Alert archive / Texas / Tornado Watches in 2023

Tornado Watch 185

May 4, 20238 counties in Oklahoma; 15 counties in Texas

The Storm Prediction Center issued this tornado watch at May 4, 2023, 2:54 PM CDT for 8 counties in Oklahoma; 15 counties in Texas. It was in force for 6 hr.

The area

The outline as issued.

The facts

Issued: May 4, 2023, 2:54 PM CDT (19:54 UTC)
Expired: May 4, 2023, 9:00 PM CDT
In force: 6 hr
Issued by: the Storm Prediction Center
Largest hail expected: 2.5 in
Strongest gust expected: 60 kt

All 23 counties

Carter County, OK, Cotton County, OK, Harmon County, OK, Jackson County, OK, Jefferson County, OK, Love County, OK, Stephens County, OK, Tillman County, OK, Archer County, TX, Baylor County, TX, Childress County, TX, Clay County, TX, Cooke County, TX, Cottle County, TX, Fannin County, TX, Foard County, TX, Grayson County, TX, Hardeman County, TX, King County, TX, Knox County, TX, Montague County, TX, Wichita County, TX, Wilbarger County, TX

The radar

The Altus AFB radar (KFDR), 32 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 19:56 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: 20%
Ten or more severe wind reports: 30%
One or more gusts of 65 knots or more: 20%
Ten or more severe hail reports: 50%
One or more hailstones of 2 inches or more: 40%
Six or more combined severe hail and wind reports: 70%

Warnings issued inside it

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

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 4, 4:07 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Foard, Knox	40 min
May 4, 4:34 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	OUN	Baylor, Foard, Wilbarger	41 min
May 4, 4:43 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Archer, Baylor	47 min
May 4, 4:56 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	LUB	Cottle, Motley	42 min
May 4, 5:14 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	OUN	Archer, Baylor	46 min
May 4, 5:14 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Wichita, Wilbarger	46 min
May 4, 5:36 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Archer, Baylor	39 min
May 4, 5:59 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Archer, Clay	46 min
May 4, 6:05 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Archer, Clay, Wichita	40 min
May 4, 6:15 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Archer, Clay	45 min
May 4, 6:34 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	OUN	Archer, Clay	41 min
May 4, 6:55 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	OUN	Archer, Clay	50 min
May 4, 7:09 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FWD	Montague	66 min
May 4, 7:11 PM CDT	Tornado Warning Tornado observed	OUN	Clay	19 min
May 4, 7:16 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	OUN	Clay	14 min
May 4, 7:19 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	FWD	Montague	41 min
May 4, 7:21 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	FWD	Cooke, Montague	39 min
May 4, 7:41 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FWD	Jack, Montague, Wise	64 min
May 4, 8:04 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FWD	Cooke, Montague	56 min
May 4, 8:19 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	OUN	Love	41 min
May 4, 8:43 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FWD	Cooke, Denton, Montague, Wise	62 min
May 4, 8:46 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FWD	Cooke, Grayson	44 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

Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), launched 12:00Z, 7.9 hours before the alert went out and 209 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: 32 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -455 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1236 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 49 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 58 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 19 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: 0.0

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

SPC that day

Everything else SPC issued on the same UTC day.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 4, 1:43 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cotton, Jefferson, Tillman	2 hr
May 4, 5:05 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cotton, Jefferson, Tillman	85 min
May 4, 2:48 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Callahan, Coke, Coleman, Concho, Crockett, Edwards and 16 more	2 hr
May 4, 4:57 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	SPC	Bandera, Bell, Bosque, Brown, Burnet, Callahan and 62 more	7 hr

Nearby

Tornado Watches in Texas, 2023 Tornado Watches in Oklahoma, 2023 Every tornado watch in 2023

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.