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4Warn Weather BLOG |
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October 2008
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Recently by Steve TempletonWith the weather turning dry through this upcoming weekend and possibly our next storm chance coming Monday night into Tuesday of next week, we should have plenty of time to enjoy the outdoors. But is it a good time to see the Fall foliage across the area? I found a great web site from the Missouri Department of Conservation, click here, that updates the Fall foliage cond... Since this Summer hasn't been as hot as past years, maybe it is easy to believe that Fall starts Monday. The Autumnal Equinox marks the beginning of Autumn and that occurs at 10:44 AM. Why is it such a specific time? Why Is It When Fall Starts? Did you see the wicked turn North in Tropical Storm Hanna? Check out the two links below, one is a radar loop of the storm and the other is the historical track of the storm. http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200808_radar.html#a_topad (might take a few seconds to load the loop) >> Continue reading: Holy Curvature Batman-Tropical Storm Hanna
It's been two weeks since we've had measurable rain at St. Louis Lambert Airport, but that's about to change. While it won't be a rainout the next four days, at the very least we have a rain chance in the forecast tonight through the weekend. This has been an unusual dry spell in what has been a very wet year so far. In fact, at one point in July the Weather Service deemed this the wettest start to the year on record for St. Louis. ...
This large tree smashed in the roof of an SUV and blew out the back windows. It was a massive tree that was uprooted from what is est...
The Forecast: On Tuesday a cold front will bring a cool down to the area, ending eight days in a row of 90 degree heat or higher, including Sunday's 99 degree high and Monday's 98 degree high. Heat Index: With more heat surely around the corner (it's not even August yet) I thought I'd explain a little bit about the heat index. Firstly, you may hear us say "heat index" and "feels like temperature" and wonder what's the diff... As the River falls, some may be thinking that we're done with the flood threat. But the Mississippi River is still not below flood stage in our area and so the flooding impact continues. However, take a look at the chart below where the line graph forecasts the falling river level in Winfield. The going forecast has the Mississippi falling to below flood stage in Winfield this weekend. At St. Louis the Mississippi should fall below flood... *****Yet Another Update, Thursday Evening June 19th********** We Never Stop looking over the latest flood information and there has been a significant change. Because of levee breaches North of St. Louis, the crest forecast along the Mississippi has changed significantly. Along the Mississippi in our viewing area the crest is forecast to be 1 to 2 feet lower than previously thought. This means levels should be below the record crest... Yesterday's blog focused on the Mississippi at St. Louis and today I wanted to point out not only the flooding all along the Mississippi into early next week, but especially Grafton, IL. The Mississippi at Grafton is forecast to rise to 28.5' which is 10.5' above flood stage. That's right on the borderline of what's classified by the weather service as "Major Flooding". Here's a list of what is impacted in the Grafton area when the... After a weekend of heavy rain in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, much of that rain will run into streams that eventually dump into the Missouri or Mississippi River. Because of this, the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers will be on the rise into this upcoming weekend. In fact, below is the river level graph on the Mississippi River at St. Louis. You can see the sharp rise in the water level forecasted for this weekend. At St... Today is the official start to what we call our "Aircast", which is an air quality forecast for theSt. Louis area. Again this year we're proud to be the storm team chosen to create your air quality forecast, which updates in the mid to late afternoon on KMOV.com or will be featured in our evening weathercasts. This year we will begin incorporating particulate matter (dust and small particulates), however once again it will be low le...
It may sound like it's late in the season for a frost, so I did some digging. If we hit 32 at Lambert airport it would tie for the 5th latest frost on record in St. Louis. However, the latest frost was on May 10th back in 1966. I checked with the Weather Service today and they said the average last frost for St. Louis is around ... The high temperature Tuesday was 79, which is above the average high of 69, but it means we still haven't hit 80 at Lambert International Airport. Now, I've seen quite a few low 80s on Tuesday from our weatherbug netowrk (links for those sites are in the middle of the weather page here on KMOV.com), but we just can't seem to get to 80 at Lambert. But we're forecasting temperatures near 80 for Wednesday, which could be our first 80 degree or ... The strongest aftershock today (Saturday) hit around Noon. However, it rated a 2.8 which no one likely noticed except for geologists studying and monitoring the area. Here...
It may be a busy night in the 4Warn storm center. A potent storm system is swinging through the Midwest and will produce several areas of strong to severe storms including the possibility of tornadoes. If the storms do flair up in our area, we'll go into storm mode sending our crews out across the area while Kent and I track the latest storms and provide live updates on KMOV.com and channel 4. While there is a slight risk of severe...
Despite today being a beautiful Sunday, it looks like we have a couple stormy days ahead this week. It's not going to be one of those weeks with a chance of rain every day, but it looks like both Tuesday and Thursday could see storms with a potential for heavy rain. Tuesday morning a warm front moves in with more moisture which should produce some morning showers and a few storms across the area. But it's Tuesday afternoon that looks...
This Winter on average across the US and the globe is the coolest since 2001. While it was the coolest in recent years, it was still above the normal. You can find out more from this article, click here. So this got me thinking...let's look at our numbers here in St. Louis for this Winter. By the way, to make keeping climate records easier, ...
Tuesday March 4th was the biggest snow of the year in St. Louis with 10" officically at Lambert airport (the official measuring station for the St. Louis area). It puts our 2007-2008 winter snowfall total at 30.1" so far (could be a bit more before it's all over too). But this season's snowfall has not been rivaled in nearly 15 years since the Winter of 1992-1993 which had 30.3". So, as many people have guessed this is a snowy Winter compar...
Thanks to our friends at the National Weather Service for putting together this detailed map of storm totals from our several waves of sleet, freezing rain and some snow. Once again the area South of St. Louis including Potosi, Farmington and over to Sparta, Illinois saw the highest amounts of sleet and free...
A few people at the station were asking the question, "If we're getting so much ice South of St. Louis, why aren't there more power outages?" Kent and I addressed that on the evening shows Monday night and even did a brief explainer of how sleet forms. But I'll go into a bit more detail here. To answer the question above, keep in mind that sleet and freezing rain are both ice. But they form in different ways. It's freezing ra...
In the past ten days we've had 3 days with severe storm warnings, an 8" snow storm, 2 days with highs in the 70s and 3 days with highs near 30. It's been a wild ride and if you caught our forecast tonight, we don't have any major storms in the next 5 days, though we do have a high of 50 Friday and then a low of 12 by Sunday morning. So what's causing this extreme weather? There are so many variables involved in daily and weekly wea...
A slow moving cold front combined with record warmth and lots of available moisture brought an extended round of spring like severe severe storms to the News 4 viewing area last night and this morning. Most of the storm reports in our area were from hail or high winds/wind damage. Hail of 0.75-1inch diameter was reported in Palmyra, Hannibal, Silex, Eolia, Washington, Marthasville, Cottlesville, Cuba, Sullivan and Bourbon, Missouri....
On walks with your dog watch for anti-freeze which drips on the pavement from cars. Ant-freeze may taste good to your dog, but it's leth...
Get ready for some big temperature changes. This New Year's Eve night the temperature will fall through the 30s to near 28 around Midnight. But the wind will crank up too and strong winds will make the wind chill a big factor through New Year's Day as well. Here's a look at my temperature and wind chill forecast for tonight through Wednesday morning New Year's Eve Midnight Tues...
Here's a link to more info: Click here The fine folks at our local National Weather Service have been digging into the record books, and we thank them for some interesting stats. It turns out that it was a colder than average start to December. 16 of the first 17 days of this month had morning lows at or below the freezing mark of 32. Just yesterday (Monday) we hit the coldest low of the season at 11 degrees at Lambert. And of course we know it was a snowy start to the m...
One of the reasons snowfall is so difficult to forecast is because small changes in the forecast have large impacts on our snowfall expectation. And if you read Matt's blog below you know one model had flurries and the other had 3-5" for us. Here's why we lose hair over snowfall forecasts...the model that showed flurries is now pumping out nearly 10" of snow for St. Louis! On the other hand, the other model has stuck to it's guns and is sti...
Oh brother, it just keeps coming! So, before I get into some details on the weekend snow chances, I want to make mention of what's happening tonight into Thursday morning. From Rolla to St. Louis to Litchfield and Northwest we don't expect a whole lot of wet weather, but some light rain, sleet, snow is possible with little to no accumulation. Southeast of that line we expect nearly all rain. Although we expect any wet weather to move out j...
It seems like every day we are thrown another shot of moisture and temperatures near freezing at some point in the day. So, it begs the question, what's next? Rain is the answer for most of us, including the St. Louis metro for Tuesday evening. Areas Northwest however, may see some ice later this evening as temperatures approach and drop below freezing. The farther Northwest, the better chance for ice accumulation. Right now it app...
So matt just blogged about our first encounter this season with some Wintery weather, and now we will be very close to the freezing line this weekend as some wet weather moves through. So, let me take you through the details on what we're thinking (Firday evening) for this weekend storm: Ice will mainly be Northwest of the St. Louis metro. While some spots in the viewing area may see some brief periods of freezing rain or driz...
Overrunning is when warm and moist air runs over on top of a shallow dome of cold air at the surface. I'll probably over simplifiy this, but the analogy of a speed bump comes to mind. Your tires have no choice but to run up and over the speed bump. Similarily, warm air is runn...
Well, it looks like some wet weather is headed this way for the weekend. The big question is what type of wet weather? Rain, Snow, Freezing rain or sleet (what about all of the above)? It's too early to have that kind of confidence in the forecast models to pinpoint a precipitation type and timing. Sometimes when you're looking at a storm forecast like this and it's several days away, you focus more on the track of the Low pressure, ...
I'm not sure a lot of people at the beginning of the college football season would have pegged the Missouri vs. Kansas game as this BIG. You may have watched LSU fall to Arkansas on Ch. 4 on Friday and now the Mizzou vs. Kansas game will probably have the eyes of the nation watching for possible National Title game implications. At this point, I know what you're thinkging...is this blog from Steve Savard or Steve Templeton? All righ...
What a chilly morning! It was 27 degrees for the low this morning from the sensor St. Louis-Lambert Airport. That makes today the coldest morning of the season so far. It hasn't been this chilly to start a day since April 8th when it was 26. But for those of you who dislike the chilly air, there's hope. Well...sort of. Eventually it will get much colder, after all we're going into Winter. But in the short term, it's not likel...
The cold is what will affect all of us Tuesday, but it's interesting that we also have a fire watch in Southeast Missouri for the counties of St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve and Madison. I know, you're thinking...isn't it too cold for brush fires? Strong and gusty winds help to fuel fires or force controlled fires get out of control. But these winds are blowing in the chilly air (high in the upper 40s Tuesday). Although chilly, this ai...
It's hard to believe November is already here. But the weather is starting to match the calendar now. I thought we could look ahead at the month of November by comparing the climate normals from today November 1st to what we typically have by November 30th. Nov. 1st Normal High: 61 Low: 42 Nov. 30th Normal High: 47 Low: 31 It's interesting to note that the high by the end of this month is typically close to the wha...
So tonight on the 5'Oclock news Kent talked about how we can get just about any type of weather on Halloween. Many of you may remember 1993 with a trace of snow. Sure it wasn't a snow storm, but snow on Halloween? And then there's been years when Halloween has been in the 80s, even close to 90! The record high is 88 in 1968. Here's some other interesting stats for Halloween: It's from 9am to 3pm out at the National Weather Service offices located near Weldon Spring, MO in St. Charles County. In fact, I've posted a link below and the weather service has provided directions and detials about what you'll see when you visit. The National Weather Service Storm Survey team has been working hard lately. I spoke to the Weather Service today by phone and they had multiple crews out in the field. They were looking closely at the damage from the Paris, MO tornadoes from Wednesday night and also looking for possible confirmation of reported tornadoes in and around Bond, Co. Illinois. As of Friday night there are no preliminary reports out on the unconfirmed torn...
Well, the energetic storm system continues to bring a threat of storms to our area today through the overnight. Below is the Storm Prediction Center's severe risk for today through tomorrow morning. There is a threat for all types of severe weather including hail, wind damage and tornadoes, from this afternoon on. For St. Louis, it appears that threat especially increases tonight through about 5 to 7am. That means there is a chance ...
A storm system will drop into the High Plains Wednesday and help to push warm and moist air into the St. Louis area Wednesday afternoon. A few storms are possible across our area in the afternoon and evening. We may have a few strong to severe storms, especially in the evening for St. Louis, but the higher risk for severe weather during the day is in Western Missouri and Kansas, closer to the core of this storm system. As that sto...
"Much Needed Rain" is a popular phrase meteorologists are using this week. We have a couple chances for showers and storms starting with today through tomorrow morning. Another chance arrives late Wednesday through Thursday morning. But the reason we say "much needed" is because most of the area is in a drought. In fact, parts of our viewing area in Illinois are in a severe drought. Below is the latest drought monitor. If you wan...
It's fitting that on the day we have the coolest air since April we start looking ahead to the Winter Outlook. In the previous blog we posted a link for the average frost dates, but now let's talk about the climate outlook for December through February as the latest forecast from the Climate Prediction Center has just been released. On a national level the forecast calls for good chances of a warmer than normal winter, but slightl...
First though, a front approaching this afternoon will cause showers and some thunderstorms. This won't be drought busting rainfall, but some isolated heavy downpours can be expected. Some of those storm cells with heavy rain could produce a lot of lightning and gusty winds but windepsrea...
Steve here, I have some preliminary results from the storm survey crews at the National Weather Service. I should emphasize that this is preliminary and n |
