Alert archive / Kansas / Mesoscale Discussions in 2015

Mesoscale Discussion 661

May 16, 201514 counties in Kansas; 5 counties in Nebraska

The Storm Prediction Center issued this mesoscale discussion at May 16, 2015, 1:15 PM CDT for 14 counties in Kansas; 5 counties in Nebraska. It was in force for 90 min.

The area

The outline as issued.

The facts

Issued: May 16, 2015, 1:15 PM CDT (18:15 UTC)
Expired: May 16, 2015, 2:45 PM CDT
In force: 90 min
Issued by: the Storm Prediction Center
Chance of a watch: 60%

Counties Decatur County, KS, Gove County, KS, Graham County, KS, Lane County, KS, Logan County, KS, Ness County, KS, Norton County, KS, Phillips County, KS, Rawlins County, KS, Scott County, KS, Sheridan County, KS, Thomas County, KS, Trego County, KS, Wichita County, KS, Frontier County, NE, Furnas County, NE, Gosper County, NE, Hitchcock County, NE, Red Willow County, NE

The radar

The Goodland radar (KGLD), 111 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 18:17 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 176May 16, 2:40 PM CDT

The nearest sounding before it

N. Platte/Lee Bi, NE (KLBF), launched 12:00Z, 6.3 hours before the alert went out and 183 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: 1891 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 49 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 32 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 43 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.0

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The text

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

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SPC that day

Everything else SPC issued on the same UTC day.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 15, 8:05 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Clark, Ford, Grant, Gray, Haskell, Meade and 4 more	2 hr
May 16, 12:43 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Barton, Clark, Edwards, Ellis, Ford, Graham and 15 more	92 min
May 16, 10:55 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Butler, Chautauqua, Cowley, Elk, Greenwood, Sumner	95 min
May 16, 12:01 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Finney, Grant, Hamilton, Haskell, Kearny, Morton and 3 more	89 min
May 16, 2:41 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Clark, Decatur, Finney, Ford, Gove, Graham and 24 more	5 hr
May 16, 3:04 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Butler, Cowley, Elk, Greenwood, Sedgwick, Sumner	86 min
May 16, 3:34 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Atchison, Brown, Chase, Coffey, Doniphan, Douglas and 14 more	86 min
May 16, 5:12 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Decatur, Finney, Ford, Gove, Graham, Grant and 21 more	93 min
May 16, 5:46 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Bourbon, Brown, Chase and 20 more	59 min
May 16, 5:57 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Anderson, Atchison, Brown, Coffey, Doniphan, Douglas and 10 more	5 hr
May 16, 6:16 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Butler, Chautauqua, Cowley, Elk, Greenwood, Harper and 3 more	59 min
May 16, 6:23 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Decatur, Ellis, Ford, Gove, Graham, Gray and 10 more	97 min
May 16, 6:36 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Allen, Butler, Chautauqua, Cowley, Elk, Greenwood and 6 more	5 hr
May 15, 8:55 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	SPC	Arthur, Chase, Cherry, Deuel, Frontier, Garden and 10 more	4 hr
May 15, 10:53 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Arthur, Chase, Cherry, Frontier, Garden, Grant and 9 more	67 min

Nearby

Mesoscale Discussions in Kansas, 2015 Mesoscale Discussions in Nebraska, 2015 Every mesoscale discussion in 2015

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.