Scattered severe thunderstorms capable of large hail in excess of two inches, strong tornadoes, and damaging wind gusts are likely across parts of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Midwest this evening. Heavy to excessive rainfall may bring a flooding threat to portions of the Central Plains to the Midwest through Thursday. The heatwave in the Central U.S. will begin to push South and East Thursday Read More >
Overview
Scattered thunderstorms developed across southern Missouri during the early to mid afternoon on April 16th. These storms quickly became severe with large hail ranging from quarter to baseball sized being the main threat. Eventually the storms morphed into more of a line and the threat switched over to primarily damaging winds as the storms moved into the Lakes area of west Kentucky and continued east into the southern Pennyrile. Two of the hardest hit communities with regards to very large hail were Advance, MO (Stoddard County) and Sharpe, KY (Marshall County). The city of Hopkinsville, KY received some rather significant amount of wind damage with numerous trees and powerlines down, including one tree that fell through the 2nd story of a house and resulted in 1 injury.Hail & Wind:
Hail
Many instances of quarter to ping pong sized hail occurred with these storms. There was also several reports of golf ball to hen egg sized hail and even one report of baseball size. The largest hailstones impacted the towns of Advance, MO and Sharpe, KY. This resulted in a few reports of siding damage and broken windows.
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| Hail in Advance, MO via Beau Dodson | Hail in Advance, MO via Beau Bishop | Hail in Sharpe, KY via Beau Dodson | Siding damage from hail in Sharpe, KY via Stephanie Marsala |
Wind
As the storms merged into more of a linear mode across western Kentucky, they produced pockets of wind damage which was mainly confined to trees and powerlines. The city of Hopkinsville received the greatest amount of wind damage as winds likely reached at least 70 mph there.
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| Tree down in Hopkinsville, KY via Scott Brown | Trees down in Murray, KY via Beau Dodson | Power lines blown over in Hickman, KY via Chris Bradshaw |
Radar
Here is a link to a radar loop from this event beginning at 1 PM and running through 8 PM on April 16th. Initial storms popped up over south central into southeast Missouri and moved off to the east-southeast, eventually congealing into more of a line as they crossed through western Kentucky.
Environment
There was a mid level wave sliding across Missouri during the afternoon of April 16th. Warm, moist air was advecting into southeast Missouri and western Kentucky from Arkansas. At the surface, temperatures warmed into the lower 80s with dew points rising into the lower 60s.
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| Surface Chart at 2 PM | 850mb Chart at 4 PM | 500mb Chart at 4 PM |
Plenty of clearing occurred behind early morning shower activity which allowed surface based instability to rise above 2000 J/kg across southeast Missouri. Downdraft CAPE of 1000 j/kg spread into western Kentucky during the afternoon, which is indicative of an environment capable of damaging winds being brought to the surface from stronger downdrafts. Shear values weren't overly impressive, generally in the 30-40 knot range, but given the amount of instability this was certainly enough to sustain organized convection. In the mid levels, we had steep lapse rates exceeding 7 degrees C in the 500-700mb layer. This environment was very supportive of large hail development.
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| Surface Based CAPE at 3 PM | Downdraft CAPE at 3 PM | 0-6km Shear at 5 PM | Mid Level Lapse Rates at 3 PM |
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