Tuesday twisters touched down 2,000 miles apart

Our relatively serene (for May) weather album plays on. A few areas of grumpier conditions exist. This is especially true across the northern Gulf Coast and eventually will include the Southeast more broadly in coming days.

Weather Watch

Southern downpours. A front draped across the northern Gulf Coast keeps the action going in that region Wednesday. The focus of flooding risk is across the southern bayous of Louisiana, a threat that crawls eastward through the weekend.

Moving again. After several days of slowly meandering, the weather pattern MiraLAX is working its way through the system, and our stuck eastern storm is getting a move on. A one-day break is on tap before the next one. It should drop less rain than the last, at least from the Mid-Atlantic northward, and the weekend is looking bright with high pressure building in from the north.

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2,000 miles between Tuesday twisters

The unsettled pattern over much of the country has meant at least scattered thunderstorm activity from coast-to-coast in recent days.

Tuesday was a third straight day the northeast quadrant of the Lower 48 found itself under the influence of an upper-level low pressure. Thunderstorms have developed each afternoon to its east.

A number of severe storms developed in eastern Pennsylvania Tuesday. One dropped a tornado near Bangor in the east of the state, not far from the New Jersey border.

Over the next several hours, widely isolated twisters were reported in Louisiana, New Mexico and Arizona. They all seem to have been weak and included at least one of the landspout variety.

Underneath part of the western gyre of the past several days’ “omega block” dominating the Lower 48, the Arizona tornado was a looker for the region. The Weather Service indicated they have video of it tossing things around on the ground.

Even on days without organized or significant tornado threats, they can drop from the clouds.

May: It’s gonna be May.

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster. Connecting weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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