Another Tornadic Thursday?

One week ago, a series of powerful thunderstorms and at least one tornado swept across the Omaha metropolitan area just before the evening drive.

A similar situation is likely to occur today, according to chief meterologists' forecasts at all five Omaha TV stations Wednesday night.

WOWT (Cox Channel 8) Chief Meteorologist Jim Flowers said at 10 p.m. that there "is the potential across portions of the area for large tornadoes tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon."

During his main forecast, he said, "The axis of the more unstable air swings over to the Missouri River into Western Iowa and Northwest Missouri by about seven o’clock tonight. As I mentioned earlier, wind fields with this system are very strong, so there is the possibility of getting not only numerous tornadoes, but a few that are large and damaging tornadoes in the area that we’ve highlighted, especially central Nebraska and arcing down into western portions of Missouri."

The highlighted area on his forecast map included the Omaha metropolitan area.

KETV (Cox Channel 9) Chief Meteorologist Bill Randby told viewers at 10 Wednesday night: "I really want you to pay attention to the weather as we get into Thursday afternoon and evening."

He was more specific in his main forecast, predicting that severe thunderstorms will develop between 4 and 7 p.m.

"That’s our highest risk of strong, severe, even tornadic thunderstorms," Randby said. "These storms could be stronger than what we saw last Thursday. We could have stronger winds, larger hail and possibly stronger tornadoes. We’ll be following it closely."

KPTM/KXVO (Cox Channels 10/11) Chief Meteorologist Tyson Pearsall forecast the potential for severe weather to be in the late afternoon into the evening, crediting the Storm Prediction Center for putting the viewing area under a moderate risk for severe weather.

"This means there’s a pretty good chance of large hail, damaging winds and yes, certainly that chance for a few isolated tornadoes," Pearsall told KPTM viewers at 9 p.m. "That’s going to be a threat or at least a concern for tomorrow late afternoon and again through the evening hours."

Of the four, KMTV (Cox Channel 5) Chief Meteorologist Ryan McPike was the most non-committal, saying only that the Storm Prediction Center had the viewing area in the moderate risk category for severe weather for Thursday afternoon.

Meteorologist Dean Wysocki (a former chief meteorologist at KPTM) elaborated a little more on the "Action 3 News" 5 a.m. newscast Thursday, saying "anytime after three or four o'clock, storms are expected to break out."