Remembering Greensburg & storm chances next week

May 4th sticks with many of us in the weather community because of the devastation that Greensburg went through that day. I remember getting called to work around 11 p.m. that night (after the town had been hit) to continue the storm coverage into the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Here's the final National Weather Service bulletin before the storm went through town.

 And the radar image that showed just how strong the tornado signature was that night. The Dodge City radar is over on the left side of the image. Just an incredible sampling of the tornado from the radar. Thank goodness tornadoes rarely get that large and strong, but when they do, you just hope everyone is paying attention.

Severe Weather Next Week?

It is May after all and when you see chances for storms in the forecast, there's reason to be a bit concerned about severe weather. The setup this week had a storm coming in from the southwest. That can be a dangerous setup in May, but we've made it through and next week, things are different.

We could see several different chances off and on through the week. The systems will come right over the Rockies (mainly from the northwest), and although the severe weather chances aren't zero, we also aren't sounding the alarm for tornadoes and widespread hail/wind.

Some of our first chances may come Tuesday evening/night, especially for central and eastern Kansas. 

Another chance may come Wednesday night and again late in the week. Timing is VERY hard to pin down right now with this setup, but at least we have some possibilities for more moisture heading through our first full week of May. 

I hope everyone had a great week. Enjoy this stretch of beautiful weather we are about to see in Kansas.