Weekend Forecast Concerns | Weather

Good afternoon and thanks for stopping by the FOX 4 Weather Blog.

Well skies, as of this writing, are in the process of clearing out from the NE to the S/SW. Interesting spread in temperatures as Chillicothe now is up to 62° while all others in the clouds are mainly in the mid 50s. Today will be one of those weird days where we see the warmest weather on the north side and the coolest weather on the south side of the area.

The disparity in temperatures is being caused by clouds from the departing storm that didn’t really do a lot for rainfall, in a general sense, for the metro. Some areas did OK with some rain. Centerville, KS had .71″ and Ridgeway, MO had 2.15″. Maryville had 2.0″. Others around the metro did not fair so well. Olathe had .01″. There were some totals out there, but as I mentioned on the air yesterday and I think on the blog as well, the heaviest rainfall was going to be to the north and south and that’s what happened. Weird storm though, and that will happen when these things get all spun up and different vorticies move through the flow altering the rain patterns.

The PM visible satellite picture is pretty cool showing the dry punch of air flowing in from the NE of the region and helping to clear out the clouds from NE to SW.

Really overall the weather is going to be very typical of early to mid April out there for the next couple of weeks. There looks to be some pretty cool mornings, with the potential of some patchy frost in the outlying areas next TUE/WED AM. There should also be some milder weather as well during the afternoon hours as highs may still be a bit above average. I don’t see any 80s for awhile. I do see us in an 65-75° range for highs for quite some time.

Our next system is due in on Saturday. While the main upper level energy will be passing through the northern plains, we should see a cold front of sorts move through the region. Ahead of the front, while the instability won’t be great at all, there should be a band of rain moving through the region during the 1st part of the day, and potentially lasting till early afternoon. By late afternoon we should be clearing out. It may only be 50-55° or so on SAT until we start clearing out, then we should pop into the 60s. Easter Sunday looks wonderful with highs near 70°. Next MON-WED look great, although a cold front will be ushering in seasonable air into the region. While the coldest air early next week will be to the north of here, light winds and clear skies should allow the AM lows to drop into the 35-40 range which means the potential is there for some frost for some, especially the farther north you are…heads up N MO and NE KS.

There also appears to be a storm threat developing next THU. Hopefully whatever happens on THU is over with before Opening Day, which is on Friday. Always concerning when a system like the one that’s showing up is timed close to a big event.

So that’s the weather recap, now lets get into a few other things. Information continues to come out about the tornadoes that struck the Dallas area a couple of days ago. So far there are 13 reports of touchdowns, most being EF(0) tornadoes, but there were 2 EF(2) twisters and 1 EF(3) tornado with winds near 150 MPH. You probably have seen the video concerning the flying trucks, that looked like something out of a movie. There was an interesting article on Huffington Post about HOW and WHY the trucks went flying through the air. Take a look.

The NWS in the Dallas area has some great information on the storms so far and what they’ve found out. Here is the link for them.

One of the things on their site is this radar replay. See if you can find the “hook” echoes that meteorologists look for, as a good indicator of a potential tornado or forming tornado.

Those storms ended up creating large hail and tornadoes across a broad section of N TX. Here are the reports on one may.

There was one video that I wanted to show you, that I saw yesterday afternoon. Pretty amazing footage from a car with the tornado traveling right in front of it.

Finally also from Huffington Post, meteorologist Paul Douglas who works up in MN has come out with this. Basically saying that upwards of 1000 people may die one day from a tornado. I see his point. Envision if you will, a tornado that’s 1/2-1 mile wide packing winds of near 200 MPH moving through a city the size of Chicago or Minneapolis, MN. Now take that same tornado and put it into some of the poorer neighborhoods and keep it going on a track for about 25 miles or so. Have it moving along a crowded, jam packed interstate system where the cars have nowhere to go during rush hour. You can see why the chances of a death toll being so large is certainly in play. Here is the article for your reading pleasure. There is some great information within that article of you’re into that stuff.

Have a great rest of the day and I’ll see you again tomorrow. Sorry for all the links at the end, but there is a lot of great weather weenie information on them, so feel free to retweet or like or whatever so the weather person in your life can enjoy the information.

Joe