Alert archive / Kansas / Mesoscale Discussions in 2003

Mesoscale Discussion 857

May 8, 200328 counties in Kansas; 9 counties in Nebraska

The Storm Prediction Center issued this mesoscale discussion at May 8, 2003, 3:26 PM CDT for 28 counties in Kansas; 9 counties in Nebraska. It was in force for 2 hr.

The area

The outline as issued.

The facts

Issued: May 8, 2003, 3:26 PM CDT (20:26 UTC)
Expired: May 8, 2003, 5:30 PM CDT
In force: 2 hr
Issued by: the Storm Prediction Center

All 37 counties

Brown County, KS, Clay County, KS, Cloud County, KS, Dickinson County, KS, Ellsworth County, KS, Geary County, KS, Jackson County, KS, Jefferson County, KS, Jewell County, KS, Lincoln County, KS, Lyon County, KS, Marshall County, KS, Mitchell County, KS, Morris County, KS, Nemaha County, KS, Osborne County, KS, Ottawa County, KS, Phillips County, KS, Pottawatomie County, KS, Republic County, KS, Riley County, KS, Rooks County, KS, Russell County, KS, Saline County, KS, Shawnee County, KS, Smith County, KS, Wabaunsee County, KS, Washington County, KS, Adams County, NE, Franklin County, NE, Gage County, NE, Jefferson County, NE, Nuckolls County, NE, Pawnee County, NE, Richardson County, NE, Thayer County, NE, Webster County, NE

The radar

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 117 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 20:28 UTC, the scan nearest the moment this went out.

Open the radar archive at this moment

The archived warnings, watches and discussions in force at that minute are drawn over the scan, this one among them.

The watches that followed

Watches SPC issued over any of the same counties within four hours of this discussion.

Tornado Watch 308May 8, 4:40 PM CDT

The nearest sounding before it

Topeka, KS (KTOP), launched 12:00Z, 8.4 hours before the alert went out and 174 km from the middle of its area. This is the routine balloon launch nearest before it, the air the forecaster had in hand, not a measurement taken for the alert.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: No buoyant parcel
Mixed-layer LCL: 836 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 59 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 427 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 517 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.4

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The text

As transmitted, in the capitals the NWS used until 2016.

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
      </p>
      <p class="small" id="detail">
        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
      </p>
    </section>
  </main>
  <script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

SPC that day

Everything else SPC issued on the same UTC day.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 7, 7:01 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cheyenne, Greeley, Sherman, Wallace, Wichita	89 min
May 8, 1:18 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Allen, Barber, Barton, Bourbon, Butler, Chautauqua and 21 more	3 hr
May 8, 1:55 AM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	SPC	Allen, Anderson, Barber, Barton, Bourbon, Butler and 44 more	5 hr
May 8, 3:51 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Atchison, Barber, Barton, Bourbon, Brown, Butler and 50 more	3 hr
May 8, 4:15 AM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	SPC	Atchison, Brown, Clay, Cloud, Doniphan, Douglas and 19 more	7 hr
May 8, 7:50 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Atchison, Brown, Doniphan, Jackson, Jefferson, Leavenworth and 6 more	85 min
May 8, 7:55 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Atchison, Brown, Doniphan, Jackson, Jefferson, Leavenworth and 6 more	95 min
May 8, 12:49 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Harper, Sumner	3 hr
May 8, 1:07 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Barton, Clay, Cloud, Dickinson, Ellis, Ellsworth and 16 more	2 hr
May 8, 1:10 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cheyenne, Decatur, Graham, Norton, Rawlins, Sheridan and 2 more	2 hr
May 8, 1:30 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Cheyenne, Decatur, Gove, Graham, Logan, Norton and 6 more	6 hr
May 8, 1:35 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Butler, Chautauqua, Cowley, Elk, Greenwood, Harper and 5 more	7 hr
May 8, 1:50 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Anderson, Atchison, Brown, Chase, Clay, Cloud and 31 more	7 hr
May 8, 3:34 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Butler, Chase, Chautauqua, Coffey, Cowley, Elk and 10 more	116 min
May 8, 3:35 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cheyenne, Decatur, Gove, Graham, Logan, Norton and 6 more	115 min
May 8, 4:16 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Bourbon, Cherokee, Crawford and 11 more	29 min
May 8, 4:40 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Bourbon, Cherokee, Crawford and 13 more	6 hr
May 8, 6:38 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Bourbon, Brown, Butler and 46 more	2 hr
May 8, 4:18 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Antelope, Blaine, Boone, Brown, Burt, Butler and 42 more	57 min
May 8, 5:30 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	SPC	Burt, Butler, Cass, Colfax, Cuming, Dodge and 13 more	6 hr

Nearby

Mesoscale Discussions in Kansas, 2003 Mesoscale Discussions in Nebraska, 2003 Every mesoscale discussion in 2003

Sources

The product and its follow-ups from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center text; the sounding from the Mesonet's radiosonde archive; radar from the NEXRAD Level II archive.