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Weather Service warns of possible life-threatening storms today

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Most of Missouri will have one round of severe weather to contend with today, that could include tornadoes, damaging winds, hail and flooding. Some of Missouri will have two.  

This graphic from the National Weather Service Office in St. Louis shows where the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma says there is a risk for severe weather today.

This graphic from the National Weather Service Office in St. Louis shows where the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma says there is a risk for severe weather today.

National Weather Service Meteorologists say storms today will be life-threatening and are urging Missourians to prepare now for severe weather. Governor Jay Nixon (D) has declared a state of emergency in response to the storms already happening and those to come.

A tornado watch has been issued for 21 counties in southeast and south-central Missouri, for storms that have already prompted a tornado warning in Arkansas this morning. Those storms are anticipated to sweep northeast from southwestern Missouri through the St. Louis area.

These storms could produce large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes. Flooding is a possibility locally in southern Missouri, and more so in central and east-central Missouri where heavy rain has already fallen overnight.

Then for this afternoon will come storms that have caused the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma to say much of central and southern Missouri has a “moderate” risk for severe weather.

This graphic from the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill illustrates the threats of severe weather today.

This graphic from the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill illustrates the threats of severe weather today.

Today’s threat of tornadoes is the highest the state has been under so far this year, according to Meteorologist Jayson Gosselin with the National Weather Service in St. Louis.

“Unfortunately there will probably be at least one tornado in the state and there could be quite a few,” says Gosselin.

“It looks like it should warm up by this afternoon and get very unstable and a cold front will head from west to east across the state. Out ahead of that and along it we’re expecting thunderstorms that are going to be capable of very large hail, very strong winds as well as tornadoes possible.”

Storms are expected to form in Kansas and Oklahoma before sweeping through the state, first as discrete supercell thunderstorms, which Meteorologist Ryan Cardell with the Weather Service Office in Springfield says are generally the most dangerous.

“They can produce large hail, damaging winds and possibly stronger tornadoes,” says Cardell.

Farther east, storms are expected to gather into a line.

“At that point the threat will switch over to being more of a straight-line wind threat with isolated tornadoes. That will happen early in the evening sometime.”

Flash flood warnings have already been issued in a swath of central and eastern Missouri where rainfall totals have ranged from between 2.5 to more than 3 inches from storms overnight. Gosselin says if more heavy rain does move through, more flash flooding issues are likely.

“Everything is very saturated now,” says Gosselin.

“This is a good time … before the storms have formed … to dust off your emergency plans,” says Cardell. “Make sure that’s all ready so that when the watches do come out you can kind of start heightening your situational awareness to where the storms currently are, if they’ve formed, things like that, so that way you’re kind of ready. When the tornado warning happens you’ve got one foot in place heading into your disaster plan.”

For information for your area, tune in to your Missourinet affiliate station and visit these Weather Service office websites.

In northwest and western Missouri:  Kansas City (Pleasant Hill) and on Twitter @NWSKansasCity

In northeast and eastern Missouri:  St. Louis and on Twitter @NWSStLouis

In southwest Missouri:  Springfield and on Twitter @NWSSpringfield

In southeast Missouri:  Paducah, KY and on Twitter @NWSPaducah

Scotland and Clark counties:  Davenport, IA and on Twitter @NWSQuadCities

Weather Service to test new warnings in most of Missouri this year

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Residents in most of Missouri might notice something different about the severe weather warnings they hear this year. Whether they notice or not, the National Weather Service will be watching for results.

The Weather Service will issue updated warnings this year when seeing images on its radar like this April 15, 2011 tornado in Pike County. Image courtesy, National Weather Service.

The Weather Service offices that serve all of Missouri except the bootheel and Scotland and Clark Counties will be among the five testing new warning language beginning April 2. The changes have been developed following years of work by the Service and social scientists studying what people did in events including the Joplin tornado. The test is called the “Impact Based Warning Experimental Product.”

St. Louis Warning Coordination Meteorologist Jim Kramper says the goal is simple. “We’re just trying to get as much critical information in a very easy format so people can make quick decisions very easily.”

What’s new

One addition is a set of three new lines. “One line is going to simply say ‘Hazard,” and then we’ll put what is the storm producing, whether it be strong wind gusts, hail or potentially a tornado. The next line will be ‘Source.” Is this a radar indicated only event or do we have actual reports of it from spotters or somebody else? Then the next line will be the impact. What do we expect this storm to do? So for example if it’s hail, we’ll put we expect the hail to dent cars, damage roofs … or if it’s mainly a wind storm, we may say we expect trees and power lines to be down along with minor roof damage or structural damage; something like that.”

Another change will be an update to the Call to Action statements; the part of the warning where the Weather Service tells the public what to do. These have been updated by the social scientists. “They’ll simply say something like, ‘You need to move to shelter now.’ Very quick, short and sweet, this is what you need to do. Maybe not a lot of explanation, but that’s OK. This is not the time for explanation. It’s the time for very quick … this is what you need to do, otherwise you could be in big trouble.”

Kramper says the Weather Service will be looking for feedback. “From our partners in the media, to see what they think about it, how did they use it, what did they use, what parts of the new stuff in the warning did they feel is helpful, what parts would they like to see changed, what maybe could be added to make their job easier. Then also we’re going to try to get some feedback from the emergency managers. How did they use it, did it help them? There will places where the public can actually respond to the things that we’re doing as well.”

Visit this webpage to offer feedback to the new warnings this year.

Kramper says more changes could be coming, but the Service had to start somewhere. “We think the warning process and the result is going to be overhauled eventually in a bigger fashion, but we just can’t do it at once. We’re going to take steps and this is probably the first step.”

Why here, why now?

This map shows the areas covered by the five offices that will be testing the new warnings this year. Image courtesy, National Weather Service.

The five offices that will be testing the new warnings are St. Louis, Pleasant Hill (Kansas City), Springfield, Topeka and Wichita. Each has in the last year received an upgrade to its radar that will help the weather service in issuing the updated warnings.

Kramper says of the new dual-polarization radar, “In most cases it should help us differentiate between hail versus rain a little bit better. We should be able to get better train estimates from the radar so that should help in flash flood situations.”

If a tornado is occurring and throwing debris into the air, that should also show up. “If we see that debris and that lines up with everything else that we’re looking at … here’s a circulation, there’s a good signature, now we’ve got a debris signature as well, so far the research has shown, that’s like 90 to 95 percent sure there’s probably a tornado there.”

See our story on the Pleasant Hill Weather Service Office radar upgrade.

The upgrade to radar systems was not the reason the Service chose the five offices it did. Kramper says, “They wanted to try to get offices that had been effected by strong tornadoes recently and try to get a variety as well. Kansas sometimes looks at their storms a little bit differently than a lot of people in St. Louis did, so we’ll have a lot of variety in terms of the people that are going to be exposed to this new type of warning.