We’ve seen a lot of rain these past few weeks, and our Stormtrack Weather Team has tracked it all. With this week being characterized by rain and cooler temperatures, data was collected to see how this May lined up to our average conditions for mid-Missouri Mays. Our average high temperature was near 73 degrees which
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THURSDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: The complex of showers and thunderstorms that produced 1-2″ of rainfall across Mid-Missouri continues to move south late this afternoon. The atmosphere is having a tough time recovering in the wake of this system, and cloud cover continues to limit new development. That said, scattered storms are expected to move into areas
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For severe weather to happen, there are four ingredients we usually look for: Instability, shear, moisture, and lift. Instability can come from a difference in air temperatures, and oftentimes, instability can come from daytime heating by the sun. Lift also comes from differing air temperatures. Wind shear is the difference in speed or direction of
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Just two days ago marked the ten year anniversary of the Joplin EF5 tornado that caused extensive damage and loss of life in southern Missouri. It’s been eight years since the last EF5 rated tornado hit anywhere in the United States, and as we passed the ten year anniversary of our last EF5 tornado in
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It’s no secret that many of us are tired of rainy conditions, but we may not be done tracking that rainfall yet. Right now, it appears that high pressure will be moving slowly toward mid-Missouri as we approach the weekend. We could still see some spot showers early tomorrow morning, but many of us will
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With extreme flooding occurring in parts of the southern United States and localized flooding occurring here in mid-Missouri, our waterways are being closely monitored for their flooding potential. Today I spoke with Mark Fuchs, the Senior Service Hydrologist with the St. Louis National Weather Service office about our chances of seeing any major rivers flooding.
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These past few days, we’ve focused a lot on localized flooding but our concerns aren’t stopping there. We’re tracking river levels, especially the levels of those near flooding stage. Rivers such as the Missouri or Mississippi are closely watched for flooding hazards as they impact large areas of land throughout Missouri, but smaller waterways can
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After a gorgeous few days with high pressure over the Great Lakes, a more unsettled pattern is shaping up for the weekend into next week with several waves of rain and thunderstorms rolling through Mid-Missouri. We’re tracking a low pressure system that will develop across the Plains and send a warm front in our direction
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You may have heard that pets, especially dogs, can sense when bad weather would hit. My own pets even hide when storms are nearby, so I wanted to dive into how they know without looking at the ABC17 Stormtrack Weather App. Some pets will run and hide or perk up their ears before lightning strikes.
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For the past few days, our Stormtrack Insiders at 6 have focused on the potential for a strong Atlantic hurricane season. Like we’ve discussed in the Insiders from earlier this week, the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons go hand in hand together. What we’ll see in each ocean comes down to what season we’re in;
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There are two hurricane seasons; one in the Pacific and one in the Atlantic. While they don’t coincide perfectly on the dates that they run, these two seasons do directly impact each other. Last year, activity in the Pacific was very low, but we saw record breaking storm activity in the Atlantic. Usually, these two
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The Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15th through November 30th. Mother Nature, however, has decided to kick things off a little early. Tropical storm Andres has set a new record for the earliest named tropical storm in the Pacific Ocean. The old record was set on May 10th, 2017 with tropical storm Adrian, but
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The week will end on a nice note with high pressure just to our west on Friday, keeping pleasant conditions around Mid-Missouri on Friday night. The ABC 17 Stormtrack weather team has been tracking the potential for rain and storms over the weekend for the last several days, but there has been some uncertainty in
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Meteorologists around the nation work to collaborate every single day. This communication is an essential part to our daily workflow, especially when there’s severe weather inbound. The National Weather Service largely runs our main communication channels between broadcast meteorologists, emergency management, law enforcement and trained storm spotters. We use an NWS-run tool called Weather Chat
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its new climate normals map but what do these maps mean? Let’s face it, climate change is a hot topic right now. For many people, it’s a triggering topic that has been made political within recent years. This story isn’t meant to be political, it’s meant to
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EVENING UPDATE: Our severe weather threat will wane for the next few hours for much of Mid-Missouri with the front continuing to track to our southeast. We will keep a close eye on a complex of storms that is expected to move into southern Missouri overnight, posing a heavy rain and wind threat for areas
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Mother Nature gave us a little bit of everything this month, from record snowfall, to later than normal frost, to temperatures near 90 degrees. We started off the month chilly, with active weather during the first full week of April. Severe weather rolled through the area on April 7, bringing wind damage to Benton County.
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After a summerlike start to this week as temperatures soared into the 80s, big changes are on the way with an active 36 hours around Mid-Missouri. Upper level high pressure is beginning to move east, taking the unusually warm temperatures and gusty winds with it. A strong low pressure system over the Plains will send
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It wouldn’t be spring in Mid-Missouri without a few curveballs, and that’s exactly what we’re dealing with this week after starting out with temperatures near 70 degrees on Monday with measurable snow less than 24 hours later. An unseasonably cool two weeks can be blamed on the upper air pattern, with cold air masses on
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TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Some issues cropped up briefly north of Kansas City earlier this morning on the roadways. However, they also picked up 4.5″ in some spots-that seems to be the number to get to that would lead to problems. That seems less likely at this point and helps that we’re heading into the afternoon
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