The Week Ahead

It is a nice day outside today. Plenty of sunshine and temperatures at 1:00pm CT in the middle to upper 40's. Not too shabby albeit still a few degrees below normal.

Lets take a glance at the week to come... weather wise. Here is a view of this morning's computer model run of NOAA's global forecast model for Cape Girardeau, Missouri.


In the above graphic: Time runs right to left. The vertical solid colored bars indicate precipitation. Green - rain. Blue - snow. The red line is the surface temperature. The grey boxes are clouds at varying heights.

It is looking like a relatively quiet week ahead. Notice the clouds streaming in starting Monday. This will be cloud cover coming in off a system that should miss us to the south. The clouds will stick around for a couple of days.

Temperatures will also drop off for Tuesday and Wednesday. This model puts high temperatures in the upper 30's to lower 40's. (If it was a month ago we'd probably be talking high temperatures in the upper 20's.) We will start to rebound with the temperatures for Thursday and Friday as high temperatures climb in to the upper 40's to lower 50's.

Question marks exist for the weekend. Notice the model brings in rain for both Saturday and Sunday. The model spits out about 0.2" of rain for late Friday night through Saturday morning. Then it puts out an additional 0.25" for Sunday. We'll see if this stays in the forecast as we go through the week.

If you are sick of the cold here is something to boost your spirits. Meteorological spring starts tomorrow (March 1)!

Feeling the Earthquake at Home

It is amazing to see how the earth works. We were able to "feel" the Haiti earthquake in January. Just like the Haiti quake, we could "feel" or measure this morning's Chile 8.8 magnitude earthquake.

Take a look at some of the helicorders from around the region. Time goes from top of the screen to the bottom.

First I want to show you a helicorder from a calm day two days ago.


Here are the helicorders from this morning across the region. The earthquake happened around 6:34 UTC.

Bloomington, IN:


Carbondale, IL:


Poplar Bluff, MO:


St. Louis, MO:

Forecast Engery Map

If you follow my blog you know that I like to look at forecast models. Here is an interesting image from the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. It is the preliminary forecast model energy map.


I added Hawaii, Alaska, and the United States so you can get your bearings. It is showing the energy moving through the Pacific Ocean. It is this energy that powers the tsunami.

You can watch live coverage from Raycom News Network's KHNL-TV in Honolulu.

Earthquake: South America

By now you might have heard there was an overnight earthquake in Chile, South America. The earthquake measured at 8.8 magnitude.

To put the Chile earthquake in perspective lets compare it to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in January. The Haiti earthquake was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. This means that the Chile earthquake was roughly 850 to 900 times stronger than the Haiti earthquake.

I have been looking over some of the data from the US Geological Survey's earthquake website. The earthquake started at 3:34am Chile time. The epicenter was 200 miles southwest of Santiago, Chile.

This was a deep earthquake. It was measured at 21.7 miles below the surface. That is important to know. The deeper the earthquake often times the less shaking takes place at the surface. Earthquakes in southeast Missouri are typically much more shallow. Generally in the 2-7 miles deep.

Just like Haiti, strong aftershocks continue to shake Chile. Through 7:40am CT there have been 19 aftershocks ranging from 5.0 magnitude to 6.2 magnitude.

Another threat from the earthquake is the possibility of tsunamis. At one point this morning there were Tsunami Warnings in place for 40 countries across the world. Hawaii will be evacuating some locations across the islands at 6am Hawaii time. You can follow coverage from Hawaii from our Raycom News Network affiliate KHNL on their website. You can also watch their LIVE coverage here. The waves are expected to hit Hawaii around 3:00pm CT Saturday afternoon.

Additional information from the USGS site regarding the region the earthquake hit.

This earthquake occurred at the boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates. The two plates are converging at a rate of 80 mm per year. The earthquake occurred as thrust-faulting on the interface between the two plates, with the Nazca plate moving down and landward below the South American plate.

Coastal Chile has a history of very large earthquakes. Since 1973, there have been 13 events of magnitude 7.0 or greater. The February 27 shock originated about 230 km north of the source region of the magnitude 9.5 earthquake of May, 1960 – the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the world. This magnitude 9.5 earthquake killed 1655 people in southern Chile and unleashed a tsunami that crossed the Pacific, killing 61 people in Hawaii, Japan, and the Philippines. Approximately 870 km to the north of the February 27 earthquake is the source region of the magnitude 8.5 earthquake of November, 1922. This great quake significantly impacted central Chile, killing several hundred people and causing severe property damage. The 1922 quake generated a 9-meter local tsunami that inundated the Chile coast near the town of Coquimbo; the tsunami also crossed the Pacific, washing away boats in Hilo harbor, Hawaii. The magnitude 8.8 earthquake of February 27, 2010 ruptured the portion of the South American subduction zone separating these two massive historical earthquakes.

A large vigorous aftershock sequence can be expected from this earthquake.

Noon Weather Update: Temperature Spread

Its warming nicely for the southern half of the KFVS viewing area.


At noon temperatures range from 63° in Cape Girardeau and Paducah to 48° in Farmington, Mo to 41° in St. Louis. Think something is going on in the atmosphere today? haha

From the Weather Factoids.... Today's 63° temperature at Cape Girardeau is the highest temperature for 2010. (We still haven't reached the high temperature of the day.) It has been 84 days since we last saw a temperature of 63° or higher. It was 65° on November 28, 2009.

There has been some nice sunshine over southeast Missouri, western Kentucky, and northwest Tennessee but that will be coming to an end soon. Take a look at the visible satellite image taken at 12:10pm CT below.


Showers and thunderstorms are moving across central Missouri and Arkansas. Expect to see rain move in from the southwest by mid-afternoon.

11:00pm Weather Update: Enjoy It While You Can

The official high temperature at the Cape Girardeau airport was 60° this afternoon. This is the highest temperature in the last 27 days. The previous day this warm was January 19 (61°).

Another interesting weather factoid I pulled up this evening. I wanted to compare the start of this year to 2009. You will remember that 2009 was the year of the MAJOR ice storm that hit the area.

Number of 60°+ days January 1 through February 19.

• 2009: 8 (2 in January & 6 in February)
• 2010: 2 (1 in January & 1 in February)

I have just been looking over the data coming in late tonight. Tomorrow is looking like another good day. High temperatures will range from the lower 50's to around 60° again.

I think we should see a good deal of sunshine during the morning and early afternoon. Clouds will start to increase and then rain will start to move in from the west. Our hi-res model, RPM, is hinting at a line of rain, with embedded thunderstorms, moving in to our western counties of southeast Missouri around 6pm CT. Some thunder is not out of the question tomorrow evening. No concerns. Nothing severe is expected.

Enjoy the mild temperatures tomorrow as everything is pointing to a return of cold air starting Monday evening. The coldest day should be Wednesday with Thursday morning being the coldest morning. Currently, I am going for a high temperature of 30° for both Wednesday and Thursday, but some of the new data coming in tonight is making my number look a little optimistic. Perhaps highs in the 20°'s? We shall see...

Noon Weather Update: Soak It In

At Noon temperatures are in the middle to upper 50's.

The 55° temperature at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport is the warmest temperature in 26 days.

We have seen a nice gradual increase over the last couple of days.

• Feb. 15 - 28°
• Feb. 16 - 34°
• Feb. 17 - 44°
• Feb. 18 - 49°
• Feb. 19 - 51°

It is amazing at how quickly the sun warms things out this time of February. Did you know that the sun's strength on the Midwest is about twice that of what it was a month ago? This time of year I often under-forecast high temperatures as we are starting to get in to the transition period from winter to spring.

Even with the 50° the last two days we are still well below normal as far as temperatures are concerned. Through yesterday, Feb. 19, we are 5.3° below average per day for the month.

Get out and enjoy the warmer temperatures this weekend as it won't be around long. All signs indicate that another shot of cold air is coming down our way.

Above is an image from the European forecast model of surface pressure and temperatures around 3,000 feet up in the atmosphere at 6pm CT Wednesday. As you can see, it brings in a shot of cold air for Wednesday.

We might be getting to the corner, but we haven't rounded it just yet.

Update: Weekend Weather Outlook

The models continue to indicate "warm" air will be in place for the upcoming rounds of storms coming through this weekend. This means that for most of us we will be mainly dealing with rain.

Take a look at the snowfall accumulations maps from this morning's GFS and NAM runs. Notice how the snow areas are well north of the region.

GFS (above)

NAM (above)

The Canadian model also keeps us warm. The below image from the Canadian model shows what could be going on Sunday evening. Remember the pink line is roughly the rain/snow line.


The Japanese model (below) is still trying to bring the storm further south compared to the other models. If the JMA is correct there could be an accumulating snow over the northwestern third Monday.


I should mention that the Canadian is hinting at some change over to some light snow on the backside of the system. However, the model is much drier compared to the JMA.

Since it appears we won't be dealing with much snow over the next couple of days, it looks like we will be dealing with rain instead. Some of the rain could be heavy. Here is a look at the NAM's quantitative precipitation forecast (how much rain could fall) over the next 84 hours.


It is showing that we could see anywhere from 0.50" to over 1" of rain during that time period. Some rain wouldn't be a bad thing. For the year we are 2.25" below normal.