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Beau's Journey » 2008 » April » 11

Archive: April 11th, 2008

April 11, 2008: Severe weather

  Most of the area escaped the most severe weather yesterday.  Sixteen tornadoes were reported over the Missouri and Ohio Valley.  Tornado watches covered our area for most of the day and into the evening hours.  Numerous strong thunderstorms crossed western Kentucky and southern Illinois.  Severe thunderstorms were reported in the Missouri Bootheel.  In the end this was one of the bigger forecast busts in several years – for this area at least.  The expected major tornado outbreak did not develop – thankfully.  It is about time we got a break!!!!

  Cooler weather through the weekend and dry weather for most of next week.  I won’t complain about that!

April 10, 2008: Severe weather – perhaps not as bad

 Good morning everyone

It appears that there will be a few rounds of thunderstorms today.  It does look like a significant event but perhaps not as bad as it was looking 24 hours ago.

On this mornings weather map is a deep area of low pressure centered over Texas.  This low will move towards Oklahoma and Kansas through the rest of today.  As this low pulls into Kansas a warm front will move through the Tri-State area.  Thunderstorms will accompany this warm front.  A few strong storms will be possible with its passage.

Additional thunderstorms will move in from Missouri and Arkansas later this morning and afternoon.  It appears that the main severe weather threat will be with a squall line.  There could be a few storms form in front of the line.  Any thunderstorms that form in front of the squall line could produce tornadoes.  If supercells do form in front of the squall line then we will need to watch those as they move through the region.  They will be racing northeast at speeds of 50-70 mph. 

The squall line itself will have the potential to produce strong and damaging winds, frequent lightning, heavy rain, and hail.  A few tornadoes will be possible with the squall line.

This outbreak is not looking as bad as it did 24 hours ago.  There are a couple of things that could change the forecast.  If there is more sunshine today we will see an increase in instability.  This will help in the development of supercells.  If the squall line, that is moving through Texas tonight, holds together then I believe this will damper the threat for a major outbreak.  I won’t know this until tomorrow morning (it is now 1:30 a.m.).

I would encourage everyone to listen to NOAA Weather Radio throughout today or local news media.  There will likely be severe thunderstorm and tornado watches/warnings issued by the National Weather Service.

Hopefully, we have dodged a bullet as far as a major tornado outbreak.  We are not out of the woods yet though.  I don’t want anyone to let their guard down today.  This could go either way.  I will update the forecast tomorrow morning with another email.