:09 North Dakota at this point in time.

02:11 Some of those though are not severe.

02:13 Some of them are severe in South Dakota.

02:15 We've had some wind threats with

02:16 these thunderstorms as they continue

02:17 to push these even a little bit of hail,

02:20 but most of those are losing some

02:21 of their strength as they work their

02:23 way basically towards the Missouri River.

02:25 There, as you can see.

02:26 So there's still thunderstorms that

02:27 are going to rattle and rumble around,

02:29 but as you work your way through

02:31 Nebraska and stuff you can see this

02:33 is where we start to get into some

02:35 more of the warn storms, especially

02:37 into northeastern Colorado.

02:38 Most of those warnings now recently expiring,

02:40 but into northwestern Kansas.

02:41 This is still where we have so

02:43 many of those warnings.

02:44 I'm going to pause it here on the last frame.

02:47 There are a couple of things

02:48 that we want to highlight,

02:50 like like Tony was mentioning,

02:51 we have this storm threat that's

02:53 kind of setting up and as those

02:55 storms lift well in advance of that,

02:57 actually that one prints a little

02:58 farther South, but as they lift a

03:00 well north of that as they keep moving

03:02 north, that's when they're losing.

03:04 That's that energy and getting

03:05 to be above the cold air,

03:07 which is why we aren't seeing as

03:08 much in the way of significant

03:10 storm development.

03:11 A lot of those storms end up weakening.

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Transcript

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