Tornado warnings...

[coppercoins]

The local area is currently under six simultaneous tornado warnings...three in Northern Arkansas, and three in Southern Missouri. We have had a total of 14 tornado warnings in the area since 4PM, to include the county I live in. Fortunately the storm went north of my house - all I got was a ten minute downpur out of it. One wild weather night!

Some of the severe storms we have in this area are on the collosal scale. They pop in here right out of Oklahoma and Kansas and are mad as hell.

I don't know how many actual tornadoes have hit the area, but the radar sure is lit up!

Good news is the storms are generally out of my area and are slowly losing strength...bad news is that they expect a repeat performance tomorrow.

[Bob P]

The last few days have been phenominal in the middle of the country if you're into weather. You just heed the warnings and stay out of the bad stuff Chuck.

[murphy]

Hey, thanks for the heads up Chuck - we're always getting your bad weather here in the southern Indiana - northern Kentucky area. Today was no exception as I was awakened at 5:50 am this morning by loud and vigorous thunder & lightning. But fortunately no tornadoes. Stay safe all.

[Steven]

The storm that went into St. Gen and Perry County, Mo. around St. Marys went just south of me and just north of my folks. and turned bad just after passing us. Then another round after that one into Jefferson Co. causing some damage. Bad night for a lot of people.
Steven

[coop]

We have storm chasers here and they don't have to leave their computer.

[coppercoins]

Just as they predicted, tonights weather is gonna get rough. Already there have been dozens of tornado reports in Missouri, and it ain't over yet...the below image is from my TV about ten minutes ago. There are 9 tornado warnings at once in our area - a record. I live in the south-central part of the outlined county. BTW, a tornado warning means there has either been a tornado sighted or detected by radar and is in or on the way to the red shaded areas. I believe all these warnings are being generated by four storms, all tornadic.

So I'm gonna hunker down, unplug stuff, and get ready for the blast. We already have wind and distant thunder, but it should be here in about half an hour.

[coop]

At least you have some warning. It hits the hardest when there is NO warning. Hang in there and keep low. Keep us posted.

[coppercoins]

Ended up that 15 minutes after I took that picture, there were 12 counties under tornado warnings in the area.

I waited until I could see that the storm was 20 miles out and headed straight for us - I packed my son in the car and headed south out of the path of the storm. Ended up there was a tornado that passed 5 miles north of where we were, and 4 miles south of the house. The dynamics of supercell storms dictate that the most damaging part of the storm where a tornado will occur is on the southwest fringe of the storm, often accompanying a hook echo on radar. I saw that the hook was headed really close to us, so that's when we took off. Where I went was my uncle's house - no rain, only a little wind, and some lightning. When we got back to my house there was golfball size hail covering the ground but no substantial damage to the house that I could see in the dark.

These storms are so wound up and packed so tightly that you've got to be right in their path - by just a couple of miles either way, or you won't get hit. I took the south end to be safe, and knew my uncle's house would be in the clear to the south...but only by five miles or so.

On our way home we passed through an area where there was insulation, plywood, shingles, and tree branches all over the road...so I know a tornado hit between our house and my uncle's house. I guess when morning comes we will know exactly where it hit.

[coppercoins]

Oh....and now I have to shut the computer down again, we have a squall line associated with the cold front due to move through in a half hour. Just some wind and maybe some hail with this one, but no tornado threat.

[coop]

All this and it's not even tornado season yet. Does that happen more so in the summertime?

[coppercoins]

Tornado season is any time during the year. We've found that out the hard way. In the last 50 years there has been a tornado reported during all 12 months in this area.

That squall line I shut down for last night ended up producing a tornado that cut through the north end of Springfield--so we had our second tornado warning in one evening, and our third in two days.

All told, there were more than 60 reports of tornadoes in Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas during the past 24 hours. More than 100 tornado warnings were issued--for many areas the last one, between 1 and 3AM, was the third or fourth in two days.

This will go on record as the widest spread tornadic event in Missouri history.

The tornado that was closest to me last night damaged or destroyed more than 500 homes in a half mile wide path that covered more than 60 linear miles. What appears to be a single tornado that was definitely all from the same storm was on the ground for more than an hour.

I'm still very tired, only three hours of sleep...gotta take my son to school, then it's back to sleep for me.

[murphy]

Glad you made it Chuck. I guess it's headed our way. We went through this same thing in June, 2004, so I know the feeling.

[coop]

The tornados in Missouri made the news here. About 1,500 miles away.