Fall often brings another severe weather season to Mid-Missouri
Typically we think of wind, hail, and tornadoes in the spring in Mid-Missouri, but we can’t let our guard down after summer passes.
A secondary severe weather season has been known to flare up in the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, as well as the southeast United States from October through December.
It’s a time of transition across the entire country, but weather can be a rollercoaster where we live when the ingredients are right.
The jet stream tends to dip more south, bringing cooler, dry air near warm, moist air that tends to be more unstable. Surface frontal boundaries in this region can trigger strong, fast moving storms in the fall.
The big temperature difference between the North Pole and Equator makes winds move faster in the jet stream, also acting as a driving force for stronger storm systems.
Mid-Missouri has had numerous severe weather outbreaks in October, November, and December in recent years, including the tornado that struck south Columbia early in the morning on November 10, 1998.
Better known as the Southridge tornado, it developed as a strong cold front moved through the region and struck the neighborhood around 2:00 AM.
The EF-3 tornado had winds greater than 150 mph, and cost more than $6 million in damage to homes and businesses in the area.
Sixteen people were injured, but luckily no one was killed.
Prior to that storm, another tornado hit Boone County on November 27, 1990. That EF-3 rated storm tracked 12 miles from west Columbia to the northeastern part of the county, doing $5 million in damage.
In October 2007, two people were killed when an EF-2 tornado tracked 4.1 miles through Monroe County.
The most recent late fall/early winter severe weather outbreak brought numerous damaging tornadoes to Missouri and the Midwest.
On New Year’s Eve 2010, an EF-3 tornado struck Pulaski County near Fort Leonard Wood, and that same storm also produced another EF-3 in Rolla, where two people were killed.
Tornadoes also struck in the metro St. Louis area that day, with an EF-3 carving an almost 7 mile path through south St. Louis County and killing one person.
