Tuesday Night's Severe Storms!

A line of severe Thunderstorms raced across East Texas Tuesday night into Wednesday morning bringing strong winds, hail, and even an EF-1 tornado which touched down in Northwestern Smith County and traveled along the ground for 6.8 miles into Southern Wood County. This tornado was formed form a phenomenon we call a “bookend vortex.” If you look at the short radar loop(shown below) of the storms as they moved through parts of East Texas, you will notice they take on the shape of a bow, or “bow echo.” This is because near the center of the line of storms very strong winds are punching in causing the line to race forward in the center forming the bow shape. It is here where you usually find the strongest wind in some cases over 80mph. This is what caused the damage in the Sunrise Shores area of Henderson County. These strong winds continued to race east affecting parts of Smith County causing widespread power outages and tree damage.


In a highly sheared environment, which we had Tuesday night, sometimes on the ends of a “bow echo” will form an area of rotation called a “bookend vortices.” It is called this because the rotation is located at the ends of the bow shape. In a highly sheared environment winds will cause this rotation to strengthen. The environment on the northern counter-clockwise circulation in a highly sheared atmosphere can become favorable for tornado development.




As the northern end of the bow echo entered Northern Smith County we can see a rear inflow notch or an area where winds are punching into the back of the storm. This is depicted in the radar image above with the air flow noted by arrows. The north and south ends of strong bow echoes will have these bookend vortices continuing to push are towards the center of the line helping create the widespread wind damage. The northern vortex began to tighten and eventually lead to the development of the tornado.




In the next radar image taken five minutes later, you can start to see precipitation wrapping around the vortex similarly to what you would find in a mesocyclone found on the southwest side of a classic supercell.(Mesocyclone is a localized area of low pressure formed by the most severe thunderstorms called supercells. Mesocyclones are what give birth to the strong violent tornadoes like the one the struck Lone Grove, OK Tuesday.)



Finally in the last image when can see the air rotation has tighten and eventually was stretched in the storms updraft causing the tornado to form near the intersection of CR 482 and CR 483 in Northwestern Smith County. At the time of the image it appears the storm has already moved past however, we must remember that in a highly sheared environment the precipitation is being pushed forward, away from the storm. Over this region of East Texas the radar beam which sends back and image is nearly 10,000’ in the atmosphere so the actual updraft of the storm lags behind the echo show by 5000’ or so.



So how do we know it was a tornado? Well, the next photo paints the picture pretty clear. In the photo I have four points marked A, B, C, and D. “A” is a pine tree which was snapped in half. “B” is the top of the snapped tree which was blown to the east. “C” is another pine tree next to “A” which was blown down to the northwest. And finally “D” is another tree in the background blown down to the northeast. It is this scattering of debris which shows us it was a tornado. If we were looking at straight line wind damage, all the trees would be facing the same direction like we showed from “Chopper 7” in the Sunrise Shores area of Henderson County. Now just because the damage in Sunrise Shores was not caused by a tornado does not mean it was not as bad. In some cases it looked much worse than the tornado damage. We all seem to get caught up in the fact that anytime damage occurs from wind, a tornado must have hit us. 90 mph winds will do a tremendous amount of damage whether it is straight or blowing in a circle. This is why all severe thunderstorms should be taken very seriously.



Here are a few more photos I shot of the damage. The first photo shows tree debris down and scattered about. My daughter Halen is making sure Daddy gets all the information.





The next photo is metal roofing or siding carried at least a ½ mile. There were no close structures this could have come from.




So what have we learned from this event. Bookend vortex tornadoes can and do form with very little or sometimes no warning at all. But you can be assured that the StormTracker Weather Team watches all “bow echoes” very closely and will break in to warn the public if we think a tornado is forming. You may remember us breaking into programming last year when a bookend vortex produced an EF-1 tornado took a 21 mile path through Gregg and Rusk counties. These events are something we have to live with in this part of the country and we will always be watching the skies to keep you safe.

Severe Weather Outbreak Possible!!!

We are watching a developing storm system that promises to bring some rough weather to parts of the Southern Plains, including parts of East Texas. Right now the Storm Prediction Center has most of East Texas under a moderate risk for severe weather, including the possibility of strong tornadoes. Looking at the latest data this morning, I would not be surprised to see a High Risk issued for areas north of I-20 this afternoon. We are just waiting to see exactly where the surface low will develop to get a better outline of where the greatest risk of severe weather will be this evening and overnight.

So here is the set up: At the surface, warm moist air will spread across most of Central and East Texas as well as Southeast Oklahoma and most of Arkansas. Later this afternoon an area of low pressure will develop near the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. This will force winds at the surface to the south southeast across most of the warm moist air.



Just above this surface layer, winds will be out of the southwest over 50mph at times. It is this turning of winds that will give the atmosphere enough spin for the possibility of a few tornadoes, some of which could be strong. Around 5PM this afternoon we will start to see a few storms fire along a dry line along the I-35 corridor, near Dallas. These storms will rapidly become severe and move east. One or two storms could move into East Texas. These storms have the greatest potential to produce strong tornadoes. Will these storms move into East Texas? There is a chance these storms could move into Oklahoma and miss East Texas.






Around 9PM this evening, I line of strong storms will begin to develop along a fast moving west of Dallas. This should be a solid line producing very strong winds and maybe an isolated tornado entering East Texas around midnight and exiting East Texas around 3AM, give or take an hour. Right now I am expecting widespread wind damage with these storms. We can expect tree damage and down power lines as this line moves through.

One Year Ago Today!

One year ago today we were watching a serious severe weather episode unfold that would later be known as the “Super Tuesday Outbreak” By early Tuesday Afternoon the Storm Prediction Center placed most of the Mid South Region under a “High Risk” of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes with a moderate risk of severe storms as far west as East Texas. By the end of the day 131 reports of tornadoes and 126 reports of large hail pelted the country.



The atmosphere was increasingly becoming unstable throughout the early afternoon in East Texas as plenty of sunshine helped boost temperatures into the low 80s, almost unheard of for early February. By 4:00PM in the afternoon, a line of scattered supercells exploded along a fast moving cold front through East Texas. Three of these storms would end up producing a significant amount of damage across East Texas through the late afternoon.



By 4:30PM the city of Lindale was being pelted with golfball size hail causing widespread damage to cars and homes. Lindale ISD canceled classes through the end of the week to repair damage to Velma Penny Elementary School and E.J. Moss Intermediate School. This storm later moved north into Upshur County causing strong winds and quarter size hail.



At the same time the second supercell was about to unleash some of the largest hail seen in East Texas. The town of Bullard was crushed by hail up to the size of softballs. This hail damaged numerous cars; yours truly had his car totaled during this storm. While surveying the storm damage with the national weather service, we found houses along Lilly Lane in Bullard where holes were punched through the siding of the home.



Below are a couple a three dimensional views of this storm. Notice on the first image you can see a white core in the center of the cell. The next image it is gone. The first image is showing extremely large hail being held up by the storms updraft. Between the first and second image, the hail became too heavy to hold by the storm's updraft so it fell on the town of Bullard. In order for a storm to hold hail this large above the surface the updraft speed, or wind rising through the storm, to be over 100 mph.





The storm continued to move northeast producing large hail through parts of Smith County. Below is an image of 2.75” hail, or baseball size from my yard about 3 miles northeast of the softball size hail report. Of course I did not get these stones until about 30 minutes after the storm so, they were probably closer to 3 to 3.25” in diameter.



All three of these storms showed strong rotation in the mid levels of the atmosphere and we were under a tornado watch however, with these storms forming along a cold front, the warm surface air you need to produce a tornado was undercut by the rapidly moving cold air underneath these storms. However, as supercell #2 moved through Southeast Smith County, for a brief period of time the circulation of the storm was able to outrun the cold air from the front and produce an EF-1 tornado near Arp along Hwy. 64 East of Tyler. This tornado was on the ground for only about 30 seconds but in that time tore a mile long path of damage snapping trees and damaging a large barn, just missing a home. This is an interesting case of how a tornado can develop, touchdown, and then dissipate in less time than it takes our Doppler radar to make a complete scan. Another good reason to take all severe thunderstorms seriously.



The third supercell developed and moved through Cherokee County producing golfball size hail just east of Jacksonville. This cell also showed strong midlevel rotation however it too was undercut by cold air at the surface.



This storm system later developed into a massive tornado outbreak across the Mid South and Southeast. 2 EF-4 tornadoes touched town in Northern Alabama and dozens of people lost their lives across the Southeast. These storms formed from a combination of a cold winter storm interacting with very warm Gulf air which spread across the southeastern part of the country. With the cold midlevel temperatures combined with the record warmth at the surface, the air mass became very unstable allowing thunderstorms to explode.

Snow??????

Some places across East Texas awoke to what appeared to be snow yesterday. But if you were awake during the event, and most people were, you would know that a hail storm effected parts of the area Sunday night. I line of thunderstorms erupted ahead of a fast moving cold front Sunday night producing gusty winds and lots of small hail. We did receive reports of up to golf ball size hail in Montalba but most of the storms produced pea size hail. A storm that formed along the Rusk Panola county line produced a heavy dose of pea size hail which lasted for about 20 minutes. This caused an accumulation of small hail in some areas to reach 10” in depth. Now this occurs occasionally in western states but an accumulating hail even is very rare for East Texas. A big thank you to Rusty Nix for sending me photos of the hail accumulation.

A Winter Surprise

A very interesting morning to say the least across parts of East Texas this morning; snow. Yes, in areas that saw the thickest fog we did see a little light snowfall this morning from a rare atmospheric setup we normally do not see around here. So what happened? In the lowest levels of the atmosphere this morning, between 1000’ and 1500’, there was a little lift indicated, a small area of instability causing the air to rise in this level. Now the amount of energy available was not enough to cause widespread precipitation this morning by itself. Just above this layer temperatures were warming to near 50°F and this caused the air above the fog to begin lifting as well. When you combine the two there was just enough lift to cause light precipitation to form. This happens a lot in the warmer months, right before dense fog lifts, when sometimes you will notice a heavy mist beginning to fall. Since temperatures were in the middle 20s, the water vapor in the atmosphere began to crystallize forming snow grains. Now in order to get a true snow flake to form the temperature needs to be around 14°F to get a branching crystal growth, or what we call in the meteorological world dentritic crystal growth. But it was cold enough to have what we call hexagonal crystal growth where small, needle like snow grains form. These snow grains then continue to grow in the moist fog layer until they are heavy enough to fall to the surface. So where the fog was thickest, we saw enough moisture available for this light snow to grow and fall to the surface. Here are a few photos sent to me from the Longview Kilgore area where most of this winter phenomenon occurred.





So a very fun surprise for most across East Texas who were expecting a little ice yesterday and got a light snow today. This happens many times in areas of the world were you see thick fog and cold air together but around here, well I guess there is a first time for everything.

Possible Ice Storm Tonight....

A potential ice storm is moving towards East Texas this evening. Models and surface trends continue to point towards cold air sliding into East Texas this afternoon. Temperatures have already dropped below freezing across the Dallas Forth Worth Metroplex as of 10:00AM and the freezing line should be moving into the Tyler Longview area between 6:00PM – 8:00PM this evening. A 500mb trough will be moving through the Southern Plains this evening pulling warm moist air over the colder air at the surface causing light rain to break out across Central and East Texas this evening.



By midnight temperatures will drop below the 30 degree mark along and north of I – 20.


At the same time the aforementioned trough moves along the Red River Valley producing the best lift needed for precipitation across East Texas.
Right now it looks like precipitation will be light, 0.25” in most places. However, we will likely see some isolated areas with 0.5” of precipitation leading to 0.25” to 0.50” accumulations of ice in a few locations. Travel will be a greater hazard north of I – 20 where temperatures remained in the mid 30s overnight last night and it will not take as long to cool the ground below freezing. Use extreme caution tonight if you must travel but the best advice is to ride this winter weather event out at home.

Winter Weather on it's Way....

The stage is being set for a possible ice storm across parts of East Texas late tomorrow through Wednesday morning. Winter storm watches are in effect for the northwestern part of East Texas through Wednesday morning. New model data has come in even colder this morning so look for some of these watches to be warnings for a mixture of rain and freezing rain and then for a brief period of time, precipitation should mix or change to snow along the I-20 corridor north. Right now it looks as though there is a chance of seeing 0.25” to 0.50” accumulations of ice from Palestine to Tyler to Gilmer and points north. As with all winter weather events in East Texas, conditions can change rapidly and we will be here monitoring the situation closely. If the cold air moves in a few hours earlier, we could be seeing wintry conditions much farther south than anticipated.

How Cold Can It Get?

Plan your trip Local Radar Detailed Forecast

It still looks cold but you can see that today’s temperatures in Prospect Creek, AK are balmy compared to what they were 38 years ago today. That was when the all time record cold temperature for the United States of America was set at a frigid -80°F! That is only one degree off the all time record low for North America which was -81°F on February 3, 1947 in Snag Yukon, Canada. Temperatures earlier this month unofficially dropped to -83°F in Tok, AK during that frigid arctic outbreak but after investigating the equipment used, it was determined the reading was not accurate. Another all time record most likely was broken for the state of Maine with -50°F being reported at Big Black River on the morning of Friday January 16th. Needless to say parts of the country have been extremely cold this winter.

An Active Weather Pattern Setting Up....

Another fantastic afternoon across East Texas as temperatures soared into the middle to upper 70s with plenty of sunshine. We will see another warm afternoon tomorrow as temperatures warm into the low to middle 70s area wide. You will notice an increase in moisture as clouds begin to increase tomorrow and we could even see a few isolated showers in the afternoon. Overnight Friday night into Saturday morning a cold front will move through the area keeping the rain chances with us followed by some much cooler weather for the weekend. Behind the front winds at the surface will be out of the northeast bringing in much cooler air. Just above the surface winds will be out of the southwest bringing moisture off the Pacific Ocean, thanks to a developing area of low pressure aloft off the California Coast. This will keep clouds around all day Saturday and a slight chance of rain. Highs will be reached early Saturday in the middle to upper 40s but by the afternoon we will see the mercury hanging around the lower 40s with scattered light rain. A slight chance of rain will continue Saturday night as temperatures drop into the 30s. We are not anticipating and wintry weather at this time as temperatures should remain a few degrees above freezing. The cold front will move back to the north as a warm front Sunday night. How far north will the front move? Right now it appears the front will stall just to our south thanks to the aforementioned upper level low closing off west of California.





If the developing upper low to our west does not close off, the warm front will move north of the Red River Valley allowing temperatures reach the low to mid 60s with a few thunderstorms possible. But the current forecast keeps a northeast wind at the surface and a southwest wind aloft, bringing cool and wet conditions for East Texas Through Tuesday. On Wednesday the closed low will open up sending very warm air back into East Texas.







Temperatures could once again reach the low 70s by Wednesday afternoon. This could also set the stage for some thunderstorms as we head into Friday afternoon, allowing plenty of Gulf moisture to move back across the area before another cold front moves into East Texas. Stay tuned as computer models have flip-flopped over the past few days on how to handle the upper low developing off the California coast.

Weight Loss Update............

Well I know it has been a very long time since I wrote an update on my weight loss goal. I was doing very well, as I hope many of you could tell, and then the holidays struck. The holiday season is one of the hardest times to get through while dieting. The week before Thanksgiving I weighed in at 186 pounds, down 40 pounds from my start weight and down 43 pounds from my highest weight. However, during the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I strayed away from my low carb diet and started to indulge in the normal holiday fair, cookies, sweets, party mix, etc. Well, some of my weight came back and by the time the New Year arrived, I was back to 195 pounds. As of today, five of those additional pounds are now gone and I am back to 190. I still have 15 pounds to go until I reach my goal of 175 pounds and would eventually like to get down to 170. Of course the last ten pounds are always the hardest to lose so I will keep you up to date on what I do and what I eat to try and shed these last few pounds.

Cold Blast!

Some of the coldest air in years invaded parts of the United States over the past few days. Temperatures have dipped down to near -50°F in some parts of the Plains and Upper Midwest. Even in the extreme south, temperatures dropped to near zero in parts of Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee this morning. Thankfully for us here in East Texas, the air mass took a south easterly path sending the bitterly cold air a few hundred miles to our east. It would be a much different story around here if this air mass would have plunged south. We would have easily seen the coldest air since December of 1989 when a massive arctic air mass moved across the South Central Plains into the Southeast. During that outbreak of arctic air, Tyler saw low temperatures down to 0°F and highs in the upper teens for a couple of days. But as we have seen all season long, these air masses have been riding the northern edge of the jetstream, a river of air which separates the cold air north from the warm air south. This is what has caused our weather to be so variable over the past few weeks. The jetstream has been set up just to our northeast all winter so we just see a glancing blow, cooling us down for a day or two and then rapidly warming us up on the back side of these arctic highs. This same set up will take shape again starting tonight as we start to see a return flow around the western edge of the cold high pressure bringing Gulf warmth into East Texas this weekend. So say good bye to cold weather and hello to some late winter warmth for the next seven days. It could have been MUCH worse. Take a look at some lows over the past few days across the country.

Tok, AK -63°F
Babbitt, MN -48°F
Pollock, SD -47°F
Moline, IL -27°F (New all time January low)
Dubuque, IA -30°F (New all time January low)
Cedar Rapids, IA -28°F (New all time record low)
Huntsville, AL 9°F
Monte Sano, AL 2°F
Eidson, TN -5°F

It's Warm Now But.....................

The past few days have brought us an early taste of spring but January is about to make a comeback, and in a big way. After highs today in the 70s across East Texas a front will usurer in cooler air by tomorrow morning. Highs over the weekend will much closer to normal in the low 50s tomorrow and mid to upper 50s Sunday. Temperatures Sunday morning will start of chilly in the upper 20s but that may seem mild compared to what could be moving into East Texas late next week. On Wednesday an arctic front will slide across the eastern half of the nation bringing some of the coldest air the United States has seen in four years. Cold air has been pooling across Northwestern Canada and East Central Alaska where high temperatures have remained below -50° over the past week. It is this air mass that will sink southeast across the country and bring extreme cold to the Midwest and Southeast. Subzero high temperatures will move into Iowa and Illinois on Thursday of next week. If this air mass were to take a more southerly track, East Texas could see some of the coldest air in over 20 years. At this time I still feel like we will just receive a glancing blow but it will still be very cold. The map below shows that temperatures are forecast to be between 30 and 35 degrees Thursday afternoon across East Texas.



The next map shows the area of high pressure settling over East Texas allowing light winds and clear skies Thursday night into Friday morning. Temperatures are forecast to be between 15 and 20 degrees across East Texas by Friday morning of next week.

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However, with the high centered over East Texas that originated in Northwest Canada, area wide middle teens could occur. We will be following this system very closely over the next few days.

A Bad Day For Chickens.................

On Tuesday January 5, 1988, an area of low pressure was moving through the Rocky Mountain States and over the next 48 hours become one of the largest winter storms to affect the Southern United States.
By the Wednesday morning, January 6th, a strong area of arctic high pressure was pumping cold air across North Texas through Northern Georgia. At the same time the area of low pressure moving through the Rockies forced warm moist air from the Pacific Ocean over the cold air at the surface. This caused precipitation to break out and a mixture of rain, sleet, and snow began to fall across Central and East Texas. The snowfall map shows a 4” bull’s-eye near Tyler and Longview. During the day Wednesday heavy snow fell across North Central Texas into Arkansas where 16” fell in Heber Springs.

It was this heavy snow storm that caused the death over 5 million chickens across Texas and Arkansas. 1.75 million chickens were killed in North Central Texas and 3.5 million chickens were killed in Arkansas. This storm continued Wednesday Night into Thursday the 7th across the Northern Gulf of Mexico causing widespread 8 to 10 inches of snow across Northern Alabama where an additional 2 million chickens were killed.

So in all, 7.25 million chickens were killed by one of the strongest Southern winter storms on record. Because of this the 6th of January 1988 will always be known as “A Bad Day for Chickens.”

A Tale of Two Seasons......................

Well, I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I am finally on my regular so let’s get back to blogging. Over the past weekend there was an extreme range of temperatures across North America. While we were basking in warm temperatures, in the low 80s, parts of the Yukon Valley in East Central Alaska and Northwest Canada had temperatures drop to -60°F.






On the other side of the continent, some areas in South Texas near the Rio Grande hit 90°F. That is a difference of 150 degrees!!!


This cold air in northern North America will eventually make its way down across the lower 48 states but the question is, where? Right now over the next 10 days it appears that this air mass will stay across the Northeastern United States with temperatures approaching -30°F in upstate New York and New England towards the middle of next week. It has been a long time since we have seen a true “Blue Northern” across Texas but, it is this type of air mass that can give us record breaking cold. We will be watching this air mass closely as any shift in the forecast path of this arctic air mass could drastically change our forecast.

Sulphur Springs Festival Of Lights..........

This past Saturday Night it was my pleasure to be invited to the 1st annual Festival of Lights Christmas Parade in Sulphur Springs. I was fortunate enough to be asked to be one of the judges for the parade and let me tell you, it was not easy. There were so many beautiful floats throughout the night it was hard to choose a winner. I wanted to share a few photos from the parade and let you know who the winners were. In the commercial division the winner was the Sulphur Springs Hardware. In the non-profit division the winner was the Hopkins County Dairy Festival Queen’s Float. And in the battle of the bands, DeKalb High School took home the prize. Thanks again Sulphur Springs for a fun festive night to get everyone in the holiday spirit.

Severe Weather Possible This Evening.......

A strong storm system is beginning to develop out to our west and will move through East Texas this evening. Ahead of this storm system, strong southerly winds will increase today bringing warm moist air into the region. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph today as a cold front approaches. Showers and thunderstorms will begin to develop this evening and a few of these could be strong to severe. The wind fields in the atmosphere are set up to where we could see severe wind gusts and marginally severe hail, around the size of dimes. There is also a slight chance that a weak tornado or two could form as these storms move through so everyone needs to pay attention to the threat of severe weather this evening and overnight. Our cold front will slide through around Midday tomorrow bringing an end to the threat of severe weather and also bringing much colder temperatures. Temperatures Tuesday night into Wednesday morning will drop into the lower to middle 30s. At the same time a weak disturbance will move into East Texas but with limited moisture, we are not expecting much in the way of precipitation however, there could be a flurry or two in our extreme northwestern counties, mainly from Emory to Sulphur Springs northwest. So a busy 48 hours is in store weather wise for East Texas.

The Big Holiday Travel Weekend..........

Travel Weather......




It looks as though Mother Nature will cooperate with your travel plans on what is traditionally the busiest travel day of the year, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Most of the country will be under the influence of a large ridge of high pressure keeping the weather fairly quiet. There will be a few exceptions to this. The Northeast will see cold and snowy weather as a disturbance moves through the Great Lakes into New England. Also, there will be an area of low pressure causing rain across Southern California and parts of the Southwest United States. The trip home right now looks good but there is a slight chance we could see some travel headaches Sunday. Some of our computer models have been hinting at a developing area of low pressure along the Northern Gulf Coast. If this does occur, there could be some cold rain across the Gulf Coast States Sunday. Right now the possibility of this occurring look pretty slim but, it is something we will need to watch.



U.S. Gas Prices.......



Some great news for holiday travelers this year in the form of cheaper gas. Gas Prices continue to drop across the country with gas reach under $1.30 a gallon in parts of Missouri and South Carolina. You can track the price of gas where you are traveling this year by clicking on the map above. The link will take you to gasbuddy.com where you can right click on the area of the United States you will be traveling to see what the average price of gas is in that location. Bookmark this site so you can keep up with gas price trends any time you would like.

Flight Information.......


Above is an image that shows the current amount of planes in the air. Click on the map to go to the FAA’s official flight delay map where you can click the region of the country you are traveling to and find any delays.

Severe Weather Possible Today.......

Severe Weather is possible across a good bit of central and east Texas today as a strong low pressure system develops to our northwest and moves across the Plains later today. The main threat of severe weather at this time appears to be large hail and strong winds however a tornado threat is beginning to take shape across Central Texas for later this afternoon. A warm front is beginning to move north across South Central Texas this morning and will continue on its northern track throughout the evening hours. It is along this front where we are seeing the strongest amount of wind shear, or winds of different directions and speeds as you move higher into the atmosphere. As storms fire in this area, they will begin to rotate and could produce isolated tornadoes. The afternoon tornado threat is dependent on surface temperatures this afternoon. If we can see a little sunshine and temperatures warm a few degrees more than what we are forecasting, then the chances of severe weather and tornadoes will increase. It is the warmer surface temperatures that will allow the updrafts for the developing storms to be rooted near the surface giving a chance for a few tornadoes to form. If surface temperatures stay cool enough, most of the developing thunderstorm updrafts will be above the surface layer, making it hard to produce tornadoes. But even with these storms, hail and high winds could be a threat.