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.

Did We Just Skip Fall And Go Straight Into Winter?

It has been a very interesting week here in Starkville. Late Monday night, we had a cold front push through the area that actually brought some severe weather to places well off to our north, but most of that activity died off before it reached us. Though we didn't get much rain out of that front, we certainly felt the effects of it. Highs this week, for the most part, stayed in the upper 50's to lower 60's, and lows actually got down into the upper 20's this morning. So very big changes have taken place around here and given us some very pleasant, though a little cool, weather. Friday looks great as our temps will rise up into the upper 60's with a little more southerly wind flow, and the low tomorrow night only gets down in the upper 40's. This warming trend will continue into the weekend as we actually look for temperatures to rise all the way into the mid 70's, and we are actually looking for a chance of some rain around here beginning Sunday and continuing into Wednesday. Notice, though, that these rain chances for this weekend are very small right now, and we look for our best chance of rain to come in around Monday and Tuesday. Rain chances taper off towards the end of the week. Again, those rain chances this weekend are very small, so if you have plans, definitely do not cancel them right now.

Picture Perfect Weather

It has been just a great week here in Starkville. We have seen pretty much sunny skies all throughout the week and also very comfortable temperatures. A weak cold front pushed through the area Thursday night, but didn't really do much for the atmosphere except bring us some slightly cooler temps and a little dryer air. We can look for this very nice weather to continue through the weekend, as the skies will remain clear and allow our temperatures to gradually increase before our next chance of rain enters the forecast by Monday night. High temperatures throughout the weekend, though, will remain in the lower to mid 70's and then climb all the way up into the upper 70's by Monday before we see that next cold front begin to move into the area. Right now, the rain chances for Monday night into Tuesday look fairly small, so not much relief from the drought is expected from this system, but we could actually be looking at low temperatures Tuesday night falling very close to the freezing mark and highs on Wednesday only getting up into the lower 60's. It looks like we could be dealing with quite a chilly week next week, so get ready to break out those winter-weather clothes. Until then, just try to once again enjoy the very nice and comfortable weekend!!

When Will The Rain End?

Man, we have had some changes take place in Starkville this week. First of all, we got a decent amount of rain earlier in the week that really helped out with the current drought situation. Secondly, we got some much cooler weather to push into the area. This colder weather is all thanks to an upper level Low Pressure system that is currently situated in the northeastern part of the state. This thing got cut off from the jet stream and really lost its driving force, so for the past several days, it has just been drifting around the northern part of the state. Because of this, high temperatures over the past several days have really struggled to break the 50 degree mark, and we have also been left with lingering off-and-on showers/drizzle that have really made for a very dreary couple of days. We are looking for these showers to continue overnight tonight, but we finally get rid of them tomorrow and may actually see a few peaks of sunshine. How about that!?! That's something I'm really looking forward to. And guess what.....the further down the road we look, the better the forecast looks for our area. The weekend looks like we will get all those clouds and showers to clear out of here and actually start to warm up nicely with highs getting into the lower 70's and lows remaining in the mid to upper 40's. After a week like we've seen, I think the weekend is gonna feel GREAT!! So once again, try to get out and enjoy the pleasant weather this weekend!

Finally....Some Fall-Like Weather

The week started out a little on the hot side around Starkville, but we were able to get a cold front to push through the area on Tuesday morning. While it wasn't very much, that front actually brought us a little rain too. That first cold front didn't really cool us down very much, but it did help to dry the air out significantly for Tuesday. We had a second push of cold air come into the area on Tuesday afternoon that brought some much cooler weather with it and gave us some great weather for Wednesday. Today was absolutely gorgeous also as we had some beautiful sunny skies, and our high temperature only reached up to around 72 degrees. That combined with the very low dewpoint temperatures allowed for a very comfortable day outside. We can look for that nice weather to continue through tomorrow as we look for highs only to be in the mid-70s, and our lows tomorrow night to drop all the way into the mid-40's. So finally, a little bit of some fall-like weather for us around here. The weekend looks great also......we're gonna look for sunny skies to last through the weekend, but our temps will slowly begin to rise back up into the lower to mid-80's before our next chance of rain enters into the forecast by the beginning of next week.

Stuck In A Rut

This has once again been a very nice week here in Starkville. Unfortunately (I say unfortunately...some of you may think otherwise), we did not receive any rainfall in the area this week, but we came pretty close a few times. As you can see we are still in a fairly significant drought, and it doesn't look like we'll be getting any real help in breaking the drought any time soon. We will have a slight chance of rain/storms tomorrow with highs getting up to the upper 80's, and tomorrow night, we'll be dealing with mostly cloudy skies and lows only getting down into the upper 60's. We'll be looking for partly cloudy skies on Saturday and into Saturday night, and a small chance of rain enters the forecast on Sunday and goes through the day on Monday. These are only very small rain chances right now, so all-in-all, it looks like it will probably be a very nice weekend once again. And again, try to get outside and enjoy this weather.....maybe take a fishing trip or something like that!