Mike had a great time visiting the campus of the University of Oklahoma, his alma mater, on Tuesday. He gave his presentation, Miracle at Greensburg, and did a book signing for his book, Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather. The Meteorology department and the National Weather Service are housed in the same beautiful building, and many were present for the presentation. Thank you OU , for the opportunity.

UPDATED FRIDAY EVENING:  While shorter, the 2010 tornado was very similar to the 1957 tornado.  Here is a map of the path of the '57 tornado at left and the 2010 tornado at right.  Note Love Field as a point of reference in both.   Photo of 1957 Dallas tornado. Compare to WFAA's photo of yesterday's tornado below. Yesterday's tornado in Dallas followed a path very similar to the path of the 1957 tornado, the only major tornado in the history of the city. The storm killed 10. There is more here .

Today is the 110th anniversary of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The hurricane killed about 8,000 people and is the topic of the excellent book, "Isaac's Storm." Isaac was Isaac Cline of the Weather Bureau's meteorologist assigned to the Galveston office. Eric Larson did a great job on the book -- a story about science that is gripping and engaging. AccuWeather has more on the anniversary.

Dallas has been remarkably tornado-free throughout its history. However, a tornado -- spun off from the remains of Tropical Storm Hermine -- has been doing damage in the Dallas area for the past half hour. I'll have updates when there is more information. Here is an image of the amazing hook echo just left and slightly above the "D" in Dallas. The tornado crossed I-35E near the Lowes Hotel. There is some damage. Photo from WFAA TV . It is of the tornado crossing the Trinity River west of downtown Dallas. From KXAS TV (NBC) . The debris cloud is at bottom with the thin funnel cloud above. There were apparently two tornadoes, one near Seagoville and a second from just west of downtown Dallas toward Love Field. Here is the Seagoville tornado, also from KXAS. Tornadoes often occur with the remains of tropical storms and hurricanes. The good news, if there is ever any good news when it comes to tornadoes in populated areas, is that those tornadoes are relatively we...

Tylenol-loaded mice dropped from air to control snakes Here is the article .

The remains of tropical storm Hermine continue to move slowly north toward southern Oklahoma causing widespread heavy rain. This radar image is from AccuWeather at 1:10pm. That heavy rain will spread into Kansas this afternoon and into Missouri tonight. The map below from 1pm is a composite of National Weather Service watches and warnings. Greens are NWS flash flood and flood watches. The reds in Texas are flash flood warnings. The orange is a severe thunderstorm warning. The flooding situation, especially in Oklahoma, will get worse after dark. "Turn around, don't drown." The leading cause of deaths in flash floods is people driving into flooded areas.

From Anthony Watts, a great article about cutting home energy use. I had no idea that electric rates were so high in California!  Glad I live in Kansas.