Ofallon Weather

So since we backed out on our chase to Minnesota Saturday and the storms this morning took the energy away from what could have been a decent setup for MO/IL, I spent some time updating the website.

The archive page has long been a thorn in my side. It worked, but I didn’t like the way it looked. I found a nice script online that I really like. Until now each month I had to manually update the last months data and place a new link on the archive page, the same process occurred for the yearly archive listings. This really wasn’t a big deal, about 10 minutes each month, now it will all happen automatically.

Hopefully the data is easier to navigate and it should be updated within 2 hours at the beginning of a new month/year.

Here is the link: NOAA Reports

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Well, that was one of the worst storms I have experienced since moving to O’fallon in 1994. We recorded a peak gust of 56 mph, and a 15 second rain rate of  17.45 inches per hour. Our home did not receive any damage, although several homes/trees in our area did. I have picture posted in our photo gallery of storm damage from today. 6/13 damage pictures

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Well looks like we missed out on a great chase day Saturday in Illinois. We had some issues with servers at work so my two co-workers and I put in 9 hours on Saturday. I will be on vacation starting next Saturday, I am hoping for multiple chase days that week.

Tuesday is looking interesting for our area for Severe Weather, keep an eye/ear out as we get closer. The rest of the week looks to be turning very warm with highs over 90 as we approach the weekend.

On a sad note…..We lost several people in the storms Saturday, I would guess that most of them had no idea severe weather was in the area. If they did, they likely didn’t take action. A few minutes in the basement is well worth it.<rant off>

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Aaron and I had another fun chase on Saturday. We had chose our initial point of South Central Nebraska, we drove straight past Kearney and then started heading north and further west. Our furthest point north was just into South Dakota on highway 83, we found a paved road that ran east, we really needed this to try and get in front of a tornado warned storm. We went about 8 miles east, through some small hail, then the road turned to gravel/mud, we drove another couple miles and had to turn around, the road was to dangerous.

We did watch the birth of several supercells, this after we had given up. We had just introduced ourselves to David Toner, another chaser from Springfield, MO. We had noticed him in our area on the spotter network map. We left to head back southeast when we noticed some clouds building to our north north west, we turned around back to US 83 to blast north. These storms went up quick, from nothing to hail/wall cloud producers within 30 minutes.

We feel like we had a  successful day, the only thing missing would be a tornado. We have figured out that we are taking pictures/watching to much when these storms develop, we need to make sure and get in front of them at this time. Once we decided to move is when we realized the road network was not great, with many roads being unpaved. We did stream video for a short period of time, although once we were near the storms we were on a much slower connection and had to drop the video to 5 frames per second.

Pictures of the storms development can currently be viewed in our photo gallery, 5-22-2010 Nebraska Chase

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I have embedded a Google calendar into the blog. It is on a separate page with the link showing in the menu on the left side of the blog. Calendar Link

Everyone keep an eye out Monday night into Tuesday morning, we have the possibility of  severe weather. Most likely large hail and wind, but one never knows. Tomorrow looks to be a rough day for Eastern Oklahoma and possibly SE Kansas as well as Western Missouri.

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Quick update on yesterdays hail storm that moved just north of the St. Louis area in both Missouri and Illinois. The largest hail reported was 2 inches, that lies just between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. A report with pictures can be seen at the NWS site, once you click on an image you can scroll through the rest in the series. Some images show hail covering the ground, some even show the ground covered in fog from the cold air produced by the melting hail.. March 3, 2010 Hail Storm report

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The National Weather Service from St. Louis has been busy the last two days examining and reporting on the 3 tornadoes that occurred near the St. Louis area this past week. All 3 were relatively weak, but if they hit your neighborhood you likely have some tree damage and maybe some roof/siding damage.

Below are links to the reports provided by the St. Louis NWS office, many thanks to them for getting these done in a timely manner.

Warren County/Lincoln County tornado

Des Peres/Overland tornadoes

The Overland tornado has a KML file available to view in Google Earth at the bottom of the report.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to post.

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Yesterday I was at work during the tornado in Montgomery and Lincoln counties, I was a bit let down that I was unable to chase this storm, but work does come first.

Today I was attending the St. Louis Kuk Sool Won tournament at UMSL. We were actually heading back from eating in Bridgeton when the tornado warning sounded. We decided our safest place was to get back to UMSL and get in the basement of the gym. Our plan worked just fine, within minutes of our arrival and communicating the urgency of the situation with the tournament organizers the basement quickly and orderly filled with people until the all clear was given.

I was somewhat let down that UMSL had not had everyone in the building in the basement when we arrived. The tornado warning had been issued a minimum of 10 minutes earlier with no action.

It appears that the worst damage was in West County near West County Mall. Scattered hail and high wind reports continued north east from the tornado report.

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Looks to be a bit wet now through the weekend. Friday we are under a slight risk for severe weather, although south and west appear to have better chances of receiving severe weather.
I will have our equipment with us Saturday, we will be busy most of the day, but if severe weather rolls in, look for a live stream on the Chase/Live Video/Chat Page.

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I have been watching the models later this week with much anticipation. Locally warm air will return in a big way, dew points are likely to climb into the mid 50′s. We have had the forcing mechanism(cold front) along with plenty of shear to rotate the storms, the moisture seems to have been the limiting factor so far this year.

From what I am seeing, the major area currently looks to be Thursday/Friday in Texas and Oklahoma. I can’t make Thursday, but I am off work Friday, if it looks promising I will attempt my first storm chase of the year. I think I am set, although I have yet to activate my mobile internet….It should only take 10-15 minutes to activate…Stay tuned. :)

Remember, you can view our position, live streaming video and even chat with us while we are out.Live Chase

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