Alert archive / Nebraska / Tornado Watches in 2024

Tornado Watch 187

May 6, 202416 counties in Kansas; 39 counties in Nebraska

The Storm Prediction Center issued this tornado watch at May 6, 2024, 11:34 AM CDT for 16 counties in Kansas; 39 counties in Nebraska. It was in force for 7 hr.

The area

The outline as issued.

The facts

Issued: May 6, 2024, 11:34 AM CDT (16:34 UTC)
Expired: May 6, 2024, 7:00 PM CDT
In force: 7 hr
Issued by: the Storm Prediction Center
Largest hail expected: 2.5 in
Strongest gust expected: 60 kt

All 55 counties

Barton County, KS, Ellis County, KS, Ellsworth County, KS, Graham County, KS, Jewell County, KS, Lincoln County, KS, Mitchell County, KS, Ness County, KS, Norton County, KS, Osborne County, KS, Phillips County, KS, Rooks County, KS, Rush County, KS, Russell County, KS, Smith County, KS, Trego County, KS, Adams County, NE, Blaine County, NE, Boyd County, NE, Brown County, NE, Buffalo County, NE, Cherry County, NE, Clay County, NE, Custer County, NE, Dawson County, NE, Fillmore County, NE, Franklin County, NE, Frontier County, NE, Furnas County, NE, Garfield County, NE, Gosper County, NE, Greeley County, NE, Hall County, NE, Hamilton County, NE, Harlan County, NE, Holt County, NE, Howard County, NE, Kearney County, NE, Keya Paha County, NE, Lincoln County, NE, Logan County, NE, Loup County, NE, Merrick County, NE, Nance County, NE, Nuckolls County, NE, Phelps County, NE, Polk County, NE, Rock County, NE, Sherman County, NE, Thayer County, NE, Thomas County, NE, Valley County, NE, Webster County, NE, Wheeler County, NE, York County, NE

The radar

The Grand Island radar (KUEX), 102 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 16:34 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: 70%
One or more EF2 to EF5 tornadoes: 30%
Ten or more severe wind reports: 60%
One or more gusts of 65 knots or more: 10%
Ten or more severe hail reports: 60%
One or more hailstones of 2 inches or more: 60%
Six or more combined severe hail and wind reports: 95%

Warnings issued inside it

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

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 6, 11:41 AM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GLD	Decatur, Norton	64 min
May 6, 12:06 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Furnas	39 min
May 6, 12:32 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GLD	Graham, Norton	28 min
May 6, 12:40 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Furnas, Gosper, Harlan, Phelps	25 min
May 6, 12:43 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Phillips, Rooks	47 min
May 6, 1:00 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GLD	Graham, Norton	45 min
May 6, 1:30 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Phillips, Rooks	45 min
May 6, 1:45 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Rooks	30 min
May 6, 1:51 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Franklin, Harlan	39 min
May 6, 2:04 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	DDC	Ellis, Trego	30 min
May 6, 2:07 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Phillips, Smith	38 min
May 6, 2:11 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Osborne, Rooks	49 min
May 6, 2:26 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Franklin, Kearney	24 min
May 6, 2:42 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Phillips, Smith	48 min
May 6, 2:57 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Osborne, Phillips, Rooks, Smith	33 min
May 6, 3:05 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	DDC	Pawnee, Rush, Stafford	40 min
May 6, 3:07 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	ICT	Barton	38 min
May 6, 3:21 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Franklin, Webster	39 min
May 6, 3:23 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Smith	37 min
May 6, 3:38 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Osborne, Rooks	39 min
May 6, 3:42 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	ICT	Barton	48 min
May 6, 3:45 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	GID	Jewell, Smith	30 min
May 6, 3:55 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Franklin, Webster	35 min
May 6, 3:56 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Jewell, Mitchell, Osborne, Smith	19 min
May 6, 3:59 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	ICT	Barton	31 min
May 6, 4:02 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning Considerable damage threat	ICT	Barton, Ellsworth, Rice	58 min
May 6, 4:14 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Jewell, Smith	31 min
May 6, 4:23 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	GID	Nuckolls, Webster	22 min
May 6, 4:26 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Adams, Clay, Nuckolls, Webster	49 min
May 6, 4:29 PM CDT	Tornado Warning	GID	Nuckolls, Webster	16 min
May 6, 4:58 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	ICT	Ellsworth	33 min
May 6, 4:58 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Clay, Hamilton	17 min
May 6, 5:10 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Clay, Fillmore, Hamilton, Merrick, Nuckolls, Polk and 2 more	50 min
May 6, 5:54 PM CDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	GID	Polk, York	38 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

Omaha, NE (KOAX), launched 12:00Z, 4.6 hours before the alert went out and 225 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: 580 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 69 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 83 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 6, 7:12 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cowley, Harper, Kingman, Sumner	63 min
May 6, 10:57 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Barton, Decatur, Ellis, Ellsworth, Graham, Jewell and 12 more	2 hr
May 6, 11:47 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Barber, Clark, Comanche, Edwards, Ford, Harper and 11 more	118 min
May 6, 1:58 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Barton, Ellis, Ellsworth, Jewell, Lincoln, Mitchell and 9 more	92 min
May 6, 2:05 PM CDT	Tornado Watch PDS	SPC	Allen, Barber, Butler, Chase, Chautauqua, Clark and 26 more	12 hr
May 6, 2:45 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Barber, Comanche, Edwards, Harper, Kingman, Kiowa and 5 more	60 min
May 6, 3:07 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Atchison, Brown, Chase, Clay, Dickinson, Douglas and 16 more	113 min
May 6, 3:49 PM CDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	Anderson, Atchison, Brown, Clay, Cloud, Coffey and 19 more	8 hr
May 6, 5:42 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Harper	93 min
May 6, 5:53 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Chase, Clay, Cloud, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Geary and 15 more	97 min
May 6, 11:07 AM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cherry, Sheridan	113 min
May 6, 5:27 PM CDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Butler, Cass, Clay, Colfax, Dodge, Fillmore and 17 more	93 min

Nearby

Tornado Watches in Nebraska, 2024 Tornado Watches in Kansas, 2024 Every tornado watch in 2024

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.