Alert archive / Texas / Tornado Watches in 2015

Tornado Watch 198

May 23, 201536 counties in Texas

The Storm Prediction Center issued this tornado watch at May 23, 2015, 6:19 PM CDT for 36 counties in Texas. It was in force for 9 hr.

The area

The outline as issued.

The facts

Issued: May 23, 2015, 6:19 PM CDT (23:19 UTC)
Expired: May 24, 2015, 3:00 AM CDT
In force: 9 hr
Issued by: the Storm Prediction Center
Largest hail expected: 1 in
Strongest gust expected: 60 kt

All 36 counties

Atascosa County, TX, Bandera County, TX, Bastrop County, TX, Bee County, TX, Bexar County, TX, Blanco County, TX, Burnet County, TX, Caldwell County, TX, Comal County, TX, DeWitt County, TX, Dimmit County, TX, Duval County, TX, Fayette County, TX, Frio County, TX, Gillespie County, TX, Goliad County, TX, Gonzales County, TX, Guadalupe County, TX, Hays County, TX, Karnes County, TX, Kendall County, TX, Kerr County, TX, La Salle County, TX, Lavaca County, TX, Lee County, TX, Live Oak County, TX, Llano County, TX, Maverick County, TX, McMullen County, TX, Medina County, TX, Travis County, TX, Uvalde County, TX, Webb County, TX, Williamson County, TX, Wilson County, TX, Zavala County, TX

The radar

The Austin/San Antonio radar (KEWX), 70 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 23:22 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.

What SPC expected

The probabilities SPC published with the watch, for the watch area over its life.

Two or more tornadoes: 40%
One or more EF2 to EF5 tornadoes: 10%
Ten or more severe wind reports: 30%
One or more gusts of 65 knots or more: 5%
Ten or more severe hail reports: 20%
One or more hailstones of 2 inches or more: 5%
Six or more combined severe hail and wind reports: 60%

Warnings issued inside it

35 tornado, severe thunderstorm and flash flood warnings for its counties while it was in force.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 23, 6:29 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Blanco, Gillespie	6 hr
May 23, 6:45 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	EWX	Blanco	45 min
May 23, 7:25 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Frio, Zavala	3 hr
May 23, 7:50 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	EWX	Atascosa, Bexar, Frio, Medina	40 min
May 23, 7:55 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	EWX	Bexar, Medina	35 min
May 23, 8:02 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Frio	3 hr
May 23, 8:04 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	EWX	Blanco, Hays, Travis	41 min
May 23, 8:10 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Bandera, Medina, Uvalde	3 hr
May 23, 8:13 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	EWX	Hays, Travis	32 min
May 23, 8:23 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Atascosa, Bexar, Blanco, Burnet, Comal, Hays and 2 more	3 hr
May 23, 8:23 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	EWX	Bexar	37 min
May 23, 8:32 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	EWX	Atascosa, Bexar, Comal, Frio, Guadalupe	43 min
May 23, 8:43 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	EWX	Travis	32 min
May 23, 8:55 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	EWX	Hays, Travis	35 min
May 23, 9:07 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	CRP	Webb	3 hr
May 23, 9:16 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	EWX	Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis	44 min
May 23, 9:18 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe, Wilson	3 hr
May 23, 9:32 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	EWX	Burnet, Williamson	31 min
May 23, 9:32 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	EWX	Burnet, Williamson	28 min
May 23, 9:39 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	EWX	Williamson	51 min
May 23, 9:52 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Bastrop, Lee	3 hr
May 23, 10:03 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	EWX	Bastrop, Caldwell, Fayette, Gonzales, Lee, Williamson	42 min
May 23, 10:23 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	CRP	Webb	112 min
May 23, 10:31 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Frio, Medina, Uvalde, Zavala	3 hr
May 23, 11:13 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Blanco, Burnet, Comal, Hays, Travis, Williamson	3 hr
May 23, 11:14 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Atascosa, Bexar	3 hr
May 23, 11:24 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning Emergency	EWX	Hays	6 hr
May 23, 11:47 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	CRP	Duval, Jim Wells	43 min
May 23, 11:48 PM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	CRP	Duval, Webb	117 min
May 24, 12:25 AM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Bandera, Bexar, Blanco, Comal, Gillespie, Kendall and 3 more	6 hr
May 24, 1:25 AM CDT	Flash Flood Warning Emergency	EWX	Caldwell, Guadalupe, Hays	8 hr
May 24, 1:34 AM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Frio, Medina, Uvalde, Zavala	3 hr
May 24, 2:09 AM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	EWX	Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe and 4 more	5 hr
May 24, 2:10 AM CDT	Flash Flood Warning	CRP	Aransas, Bee, Calhoun, Goliad, Refugio, San Patricio and 1 more	3 hr
May 24, 2:28 AM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	CRP	Aransas, Calhoun, Goliad, Refugio, Victoria	47 min

Discussions around it

SPC mesoscale discussions over the same counties from four hours before the watch to its end.

The nearest sounding before it

Del Rio, TX (KDLF), launched 12:00Z, 11.3 hours before the alert went out and 204 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: 2727 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -3 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 601 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 27 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 79 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 226 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 1.4
Supercell composite: 8.5

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

SPC that day

Everything else SPC issued on the same UTC day.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 22, 7:06 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Crane, Ector, Loving, Pecos, Reeves, Ward and 1 more	114 min
May 23, 12:35 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Bailey, Castro, Cochran, Deaf Smith, Hockley, Lamb and 6 more	115 min
May 23, 5:38 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Armstrong, Briscoe, Carson, Castro, Collingsworth, Donley and 9 more	97 min
May 23, 12:17 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Baylor, Briscoe, Castro, Childress, Cottle, Crosby and 17 more	2 hr
May 23, 1:16 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Archer, Armstrong, Bailey, Baylor, Briscoe, Castro and 31 more	6 hr
May 23, 2:02 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Brewster, Coke, Concho, Crane, Crockett, Ector and 28 more	88 min
May 23, 3:04 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Andrews, Borden, Brewster, Brown, Callahan, Coke and 49 more	6 hr
May 23, 3:44 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Archer, Bailey, Baylor, Briscoe, Castro, Childress and 27 more	2 hr
May 23, 5:04 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Archer, Baylor, Bosque, Childress, Clay, Collin and 34 more	2 hr
May 23, 5:30 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Archer, Baylor, Briscoe, Childress, Clay, Collin and 30 more	9 hr
May 23, 6:06 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Andrews, Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Blanco, Borden and 61 more	114 min
May 23, 6:37 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Archer, Clay, Cooke, Denton, Grayson, Montague and 2 more	83 min

Nearby

Tornado Watches in Texas, 2015 Every tornado watch 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.