I appreciate so many of you reading my blog this week. Thank you!

This Forecast Has Been Updated . This has really been a difficult week with tornadoes, floods, dam breaks, giant hail and thunderstorm-generated wind gusts of more than 80 mph. Unfortunately, we have one more day and tomorrow has the potential to be the worst of all. Here's a breakdown:  Tornado Risk The yellow area with counter-hatching is where is an enhanced  probability of  violent  tornadoes. This is a rare forecast.  The yellow areas with regular hatching is where strong tornadoes are forecast.  The brown area with hatching has a significant risk of tornadoes and the hatching means they could be strong. The brown unhatched areas have a significant risk of tornadoes.  Be careful in the Upper Midwest: the severe thunderstorms and tornadoes may begin as early as 10am. There could be more than one round of thunderstorms throughout the entire area above.  Damaging Thunderstorm-Generated Winds Hatching indicates gusts of 75 mph or stronger are for...

We subscribe to AT&T's U-Verse and, at least in the KC area, its storm warnings are terrible. They might get someone seriously injured. Yesterday, several severe thunderstorm warnings were issued by the Kansas City NWS office for the Greater Kansas City area. The severe thunderstorm you see above was 22 minutes late. And, it isn't even for the Kansas City area. The severe thunderstorm warning issued by the KC NWS before this one was  for the KC area and it never displayed at all! Warnings were nearly as late Monday evening when tornadoes were passing just to the south of the KC Metro. Evidently, AT&T doesn't care about the customer service it provides based on this, frequent internet interruptions, and outside of the U.S. telephone operators. The FCC mandates that operators of services like U-Verse (including DirecTV, etc.) must provide storm warnings. Evidently, they are not checking to see if the warnings are useful. I hope a person using U-Verse is never in the p...

There is only one small area with a significant tornado risk today and it is in Upstate New York. The area in brown may see a tornado or two. Please keep up on the weather information throughout the day. Tomorrow looks like a major severe weather day. I'll have more on that early this afternoon. 

There have been a lot of upset atmospheric scientists (here's one ) recently because of the Trump Administration's proposed cuts to meteorological research.  Without getting into that subject, I want to bring your attention to how innovative research in weather science can still be done without spending millions and millions of dollars: The OTUS Project . They are flying drones into tornadoes and conducting measurements -- something that never before has been done.  They are licensing their footage and asking for donations to sustain themselves. You can donate at the orange link above. 

Tornado Watch Issued 3:40pm In Kansas, this watch includes Olathe, Paola; in Missouri, Belton, Excelsior Springs and Chillicothe; in Iowa, Winterzet, Clarinda and Marshalltown.  Tornado Watch Issued - 2:50pm The areas tinted in red are tornado watches. In addition to the strong thunderstorms in southeast Kansas, additional storms are forecast to develop in these areas. Hail up to 3 1/2 inches is forecast to fall along with the tornadoes. In Kansas, the watch includes Pittsburg, Coffeyville and Independence. In Missouri, it includes Branson, Table Rock Lake and Nevada.  11:50am Update The areas in brown hatching have a significant risk of tornadoes and, if a tornado occurs, it could be strong. The Storm Prediction Center has added Missouri and southeast Kansas to the tornado risk area.  The Great Lakes significant tornado risk is where the storms are not forecast to be "strong," but all tornadoes are dangerous.  Please keep up on the latest weather information. I will...