Severe Thunderstorm Watch #720

Did your NWS weather radio fire off tonight and startle you? If it did, that is a good thing. It is letting you know about a new Severe Thunderstorm Watch that has been issued by the Storm Prediction Center.

Severe Thunderstorm Watch #720 is in effect for parts of southeast Missouri and southern Illinois. The watch is in effect until 8am CT Thursday morning.

A cluster of thunderstorms is expected to move east across the state of Missouri overnight. You can see the line of storms located over southwest Missouri in the image below. The radar image was taken at 11:48pm CT Wednesday.

Individual thunderstorms are expected to move slightly north of east at 35 mph. The main threat appears to be damaging wind.

Notes from the Friendly Skies

I love to travel and I love to find good travel deals. Occasionally I have put some of the information on the blog. A couple of interesting notes to pass along about airlines.

1) Have you seen the deal from JetBlue airlines? JetBlue has announced the "All You Can Jet Pass" for $599. It allows for unlimited travel on JetBlue from any of its network cities. To me it sounds like a great deal! I just wish they flew out of St. Louis.

Here are some of the details from JetBlue's website.

• $599 for a month of unlimited travel, any available seat
  • Domestic taxes and fees included
  • International and Puerto Rico taxes and fees not included

• On sale through Friday, August 21, 2009, or while supplies last
• Travel Dates: Tuesday, September 8, 2009 through Thursday, October 8, 2009
• Each flight must be booked no later than 11:59 p.m. MDT three days prior to the flight's scheduled departure.
• Nonrefundable/nontransferable/no name changes permitted
• Customers who already have a flight booked during the pass travel period can pay the difference to upgrade to the pass by calling 1-800-JETBLUE (538-2583), prompt 4.
• Each All-You-Can-Jet Pass is eligible for 35 TrueBlue points. Flights booked on the pass are not available for additional TrueBlue points.

2) Republic Airways Holdings has won a bid to purchase Frontier Airlines. According to the Indianapolis Star, the deal is worth $108.8 million.

If you have flown through Denver's airport, I am sure you have seen Frontier's aircraft. I have always wanted to try flying on Frontier. They offer Direct TV channels for each seat for $5 one-way.

Republic Airways is based out of Indianapolis.

12:30pm Weather Update

A few showers and thunderstorms have started to pop up in southeast Missouri.

Below is a radar image from 12:24pm CT Monday. The image is zoomed in on southeast Missouri.

A reminder that you can always take a look at StormTeam Digital Doppler from the KFVS12.com website.

Chance for rain increases today and Tuesday

A cold front is sagging southeast through Missouri and Illinois this afternoon. Ahead of the front, it is warm and humid. Temperatures at noon range in the upper 80's to 90° across southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky. Dew points range in the lower to middle 70's. (Cape Girardeau Airport reported a dew point of 77°.)

As the front gets closer, temperatures continue to climb, and humidity is in place, we could see a few strong thunderstorms develop. In fact, the Storm Prediction Center has parts of southeast Missouri and southern Illinois in a "Slight Risk" for severe thunderstorms. The main threat should be damaging wind and large hail.

Here is the Day 1 Outlook from the Storm Prediction Center. This outlook covers through 7am Tuesday.


Below is the Day 2 Outlook from the Storm Prediction Center. This covers the time period from 7am Tuesday through 7am Wednesday.


The main threat Tuesday afternoon will be large hail and damaging wind.

Severe Thunderstorm Watch #658

The Storm Prediction Center has issued Severe Thunderstorm Watch #658 until 10:00pm CT Tuesday. The watch includes southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and southern Missouri.


The main threat from thunderstorms will be large hail and damaging wind. Storms are expect to move south/southeast at 30 mph.

End in Sight?

How long will this cool weather last? I have been getting that question a lot lately from people. Personally, I love having the "cooler" weather. People like KFVS12's weekend sports anchor Chad Fryman have been complaining about the below normal temperatures. Chad would prefer it to be 120° with humidity of 90°.

It appears that we could get back to the 90°'s by Tuesday. Models have been showing me some indications of lower 90°'s for Tuesday/Wednesday for a couple of days.

Below is a look at NOAA's global forecast model from last night. Read the graphic from right to left. The red line indicated the air temperature at the surface. The green line indicates the dew point temperature. The green bars indicate when we could see rain and how much rain we could see. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)


July is going to end up one of the coolest in a long time. Here is a look at area cities and how they compare to "normal" for the month of July through July 30.

• Cape Girardeau, Missouri 5.2° below per day
• Carbondale, Illinois 1.0° below per day
• Paducah, Kentucky 3.3° below per day
• Poplar Bluff, Missouri 4.4° below per day

Time for Ear Muffs?

July continue to be a cool month. No, not the kind of cool where you where sunglasses (i.e. Joe Cool pictured right), but cool temperature wise.

If you have followed my blog or watched me on tv, you know that I like finding interesting numbers/statistics to throw out. Here is today's dose of numbers...

July 2009:

• To date, 20 out of the 26 days have been below average. That equates to 80.6% of the month being below normal.
• You think California has a deficit? We have a temperature deficit of 135°! In other words, we are 5.2° below average per day this month.
• We have hit 90° seventeen times since June 1. Only two of those days have been in July.

Looking over the next seven days, there are only two chances for us to get back to 90°. The first comes tomorrow (Monday). My forecast high is 89° for Cape Girardeau. If we can push it one more degree, we'll be back at 90°. The other chance would be maybe next Sunday.

Stay tuned...

Need Your Advice

After months and months of talking about getting one, I finally did. I broke down and bought an iPhone 3GS.

So far it seems to work well and fast.

I haven't downloaded too many apps yet. Just some of the basic ones. Twitterfon, Facebook, ESPN's ScoreCenter, Batter Statues, TWC, iHandy Level, and RadarScope. I have to admit, RadarScope is a pretty cool application. (Although it does cost $9.95.)

So now I need your help. What apps do you recommend? I prefer the free ones, but if you have one that costs a little bit, tell me about it in the comment section.