So Much for Spring

Another April day and another day of warm weather.

I enjoy looking at statistics. For the month of April the Cape Girardeau airport has had 4 days 80° or higher. (In fact, we are on a 4 day consecutive 80° or higher streak.) There have been 10 days 75° or higher. Needless to say, if you have though this month has started out "warm" you are correct.

Here is a look at some regional stats for the month of April:

• Cape Girardeau, Mo is 8.1° above normal per day.
• Carbonadle, Il is 12.0° above normal per day.
• Poplar Bluff, Mo is 8.3° above normal per day.
• Paducah, Ky is 8.6° above normal per day.

What will the rest of spring and summer be like? We'll have to wait and see.

I am a firm believe that things find a way of evening out. Maybe if we stay warm for another month we will be lucky and get a below normal summer. I'd be for that!

Where's The Journalism?

I ran across an interesting editorial piece presented by WFAA-TV's veteran sports anchor Dale Hansen.

Making a long story short, Hansen was upset with his television station's news management's decision to run a video clip of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. The video showed Jones in a bar trashing former Cowboys' coach Bill Parcells and former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow.

It is an interesting observation on the state of television news in the modern era. Unfortunately, I would have to agree that the art of journalism is fading quickly.

I should note that my observation isn't made towards KFVS-TV and Heartland News. This is more of an observation as a whole across the entire industry.

Play Ball!

Its that time of year again. Time for baseball in St. Louis. Tens of thousands will be making the pilgrimage to downtown St. Louis to take part in the festivities.

So what is the weather going to be like for the baseball game against the Houston Astros? First pitch is scheduled for 3:15pm CT.


It should be a really nice day. Lots of sunshine so take the sunscreen with you.

Huge Success

I want to thank everyone who came out to the Orschlen store in Sikeston today for the StormTeam Weather Radio Programming event. It was a HUGE success.

The Orscheln store manager, Jamie, estimated that over 1,000 weather radios were programmed during the event. I got to the store around 9:30am to start setting up (event was to start at 10:00am) and I heard that people had started to arrive at 8:30am.

My apologies if you were not able to get in the door to have your radio programmed. We had to close off the line at 12:15pm due to the number of people in the store already. We were supposed to be done at 1:00pm and didn't get out of there until 2:30pm.

Here is a little video one of the station photographers shot from the line inside the store.

A special thanks to the National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky for sending over two volunteer meteorologists and to Bruce Jones and Midland Radio for coming to help program radios.

As of right now we don't have any other events planned, but after seeing the response from everyone we might have to add another event.

Weather Watch This Afternoon?

The Storm Prediction Center just put out a Mesoscale Discussion for parts of southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and southwest Indiana. Basically, the MD lets the public know they are monitoring a specific area for a possible watch (severe thunderstorm or tornado).

A warm front is lifting northeast across the area. The concern is that the warm front will act as the mechanism to get thunderstorms to pop. I think the majority of thunderstorms will stay confined to near the front. There could be a few sporadic thunderstorms popping south of the warm front in the "warm sector".

We do have a pretty humid air mass in place. At noon (CT), temperatuers are in the middle to upper 70°'s and dew points are in the lower to middle 60°'s. That is plenty enough "juice" to get things going.

Here is a look at the instability in the atmosphere.


This thermodynamic field is called CAPE. CAPE stands for Convective Available Potential Energy. More specifically, this is SBCAPE (Surface Based Convective Available Potential Energy). This ultimately is the amount of instability in the atmosphere.

Might Need Your Weather Radio Wednesday

That is right. Your weather radio might get a test run Wednesday as we will see some thunderstorms passing through the area.

A cold front will start to move through the area Wednesday. Ahead of the front showers and thunderstorms will develop. Actually, the line of storms will most likely develop across western Missouri Tuesday evening. Below is a look at what Precisioncast was showing during last night's 10pm newscast.


Precisioncast was hinting at individual storm development moving through southeast Missouri around 6:00am CT Wednesday morning.

The Storm Prediction Center is keeping an eye on Wednesday as well. They have already included much of the Mississippi Valley in their day 3 outlook "Slight Risk" area.

Severe Thunderstorm Watch #46

The Storm Prediction Center has issued Severe Thunderstorm Watch #46 for parts of southeast Missouri and southern Illinois. The watch is in effect until 2:00am CT Monday.

Remember that a severe thunderstorm watch means that conditions are favorable for the development of thunderstorms capable of producing hail 1" in diameter or larger and/or 58mph winds or greater.

I Haven't Bought In Yet

I'm in a "wait and see" mode this evening. The Storm Prediction Center and a few hi-resolution computer forecast models are hinting at storms moving through the KFVS viewing area tonight. However, I'm not sold on the idea of us seeing storms overnight.

First the setup: We've got a cold front that stretches from Iowa to Oklahoma. Ahead of the front we are starting to see thunderstorms develop. In fact, a Tornado Watch is in effect until 11:00pm for the northern part of Missouri, western Illinois, and southeast Iowa.


Here is a look StormTeam Digital Doppler. The image was taken around 5:30pm CT.

The Tornado Watch is indicated in the red outline. The yellow outlines indicate Severe Thunderstorm Warnings.

You can see the storms that have popped from Kansas City to Kirksville. The main threat from the storms that have developed is large hail so far.

As I mentioned, the Storm Prediction Center is keeping an eye on things for this evening. They have all of southeast Missouri and parts of southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and northwest Tennessee in a "Slight Risk" area for severe storms. The outlook is good through 7am CT Monday morning.


In the discussion from SPC, they cite a few high-resolution models that keep hinting at thunderstorm development later tonight. Let's take a look at some of the data from the model. Specifically, let's look at the "forecast radar" data some of the models put out.

Here is a view of what the model says the radar will look like at 7:00pm CT this evening. So far the model is doing a really good job.


Here is a view of what the model says the radar will look like at 12:00am CT Monday morning.


Note how the hi-res model tries to develop a second line of thunderstorms in Arkansas. All indications are that this line would move to the east and clip southern parts of the KFVS viewing area (northeast Arkansas, the Missouri bootheel, and northwest Tennessee).

The second line begins to fizzle a bit overnight and looking further in to the model data is moves all the rain north and south of the KFVS viewing area.

The big question for me is whether or not showers and thunderstorms fire further south in to Missouri this evening. I am not sold on that happening just yet.

If we do see storms move through overnight the main threat would be strong winds with some hail. Although, the Storm Prediction Center makes note that it isn't out of the question to have a tornado spin up either. Stay tuned...