Good morning bloggers,
It is cloudy & cool with a weak area of rain moving across areas just north of KC! It may be cloudy most of the day and we will track this on NBC Action News this morning. This has been a tough week for weather forecasters. Will the sun come out today? Certainly not this morning, but maybe sometime this afternoon.
The picture, above, was taken by a fireman, in Great Bend, KS on May 15th. It has been a wild week, and a wild year!
1191 tornadoes have been reported to the Storm Prediction Center, across the United States, this year, with Kansas and Missouri leading the way. The confirmed number of tornadoes will end up lower, but we are on a record pace. The next week is showing the potential for some many more severe weather set ups and we will go into the details soon. Texas almost always ends up with the most tornadoes each year, just as a result of its size and location.
- Missouri is #1 with 112 tornado reports this year
- Kansas is the #2 state with 110 tornado reports in 2008
I showed some videotape of two of the more fascinating tornadoes from this past week. The first one is an extremely rare tornado in Riverside, CA. California has tornadoes almost every year, but usually during the winter months. The unseasonably strong storm, last week, produced snow in the mountains and some unusual late May weather. There appears to be a well formed wall cloud with this tornado. And, the second tornado is from Hennessey, OK where the rising motion in the middle of the tornado is powerful. The air must have been rising straight up at speeds of 100 mph or more as you can see the trees being sucked up. Here is the link:
http://www.nbcactionnews.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=360216@kshb.dayport.com
The weather pattern continues to cycle, and weaken as summer approaches. This next week is now showing more chances for severe weather set-ups through the plains. High pressure is in control today, keeping us in this cooler air mass, but as the high moves off to the east warm moist air will move back in by Thursday afternoon. A weakening cold front will slide in on Friday evening, and it appears we will have a slight risk of severe thunderstorms. And, then late Sunday through much of next week has some potential for severe weather through the plains. How it sets up each day is undetermined at this time. We will make some special graphics to describe this developing weather pattern for the next week. And, we will be tracking this mornings area of rain, with embedded thunderstorms, as it drifts very closely to Kansas City.
We have a new viewer. This is Miss Molly. Her best friend Linda Lawson sent this in, "Miss Molly is our Golden Retriever and she watches television all of the time – her favorite movie is Air Buddies and we just purchased Snow Buddies for her – she literally watches the entire movie. She also enjoys the weather – thought you would get a kick out of the attached pictures". Linda, thank you so much. We will try to show these at 6 PM, and maybe 10 PM tonight.
Have a great day everyone! This active weather pattern continues. Our forecast had been within 3 degrees for 14 days in a row, and just when I was about to talk about our hot streak, this week hit us hard. We haven't been within three degrees since Saturday. Last night we went 67 for today's high and I am now thinking around 65 (which would make it to within 3 degrees). Let's see what happens.
Gary