No Reason To Read This Unless You Want to Read About The Will Co Shamnado

Posted on by David

There was an almost-but-not-quite tornado yesterday in Will Co:

This was from the storm that got the Severe Thunderstorm Warning near Page HS in Will Co. There was rotation, briefly. Did it touch the ground, ehhh probably not. We talked to the NWS about it. We went out there and there was very little damage (a few trees, looked more like a severe thunderstorm). But was it a tornado? Ehhhhhhh nah. These are called “Shamnadoes.” They’re not quite tornadoes, they’re not exactly straight line winds, and they do no ratable damage that would classify them on the EF scale. They spin up superfast then fall apart just as fast. So, Shamnado. They’re “sham” tornadoes, a play on words, named after NWS-Nashville lead forecaster Sam Shamburger, who studies them. Great job by NWS on this, a Tornado Warning was unnecessary at the time, and in hindsight not issuing a tornado warning was a good decision. The Severe Thunderstorm Warning was exactly the thing to do. We’re blessed with excellent radar meteorologists here, making tough decisions about warning (or not), severe vs tornado. Good work, y’all.

Nothing going on this week. Euro has a midweek weaksauce rainmaker driving by to our south. I suppose it could sneak in here Wednesday morning but if it does, who cares, it’s a little rain. No rainouts.

GFS similarly unimpressive.

In fact, I ran through the Euro model all the way to May 20 and saw nothing consequential. Even the Climate Prediction Center has next week “below” normal for precip:

Chilly for May, too. Temps shouldn’t hit 80° until Sunday.