Upcoming Severe Weather Event

That wind is blowing like crazy out there today! We are warming up nicely in response to the southerly breeze and the sunshine. This will continue into your day Friday which will create an unstable atmosphere as the cold front gets ready to push on through. That cold front will be giving us the lift we need to drive that warm airmass into the sky thus developing thunderstorms. Friday is looking very interesting at this point. We will be in a slight risk for severe weather tomorrow. If you look at the latest SPC Outlook, there is a 30% chance for severe weather to develop. Here is a link that you can go check out for yourself: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/

This has changed from this morning, and it looks like they may even consider upgrading it to a moderate risk for tomorrow potentially. We will have plenty of warm, moist, unstable air in place tomorrow afternoon so as soon as the cap breaks, things could get quite interesting around here. There is going to be quite a bit of strong shearing in the lower levels of the atmosphere, this is detected by hodographs. This means that the winds will be shifting directions in the lower levels to the point where you have winds going in opposite directions very close to the surface. This is ideal for rotation in super cell development and there is the potential for tornadoes in the middle Mississippi Valley (that includes us!). Needless to say, tomorrow will be very interesting to see how things play out. We could see a complete bust, or we could see a crazy outbreak. It will be much easier to decide what we are dealing with tomorrow morning when we have new data to work with. Until then, keep it right here to KOMU 8 News for the latest in severe weather coverage and if you haven't already log on to our website www.komu.com to sign up for our text alerts in the event of a warning in your area.

The Calm After the Storm

It was a bumpy ride for us here in the Midwest over the weekend but things have calmed down. While we saw plenty of warnings across the area, both severe thunderstorm and tornado. Good news for us, we did not see any tornadoes here in the viewing area. You can take a look at the storm reports from Saturday for yourself:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/100424_rpts.html

Clearly Mississippi was hit extremely hard with large tornadoes. The tornado that hit Yazoo City was the most powerful and destructive. Preliminary reports showed that it measured 1 3/4 of a mile in width and lasted for about 150 miles. 10 people were killed with this storm outbreak.

Dr. Forbes from the Weather Channel wrote an interesting blog himself about the tornado. You should take a look. It was pretty interesting. http://www.weather.com/blog/weather/ You will see a radar picture that has all the colors we would normally see with a destructive storm, with the exception of the pinkish/purple color. Now while this might normally indicate large hail, it was not the case with this storm cell. The circular shaped area actually showed the debris from the tornado. Pretty wild huh?

Here in Central Missouri, we saw a lot of problems with flash flooding. With this particular storm, we saw record rainfall amounts for the day. In the viewing area, most of us picked up between 2-4 inches of rainfall in 24 hours. Always remember that you should NOT drive through a roadway that is covered with water. You never know how much water is over a road, and you don't even necessarily know if there even is a roadway left under the water.

As for this week.... Things look to be calm Tuesday through Thursday. We will see pleasant weather around the area until we get to the weekend. Looks like we could even have a repeat of last weekend. As we get closer, I will have a better idea of what to expect. Until then, enjoy the beautiful spring time weather!

Spring is here! And you know what that means..

Severe Weather Season! We have just seen a dry spell for quite some time where we saw plenty of blue sky but it looks like a wet period will begin. Right now, the current Live Doppler 8 First Alert Radar has heavy showers and thunderstorms moving across the area. This will be the case over the next several days. We will have a chance for some severe weather tomorrow afternoon. It is looking very interesting at this point. Check out the Storm Predictions Center outlook from Norman, OK.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/

We are in a slight risk for severe weather, but are showing a 30 % chance for it. Overnight, we will see a low level jet begin to strengthen across Missouri. This will start to advect warm air into the area as the warm front lifts. This allows for some showers and isolated thunderstorms to pop up in the afternoon hours when the air becomes unstable. We will be in the warm sector during this time. If you want to read the area forecast discussion, you can check out this website:

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=LSX&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1

Looks like our main threats here in Central Missouri will be large hail and damaging winds, can't rule out an isolated tornado as well but the majority of the tornadic super cell activity looks to stay South over Arkansas and Louisiana. That is always subject to change. I will be here tomorrow afternoon keeping an eye on things, and giving severe weather updates as necessary!

The First Day of December

Well, as we enter the month of December, we enter on a good note. Nice comfortable temperatures, with plenty of open sky this afternoon. But don't be fooled, a cool down is on the way. A low pressure system well to the south will stream up plenty of moisture in the form of clouds. We may get caught up in a few light sprinkles and even a few snow flurries as the cold front passes through.

This cold air will stick around for a while, as indicated from out extended 8 day forecast. Highs will only top out in the mid and lower 30s for Thursday and Friday. That's chilly, compared to what we have been seeing. Average temperatures for this time of year 46/27 are the normal values we see for our respected high/low temperatures. The month of December looks to be below average as far as temperatures go and about average when it comes to the precipitation. I guess we will have to see if this holds true. So far, the CPC has been right on forecasting in the long range.

Big Cool Down!

As we close out the month of November, it seems as though we have had some of the craziest weather this past year. November seemed to be above normal as far as temperatures go, the full analysis of the data will come out on Monday. After seeing tempearatures near 70 this afternoon, we will take a cold punch of air here in the Midwest. I think that it will be a while before we see temperatures like that again.

A cold front moves through tonight into tomorrow. This pushes out a lot of moisture ahead of the front. It will come in the form of cloud cover, a few sprinkles may be possible however most will be dry. Temperatures look to fall back around average for this time of year with the passing of this front. Hope you were able to enjoy the weather while it lasted!

The sun will come out.. tomorow!

I am sure that we are all excited to get rid of this low pressure system finally that has been hanging over us the past few days. The cut off low has been spinning over the top of us leaving us cloudy and we have picked up plenty of precipitation, 1.83" to be exact. We had not seen any rain at all the first half of the month of November, but we have almost caught up to where we need to be which is 2.00". The low will finally get pushed back up to the North by tomorrow afternoon.

The rain looks to slowly fade away as we head into your overnight hours tonight. The clouds will then begin to decrease into your Thursday. Temperatures begin their gradual climb back into the 50s, a little closer to average for this time of the year, 53/32 are the average highs and lows that we should be expecting. The weekend is looking dry as well, especially for the big game day. The tigers will host Iowa State on Saturday. Should see highs in the middle to upper 50s with a few passing clouds and plenty of sunshine! If you would like a closer look at your full forecast you can find it at http://www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/KOMU.com/ba9501a1-c0a8-2f11-0159-8d14a338d7bf

Mid-November Cool Down

We started the month of November well above normal as far as temperatures go with plenty of sunshine. A nice change of pace from the month of October. We were dry for the first half of November, only a trace of precipitation was picked up. That left us behind for the month about 1 3/4". Over the next few days, we will be seeing the rain that was left out of the picture at the beginning of the month.

A low pressure system has been plaguing our weather and will continue to do so at least through Wednesday this week. Our temperatures sure have gone from mild to chilly pretty quickly. The cold Canadian airmass continues to sink further to the south, thus impacting our weather. We will slowly see temperatures warm up as we head into the weekend, with the help of the sun returning in our forecast. Details on your full forecast can be found at www.komu.com