KSHB: Weather: Action Weather Blog: Viewer Pictures

A double-dose of blogging today! Scroll down to see Gary's morning blog about our snow chances!

In THIS blog... we share some of our favorite viewer pictures from Sunday's severe weather outbreak.

John Young sent these in... he lives on the Southwest side of Lawrence. The photos are damage to his house from the storm that hit around 8am on Sunday. This is the same storm that hit KU seveal minutes later. During this storm... it is pretty amazing... the air temperature was in the lower 40s!! The offical word from the NWS in Topeka is that this damage was caused by straightline winds of 70 to 90 mph. It looks pretty impressive!

Below is a picture that comes to us from Columbia, Missouri. Matt Perkins, a Kansas City native sent it in:

Matt goes to MU, and this is actually his roomate's car! He captured the action shot of a large hailstone hitting it... we had many reports of busted-out windows from the hail. The largest report I saw was in excess of four inches! That is softball sized hail!! Overall, there were 201 reports of large hail and/or damaging winds in our viewing area!

Jim Rubino sent this in... he says they didn't get any damage at his house... but it was the largest hail he has ever seen! Looks like a good three inches across!!

This next picture is truly amazing! It is a funnel cloud in Sedalia around 4pm on Sunday:

This was taken by Shaun Edwards... it went right over his house! The tornado that touched down just south of Sedalia was an F2 on the Fujita Scale. Thanks, Shaun, for sending in your picture!

Now for another hail picture... I just like this one because of the ice cream in the shot! I am a sucker for ice cream, for sure!! :)

Mike & Kristine Batch sent this one in... they took it at their home in Lee’s Summit near Longview Lake. They tell us they got a lot of hail there... most of it was golf ball sized. Thanks for the pictures!!

Steve Jorgensen sent it in from Blue Springs... they collected the hail around 9pm. He also says it was the biggest he has seen!

Now for some lightning shots! This first one is cool... you can see the almost-full moon in the upper left. I think it is SO cool the way the lightning illuminates the towering cumulonimbus clouds:

Brian Turner took these around 7:15 pm... looking due east from his home in Overland Park. He says it was beautiful to watch! Here is another from Brian:

*******************
Hi:

WORD TO THE WISE - FROM MY EXPERIENCE WITH GOLF-BALL SIZED HAIL IN MUSTANG, OK, AND THE INSURANCE CO TOTALING OUR ROOF TWICE OUT OF TWO SUCH HAIL STORMS, ANYONE EXPERIENCE GOLF-BALL OR LARGER HAIL MUST, AND I REPEAT MUST, HAVE THEIR INS. ADJUSTER CHECK THEIR ROOF. YOU CAN'T SEE DAMAGE, BUT GOLF-BALL HAIL WILL PIT THE TILES AND WHEN SUMMER COMES, THE TILES CURL UP AND YOU HAVE RAIN DAMAGE.

THE GENTLEMAN WITH 3 INCH HAIL - SIR I BET YOU HAVE ROOF DAMAGE TO THE TILES, PROBABLY SIGNIFICANT!!!! I'D GET IT CHECKED OUT.

My place in Blue Springs got mostly quarter with one slightly larger, so I lucked out, but the north side of Blue Springs had up to tennis ball hail.

Dog

DOG:
Great reminder to everyone! It's always better safe than sorry!
Jamie

********************
Hi - I chedked the SPC's website for March 12th, and the total number or reported tornadoes was 136. I then went thru the list and counted the non-Missouri twisters - 11 - SO THAT MEANS MISSOURI, IN ONE DAY, RECEIVED 125 TORNADOES!!! It must have broken the record for MO - perhaps you can tell me, but a count like that, for one state rivals Apr 3-4 1974 Super Outbreak, remembering that 144 tornadoes were spread out over several states - just incredible numbers.
Dog

DOG:
Found it... I will also put it in tonight's blog:

"The preliminary tornado count across the United States from Sunday’s outbreak stands at 117 tornadoes. If that total stands, it would rank March 12, 2006 as the second highest tornado total for a day in U.S. history, second only to April 3, 1974 when 128 tornadoes were recorded. The April 3-4, 1974 outbreak is labeled the “Super Outbreak�?, and is the benchmark as the greatest documented tornado outbreak in U.S. history. The preliminary count for March 12, 2006 will likely change as details become available on the extent of duplicate tornado reports, or additional tornadoes that produced little to no damage, yet occurred and were documented by storm spotters and chasers."
--NWS

Jamie