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.