Meteorological Breakdown: Tornadoes Tear Across Oklahoma After Dark - April 27, 2024

In-depth meteorological breakdown of the tornado outbreak that featured multiple strong to violent tornadoes after dark across Oklahoma, including the Sulphur EF3 and Marietta EF4. Storms mostly struggled throughout the day before coverage and intensity increased significantly after dark. In this video, we'll take a deep dive into the meteorology behind this event, including some reasons why storms struggled early on and what allowed tornadic activity to ramp up during the evening.

Thumbnail images from Adrian Ronca-Hohn and Nathan J. Fish (The Oklahoman).

Contents
0:00 Introduction
1:41 Meteorological analysis
7:24 Morning storms
8:29 Why daytime storms struggled in Oklahoma
14:18 Analysis of NW Texas tornadic supercells
20:44 Analysis of Oklahoma supercells after dark
31:31 Wrap-up

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Resources

[tornadotrx]

Just when I got over it.. Trey comes to haunt me with this day again

[gamingwitharlen]

Thank you, I now fully understand why daytime part of the outbreak underperformed in Central Oklahoma.

[ben_williams_wx]

That day was crazy, I was on the Holdenville tornado and that storm went from 0-100 within minutes as that MCS approached. Got the nudger and went ballistic

[LeviW]

I've been waiting for this for so long, this is going to be great and prayers for the victims of these tornados

[RojoFern]

Man, this was a frustrating day to chase, especially after having to sit out the spectacle that was the 26th. Went from waning optimism to disappointment as storms failed, fatigue after initially calling it quits, very brief excitement chasing the Norman tornado family, and finally horror watching news of towns down south getting obliterated by nighttime monsters. What a mess.

[kayeas]

Great work as always! Nixon’s (and many others) work on storm interactions is really propelling us to a new level of nowcasting. I feel like we’re learning more now than ever.

[itiseragon]

Thanks for posting Trey!

I was chasing this day but since I'm still a relatively new chaser I didn't stay after dark and it ended up being a chase bust for me (missed the Calumet tornado by minutes by getting caught in the conga line at the traffic light in Hinton) only to immediately have to take shelter when I got home due to a tornado warning... yeah.

Awesome to see some of my theories confirmed, and some disproven! This year was a crazy year meteorologically

[tornadostories]

Thanks for your expertise and careful analysis. You always make thought provoking and insightful videos.

[alabamared]

you have helped me so much to understand different setups and events I'm starting to learn more every video you post..hats off to you sir great job on this!!!💯💯

[Mesotography]

This was the first outbreak I’ve ever chased. by the end of the afternoon I was hanging out near El Reno by the Twistex memorial, disappointed by the storms thus far. Something in my gut told me to drop back south and I got rewarded with the Goldsby EF2, my first tornado

[MetallicAAlabamA]

April 27th seems like a common day we see with really destructive tornadoes in the US. At least that week of the 27th. This system, the 2011, and I believe there are a couple more pretty significant tornadoes that were in and around the 27th of April.

[jamessimon]

hey trey great summary! clearly a lot of work goes into your analyses, we really appreciate it

[jacksonyon]

This year is really the first year I got really into severe weather. After the first wave was done and it rolled into evening hours I was ready to say it was done. Little did I know the worst would happen at like 10 pm

[afryhover]

Excellent work Trey, thanks for making these. We appreciate it 👍

[lovesosa]

Great at making every line and quote interesting and useful

[garymackey]

I had originally planned to post up at Pauls Valley and make the decision to go north or south depending on what the probability was....got a late start (over-slept from an afternoon nap 😕) so I missed out on Sulpher but caught Holdenville (barely)...ended the chase in the Kiowa area watching the QLCS spinups between Kiowa and Haywood OK....not a bad chase...//

[Tuscaille]

I would like to see a video covering tropical weather at some point, especially with the season expected to escalate soon. Also a great video I've been wanting to see for a while, was pretty wild to track storms on that day

[northtexasskies]

Yesss! I've been waiting for this one.

[MableT]

Hey Trey! First of all, thanks for releasing this amazing video! I personally believe that events that underperform (well, this one didn't but it didn't perform like we expected) are the best way to learn so your case study helps alot. I have one, maybe a little bit obvious, question. While rewatching radar data from the significant tornado north of Holdenville, I realized how similar that radar look was to the Barnsdall EF4 from the May 6th tornado event (specially at 28:49). Can we say that nudger's theory also played a direct role in the development of that tornado, specially due to the similarities between this event and the may 6th environment?

[andrewmarino]

I remember watching this outbreak and thinking it was a bust and it squalled out into a wind event then suddenly around 9 pm clusters for pre frontal supercells rapidly exploded in front of the squal line and immediately started rotating dropping several large tornadoes