ryansmorningblog-Bay-Net

During the tornado coverage, I showed this product below. It's shows the correlation coefficient or difference in height and width of objects being detected by radar. This helps us see debris because it's CC is much different than most precipitation. Do you see the small, round, blue area SW of Caraway (below image). I believe that was tree debris from the swampy areas in the St. Francis river. Judging by radar, the tornado formed SE of Bay, crossed the St. Francis river, and hit Caraway.
Here's the possible debris signature as it came into Caraway...
After the rotation goes through Caraway, causing a lot of damage, the debris signature continues moving northeast toward highway 77.



Finally, how about a 3D look at the storm structure? These storms were not building up too high. They are called "low-topped" storms, but as learned tonight... they can still pack a punch! Notices the weaker echoes where the tornado occurred. That's called a BWER or Bounded Weak Echo Region. It's the lower reflection, where the rotation is located.
I was going to write more, but I'm tired and going to sleep! I'm glad everyone is safe tonight and I may type more tomorrow.

I hope to be LIVE in Caraway tomorrow, so stop by and say "hi" if you live there!

It's been 20 years since kids were Trick or Treating in the snow in Region 8. Snowball fights on Halloween night in Arkansas may be weird, but that's what happened almost 20 years ago. When you hear about this night, it's always referred to as the time "it snowed on Halloween", but it was not ACTUALLY Halloween. You see, Halloween fell on a Sunday and many cities in Region 8 chose to trick or treat on the night before. So, the snowfall was actually on October 30th. The above image shows the strong upper-level low that had dipped south to help bring the snowfall. This is Saturday evening's 500mb map.

I decided to dig up some old climate logs to see what was written about this snow event and this is what I found. Here is the Jonesboro log for October of 1993 from Terry Wood. Click image to enlarge:
Notice, Terry logged that we had sleet and snow, with about a half inch of accumulation. Some places had more accumulation than others. Here is the historical log from Pocahontas. They has a nice snowfall, with accumulations of over an inch! Region 8 Weather Watcher, Jason Hampton, said they were having snowball fights in Randolph County as they were Trick or Treating! Click image to enlarge:
Finally, let's check one more location from that day. This climate log came from Doniphan, MO. Notice, over 2" of snow reported! Once again, click image to enlarge:

September was an odd September. 25 of the days had above average temperatures and we ended the month 5.1 degrees above average. On two days, we hit 100+. On September 10th, we officially hit 101, but the Jonesboro thermometer was running a little warmer (2-4 degrees) warmer than everyone else.

It was a rather dry September. We ended the month with 1.28" of rainfall. This was 1.78" BELOW average. The wettest day was September 20th with 0.95" of rainfall.

In summary, it was a drier and hotter September than on average. Fortunately, we do not use the Farmers Almanac, because it showed the opposite. Here is what it showed for The Region from Arkansas to the Gulf Coast. We would be considered "north" in this region:

Stay tuned. We are going to investigate the long-term prediction for the 2013-2014 Winter soon.

Have a great day!
Ryan