Good late evening bloggers,
Springfield, MO is being hit hard tonight. January 7, 2008 and a tornado outbreak is in progress. Our bloggers have been coming in with the reports. Here is one from Jim in Clinton. Thanks for this report Jim!
I get ky3 at Springfield here at the house and the damage reports are streaming in. Yet the 3rd tornadic cell entering Springfield. Roofs blown off of the schools and the Ky3 cam outside of their studio filmed insulation and debris hitting the cam! Very active night for us. Jim in Clinton.
You may be able to see some January lightning to our south. The tornado watch will expire at 9 PM. But, a storm system is approaching! This storm is rapidly becoming negatively tilted. You can see this below!
I drew in the trough axis. This is at the 500 mb level. When a storm is negatively tilted it will be much more dynamic, providing enhanced rising motion, and if there is enough moisture available it will produce heavy precipitation. Notice the tilt from Wyoming, across northeast Colorado, to northwest Oklahoma. There is an X (I sort of drew over it) over the eastern Oklahoma Panhandle. This it the center of the strongest part of this storm. This is NOT a powerful storm, but it is just barely strong enough to produce a nice area of precipitation. It will be cold enough for snow over western and central Kansas. By the time it gets here we may be just a little too warm, but it will be quite close early in the afternoon. We will be tracking this tonight on NBC Action News at 10 PM.
Have a great night. This is interesting, but really we are looking at around 1/4 inch of rain during the morning, unless you live near that band of heavy thunderstorms just southeast of Kansas City. This area could see close to one inch of rain.
Gary