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This is great, Gary! We finally get good answers (technical but not extreme)like the one you gave to Crystal Renaud's question. I'm one of those weather geeks that loves the excitement of a good thunderstorm and I look forward to the upcoming severe weather season. Great goin' guys!

By the way: is Lezak a Serbian name?

Marcus,

Lezak is a Russian name. My grandparents were from Russia. Thanks for the kind comments. Rain is on the move.

Gary

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Your weather man gave bad advice, this morning, he said it would be a good day to put down weed and feed, You do not want to put it down, if it is going to rain with in 24 hours, I hope more people knew better. I tried to call but could not find the phone number. Have a better day tomorrow. Ben Taylor

Ben,

It will rain within 24 hours, so it is O.K. Brett was fine in saying what he said, unless it doesn't start raining soon. It will by early morning, which is within 24 hours.

Gary

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Why did this storm move in a rotating fashion, with the moisture moving counter clockwise, and other times the moisture just moves east?

Hi, Marlina!
Storms typically move in a west-to-east pattern across the country, thanks to the jet stream (a river of high winds way above our heads that flows from west to east, steering the storms!)

This particular storm followed that same movement... it came in from the west and is moving east. But the storm came in SOUTH of us, so the RAIN ITSELF actually moved from east to west! This is thanks to the storm's rotation. All LOW pressure centers rotate counter-clockwise... so north of the low, the flow is from east to west... the opposite direction we are used to!

This storm is stronger and more closed-off, thus has a more pronounced east to west circulation on the north side of the storm.

Hope that answers your question!
Jamie

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Since the dewpoint is in the 50's does that prohibit strong thunderstorms? How much moisture needs to be in the air? Thanks for this weather blog!
Derek

Hi, Derek!
Actually, As a general rule, the surface dewpoint needs to in the 50s for a good surface-based thunderstorm to occur. A dewpoint of less than this is unfavorable for thunderstorms. This is because surface-level moisture is the fuel of a thunderstorm (and dewpoint is a direct measure of the moisture in the air). Just remember that warm, moist air is unstable air!

We will occasionally have thunderstorms occurring when the dew point is less than 50-degrees. In this case, the storms are probably "elevated".

Hope that helps!
Jamie :)

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We had a brief thunderstorm roll through St. Joe early this morning. Later in the morning I turned one one of our weather radios to check the forecast and Pleasant Hill was apparently off the air at that time. This has happened before during severe weather season. Do we rely on the sirens to warn us of approaching severe weather when the NOAA system is down and our weather alarm will not be activated? We have encountered this before over the years and have always wondered what a back-up plan would be especially for country residents. Love your weather forecasts!

Hi, Marie!
You are right... one of the transmitters (there are two on site) did fail! And on top of that, there was another glitch--the automated monitor didn't report the problem!

The NWS did quickly switch over to the working transmitter, and they are now back on the air. I have received word the NWS will be working to restore the downed transmitter as soon as possible!

To answer your question... the back-up plan is that there are two transmitters... a redundancy in equipment so to speak. They just didn't get it switched over in time for you not to notice
the outage.

If we would have had a tornado emergency during the outage... the NWS and your county Emergency Management Agency would have been in communication to address the problem.

Jamie

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Gary,

Looks like the storm/low has pretty much spun in place today.

Will we have enough afternoon heating that in the event it does roll through life could become somewhat more thrilling this evening.

BTW, you are what makes putting up with the rest of the news worthwhile.

Bob

Hi, Bob!
The atmosphere is gradually destabilizing with the daytime heating... so we may see a few showers or thunderstorms yet this evening! Right now the storms are down toward the Lake of the Ozarks... we will keep our eyes on Live Triple Action Doppler to see if anything will pop up nearby. Gary will be updating the forecast tonight at 5 and 6!
Jamie

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Could you give me more information on the Blown Away Tours you mentioned last night (04.11.05)? I would appreciate it. Thanks!

Kristen,

Blown Away Tours is a locally owned company that takes Tornado Chase enthusiasts on tours to see tornadoes. Go to Blownawaytours.com and you can find out more about them. Sean Wilson and his team are now one of our chase teams as we prepare for this up coming storm season.

Gary