KU opened its doors 150 years ago today. Congratulations!!

Saw "Sully" with my son Saturday night. I loved the movie, he liked the movie. I don't want to write too much four days after the movie opened because I don't want to write any spoilers, accidentally. I can say this, the movie is superb in its depiction of the events including technical details. It got them all right. I am in a unique position to verify that and I'll write more after the movie has been out a while longer.

The past ten days have been meteorologically turbulent in many ways.  The weather has been extremely active (the remains of Hurricane Hermine, flooding in the Midwest, record heat, etc., etc.) the last ten days which has kept me very busy at AccuWeather . Our entire team did an incredible job handling all of this. The Wichita office, which is the severe weather center of the company, accurately handled a tornado and superbly warned of a flash flood that closed Interstate 35. An extremely rare sight: Interstate 35/Kansas Turnpike closed due to flooding. AccuWeather meteorologists gave officials more than two hours notice so the road could be closed and traffic rerouted in a safe manner. When the weather is this active, we don't just make forecasts; there is an amazing amount of customer service work to do. Client questions, conference calls, special products to create and send, etc., etc. I, happily (its my job, after all!),  put in 26.5 hours of work in just two days ...

Here is the 24-hr rainfall ending at 7am this morning: Here are the seven day totals. Please note there is a spot of 15+inches (!) in southern Kansas. I believe next week will also be wetter than average for the Great Plains and Midwest. I have an apology to my Midwest readers and that is that I did not cover yesterday's tornado threat on the blog. With all of the flooding combined with my work for AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions , there just wasn't time. There were several damaging tornadoes in Illinois (one may have crossed the border into Indiana), as indicated by the red areas. Blue = high wind report. The Chicago Tribune  has details on the damage.

Yes, there are areas of more than ten inches. Some two-day amounts are approaching 15 inches!

Wichita Eagle Extensive flooding is occurring in southern Kansas where rainfalls have exceeded ten inches in the last 24 hours. There is one spot in southwest Greenwood Co. with a two day total of more than 12 inches. Additional rains will be less the next 24 hours and they will then end. Note: There is a possibility of damaging thunderstorm winds in the same area later today and tonight. Trees easily uproot in high winds with wet soil.

Here are the 24-hour rainfalls to 7am: Here are several areas that have already received 3-4 inches. And, here is the forecast for additional  rainfall between now and Saturday night. With the rains that have already fallen, this implies some spots will receive more than 7" total in southeast Kansas. So, from southeast Kansas across Missouri, be aware of the possibility of flooding.