Tropical Storm Arthur

Not a whole lot has changed in the forecast, but severe weather is breaking out in parts of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas including two tornado warnings. As you already know, Kansas and Missouri was hit pretty hard just yesterday by severe weather and tornadoes, so these areas could really use a break. The big thing is that the first Atlantic named storm has formed and moved over parts of the Yucatan Peninsula. With the official start of hurricane season beginning tomorrow, we have certainly kicked it off right. This storm has maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph and was moving to the west at around 7 mph. Right now, the storm is expected to remain over land for about the next 3 days and weaken to a tropical depression, but it is still very uncertain.

Storms Tomorrow?

Well, it was another active day for much of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio as they had numerous reports of severe weather including about 17 reports of tornadoes.

Not a very big story around here.....just alot of heat and humidity. Right now it is 85 degrees with a dewpoint of 69 degrees, so it is already very hot and very humid. There's not really alot that's changed with the forecast, but the SPC has moved their slight risk zone of severe weather a good bit further north; now very little, if any, of Mississippi is in this zone. I'm not too surprised by this as the cold front is still forecast to stall in Tennessee, and most of the shower and storm activity will be along that front. This front will try to sink southward through our area tomorrow through Monday, and this is where the forecast seems to get a little tricky. It seems like the real determining factor for who really sees the rain is going to rest on how far east a ridge of high pressure in the southern U.S. will build. It looks like right now that the best places to see any kind of significant rainfall will be the eastern and northern portions of the state. The further south and west you go, the lesser the chance of any showers and storms from this system. The severe threat seems fairly small right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a few warnings issued. Again, the main threat will be hail and gusty winds and also dangerous lightning. I will leave you with something pretty interesting happening on one of the long-range models, and that is an area of low pressure showing up in the Gulf of Mexico by the end of next week. This area doesn't look too favorable for very much tropical development, but it will be interesting to watch.

Just Hot and Humid

Yesterday proved to be a very active day for the plains states once again with more than 50 reports of tornadoes, and most of which occurred in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Here's a look at the SPC's storm reports for yesterday.



We've also had our first named tropical system of the season, which WAS Tropical Storm Alma. It made landfall near Leon, Nicaragua and has since been downgraded to a tropical depression. In its final advisory, Alma had maximum sustained winds of about 25 mph and was continuing to track slowly off to the north at about 10 mph.

It looks like we'll stay dry throughout today and also Saturday, but by Sunday, we'll see a cold front begin to slowly work its way down from the north. We could possibly be seeing some showers and storms in here as early as sunday afternoon, but it looks like the heaviest rainfall will occur to the north and east of here as that front will stall around southern Tennessee. The SPC has already placed roughly the northern half of Mississippi in a slight risk for severe weather for tomorrow into Saturday and the northeastern quarter of Mississippi for Sunday into Monday. I don't look for anything like what the plains have been getting here lately, but some of these storms could produce some hail and strong winds. As far as temps go, it looks like we have hit summer even though the calendar does not say so. Expect high temps to be in the lower 90's and overnight lows only getting down into the mid and upper 60's. Combine that with dewpoints in the upper 60's and lower 70's, and we are looking at heat indices in the mid-upper 90's. It looks like we have finally hit that typical summertime heat and humidity.

Afternoon Storms

The past several weeks have been very active especially in the plains states, and actually produced the second EF-5 tornado in history in Parkersburg-New Hartford, Iowa. However, with the old Fujita scale, this tornado would only be rated as an F3 tornado because its peak wind speeds were estimated to be around 205 m.p.h. This would make it a high end F3 tornado on the old Fujita scale, but with the new "enhanced" Fujita scale, it is rated an EF-5. Either way, it was a very bad storm that actually resulted in 7 confirmed deaths and at least 70 injuries and a ton of damage. Here is a radar image of that storm showing a nasty hook on the southwest side of the storm.

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On to the weather around here (Meridian), we'll see an old frontal boundary that pushed through here just basically fizzle out over the area and still give us a shot of seeing some showers and maybe a thunderstorm, but that's just a very small chance. Actually on radar now, there are a few light showers beginning to build mostly along and south of I-20. I wouldn't expect to see alot of coverage out of these showers, but it'll be something to watch. We are still in a drought, so any rain that does fall around here will be very beneficial. The showers and storms that do develop today should begin to die down after sunset.

On to the big picture, a surface low is currently sitting in southeast Colorado that will track off to the north-northeast and is pulling up mid-upper 60 degree dewpoints along with temps in the mid 70's all the way into Nebraska and even as far north as south Dakota creating incredible instability throughout the plains states once again. There is also and upper level feature in northeastern Montana that will begin to push off to the east and enhance the risk of severe weather in these areas. The SPC has actually placed a good part of Nebraska and Iowa in a high risk for severe weather. In fact storms are already beginning to fire in parts of Kansas and Nebraska and severeal severe weather warnings are already being issued. The threat for severe weather will push a little to the north and east for tomorrow. By the end of the weekend and beginning of next week, this system will begin to affect our areas but just giving us a better chance of showers and storms. This is the SPC's convective outlook for today.