Insider Blog

We’re over halfway through meteorological fall, but most of the season still hasn’t felt like it. On the heels of the hottest September on record, we’re off to a top 10 warmest start to October in Mid-MO. Columbia’s average temperature of 65.5 degrees through the 19th ties for 7th warmest on record in the first

If you’re walking along the many trails in the area, you might notice an extra crunch under your step recently. The Missouri Department of Conservation says that’s because trees are producing extra nuts and fruits this year. George Kipp, the Private Land Forestry Program Supervisor with MDC, says it all started with the wet spring

If you have been waiting for vibrant red and purple leaves to take over Mid-Missouri, this weekend is the ultimate make-or-break moment. We are officially entering our prime window for autumn color, but the drastic temperature plunge heading our way tonight will dictate exactly what kind of show we get. Currently, we are seeing mostly

Fall in Missouri has felt more like July, and the heat is shaping the harvest across the Show-Me state. Theo Rieckhoff, director of market development and commodities for the Missouri Farm Bureau, says the effects vary to the north and south, and across farm operations. “It’s a little bit different story depending on where you’re

Mid-Missouri has seen little rain this past week, but the Missouri River is about to rise anyway. The water is coming from the north and west, where a deluge has hit parts of Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas. Rain totals across Mid-Missouri over the past seven days were low, ranging from a trace east of Highway

As October arrives, cooler mornings and changing foliage usually signal that autumn is settling in across Mid-Missouri. For gardeners, farmers, and anyone with sensitive outdoor plants, the calendar turning often raises an urgent question: how much longer do our green spaces have before the season’s first damaging frost? Climatologically speaking, the window is rapidly approaching.

Columbia is set to record its hottest September ever by a very comfortable margin, driving up energy costs amid high inflation and swirling data center concerns. Through September 28th, the average temperature was 77.1 degrees Fahrenheit, besting the previous record of 75.8 degrees set back in 1897. This September ran about 7.5 degrees above normal,

Hurricane Polo is expected to make landfall near major hurricane strength on the Baja California peninsula Monday evening. Its remnants could bring heavy rain to Mid-Missouri, more than 1,500 miles away, later this week. Polo has already made history. Based on wind speeds and central pressures, it ranks among the five strongest and most intense

It feels like the sun has gone into hiding for early fall, as most of Mid-Missouri has been stuck under a thick, stubborn cloud deck for days. Forecasters at the National Weather Service don’t expect it to clear out anytime soon. The setup started early in the week, with a cold front bringing in cool

While the Atlantic has been quiet this year, off Mexico’s Pacific coast, Hurricane Polo underwent a historic intensification, growing from a 50 mile-per-hour tropical storm to a 160 mile-per-hour Category 5 monster in just 24 hours. That jump of 110 miles per hour in one day is one of the fastest intensification rates ever recorded

A calming tone echoed across parts of the University of Missouri’s campus on Tuesday, and it came from a scattered field of wooden speaker boxes. These “Sun Boxes” are a collection of solar-powered boxes that play sounds with the sunlight, timed to the fall equinox. The notes change when you walk between the boxes and

September is typically a time of plenty across the heartland, but instead, our local fields are drying out at near-record speed. Weeks of relentless late-summer sunshine, near-record temperatures, and high evaporation rates have acted like a giant blow dryer on Mid-Missouri. The result is a rapidly accelerating “flash drought” that is creating immediate, severe challenges

Missouri’s late-summer heat and dry conditions are stressing trees across the state, but the timing could have been a lot worse. That’s according to Brian Schweiss, a sustainable forestry specialist with MU Extension, who says a late-summer heat wave is better than an early one. “The good news with the warm temperatures and trees, since

We have been tracking a developing El Niño pattern for months, but the latest data from the Climate Prediction Center shows this system has shifted into a completely different gear. As of this week, ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific are officially spiking past the 3.0 degrees Celsius (over 5 degrees Fahrenheit) above-average mark.

By the numbers: moving one of college football’s oldest border clashes from late November to late summer completely alters the atmospheric playbook. For more than a century, generations of Tigers and Jayhawks measured the Border War by the bite of late-autumn air. From frozen sidelines and sleet showers to pocket hand warmers and bundled-up student

It is an experience almost every driver has had: after weeks of dry, sunny weather, dark clouds roll in, rain begins to coat the windshield, and the moment you tap your brakes, your tires feel loose. It can be surprising. How can even a gentle shower cause just as much sliding and skidding as a

Columbia just went 20 days without measurable rainfall, a streak that ties for the 5th-longest dry spell our area has seen since 2020. It’s also the 5th-longest dry spell in the last decade, as these streaks have accelerated in recent years. Here are the five longest rain-free streaks recorded in Columbia since 2020: A 30-day

Just a few weeks ago, much of Mid-Missouri was green and humid. Now, drought is creeping back in after a dry end to summer, and fire danger is also climbing as vegetation starts to turn brown weeks ahead of schedule. Ben Webster, Fire Program Coordinator with the Missouri Department of Conservation, says he noticed a