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You may have heard us talk about a "second" severe weather season in Region 8. It's a period in the fall when the probability of severe weather goes up a little. Let's focus on Tornadoes, though. Have you ever wondered what day of the year has the highest probability of a tornado to occur within 25 miles of Jonesboro? If so, here's your answer, May 1st.

The above graph (click to enlarge), created by Patrick Marsh from NSSL, shows the peak of tornado probability. In addition to the peak around May 1st, notice the slight increase from now until the first week of November. This shows us that our chances are a little higher over the next few weeks, based on what has occurred in the past. Also note, it's nowhere near the probability we have in May, but we should be aware of the increased chance.

Since Patrick is cool friend, he also created a map that shows WHERE tornadoes have occurred within 50 miles of Jonesboro since 1950, their rating, and their path. There have been 313 of them since 1950:
 What do we take away from this? Well, as we start the month of October, let's be mindful that severe weather, including tornadoes, is a little more likely than the past few months. Let's make sure we remember our tornado safety precautions:

• Have a designated Tornado Safe Spot in your home and make sure everyone knows where it is.
• Make sure it is the lowest level, with as many walls as possible between you and the outside.
• Have a way to get warnings. Weather Radio, App on phone, etc.
• Have something to protect your head in your safe spot. Books, pillows, helmets.

The leftovers of Isaac made for an eventful day on Saturday in Region 8. When I woke up in the morning and saw the data, I really became more concerned with the threat of severe weather. Bryan, my boss, and I got together to discuss the potential for tornadoes and had a plan in place and the team at KAIT behind he scenes did an awesome job! I can't say enough about how nice it is to have people in the background gathering info, putting pics and video on air, and gathering and filtering reports. So glad that we had no injuries or deaths! The tornado warnings first started in Missouri, just on the fringe of Region 8. The threat then ramped up on a storm that was moving into Clay County. Here was the radar image, click to enlarge:

This was in a very bad location when it comes to radar. There is an area around the radar where it can not determine the velocity of the winds too well. This is called range folding and the radar shows this undetermined area in purple. Look close though and you can see the rotation:
Here is a pic sent in on The Loop:


Here is the damage in Corning from Jay Malone of http://www.jaysphoto.com/ that correspond to the radar images. Due to aircraft and ag equipment, damage estimates are going to be over $5 million:



Our attention next went to Greene County with this storm. It had a rotating wall cloud as it went down Hwy 358. Remember, winds away from the radar are red and winds toward the radar are green. See the rotation:
Thanks to our SkyCAM on top of AMMC, we had a look at this storm and knew it was not producing a tornado, yet. Also, I had several friends that were giving me reports from this area. That was very helpful! Also, as the storm was exiting, it produced two funnels. We're unsure if they touched down, but some damage was reported. These are the funnels that Region 8 Storm Chaser Trevor Gramling was on air talking about...


Here was the radar image at that time:
Finally, this storm went into the bootheel and produced a tornado. Here is the radar image and the video to correspond to it:

Here's the video: http://yfrog.com/1247bhgmshvgeksbcflmozhsz

This storm continued moving NE and we had instant pics via Twitter. I loved the use of Social Media for this event!

Look at many more pics of the storms here: http://theloop.kait8.com/Home.aspx


Ryan