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Severe weather possible Wednesday and Thursday in Missouri

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Click here for an updated story on severe weather Thursday afternoon:

Storms tomorrow night and Thursday could bring some severe weather to Missouri.

This graphic from the National Weather Service in St. Louis illustrates part of the severe weather threat. Storms are also anticipated to produce up to around 2 inches of rain and hail in western Missouri before reaching eastern Missouri and the Bootheel.

This graphic from the National Weather Service in St. Louis illustrates part of the severe weather threat. Storms are also anticipated to produce up to around 2 inches of rain and hail in western Missouri before reaching eastern Missouri and the Bootheel.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Mark Britt says storms could begin tomorrow night in western Missouri.

He says storms Wednesday night will be isolated, “that could produce some hail over parts of western and central Missouri. Then as we go into Thursday, parts of eastern and southeastern Missouri could see a few severe thunderstorms.”

Britt says storms could intensify into Thursday morning, with, “possible isolated tornadoes … but the main threat at least right now looks like some damaging winds.”

He encourages Missourians to watch for updates.

For information for your area, visit these NWS pages.

In northwest and western Missouri:  Kansas City (Pleasant Hill)

In northeast and eastern Missouri:  St. Louis

In southwest Missouri:  Springfield

In southeast Missouri:  Paducah, KY

Scotland and Clark counties:  Davenport, IA

House Budget Committee approves money toward State Fair storm shelters

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With damage done by severe storms at two state fairs last year fresh in memory, the Missouri State Fair staff wants to build some safe places for its guests to take cover.

The Missouri State Fair (picture courtesy, the Missouri State Fair)

The House Budget Committee has approved a capital improvement package that includes over $86,000 from the Agriculture Protection Fund, toward building four storm shelters on the State Fairgrounds. The 1,500 square foot safe houses would hold up to about 200 people each and be rated to withstand winds up to 250 miles-per-hour.

State Fair Director Mark Wolfe says several events last year illustrated the need for these shelters. “Unfortunately it takes sometimes tragedies like what something that happened in Indiana at the state fair grounds to make people wake up and go, ‘What are we doing on our end?'”

Last year, strong winds caused the collapse of a concert stage at the Indiana State Fair. Seven people were killed and 43 were injured. Another storm during the Missouri State Fair blew down some tents and other temporary structures, but no injuries were reported.

Wolfe says in that incident, the Fair staff had plenty of advanced warning and evacuated campers into the Mathewson Exhibition Center, the National Guard facility and the assembly hall that are on the grounds. “The problem there would be that if we didn’t have that much notice, would we have had time to get those people out of that campground and across and over on to the main body (of the grounds) to do that.”

The plan is to build these four shelters in the campground area, but Wolfe stresses, they will not take the place of the current shower houses.

$86,000 would be the state’s match toward an application for a federal grant. The total project is expected to cost $345,000.

The appropriation bill passed by the House Budget Committee must be approved by another committee before it can be debated by the full chamber.

National Weather Service offers fewer chances to learn storm spotter training

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Reductions in funding have caused the National Weather Service to scale back the number of severe weather spotter classes it is offering. In northwest Missouri, the number of talks has been cut in half.

Spotter training classes help people know how to interpret storm features, such as this wall cloud. Images courtesy of the National Weather Service.

Andy Bailey is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist for NWS’s Pleasant Hill office. “Where as in the past we would do forty-five to fifty training sessions per season, this year we’re looking at about twenty-five.”

Bailey explains, the spotter schedule has been adjusted so the Service can get the most “bang for its buck.”

“For some of the rural areas, we’re working to do spotter training at one location per county every other year. In urban areas, where population is higher, we need to do it every year. We also do it every year in locations that are a little bit further away from our radar.” Bailey says that is because basic radar limitations mean the Service needs more eyes in those areas. “Places like around the Kirksville area, for instance, we’ll do spotter training there every year.”

Bailey hopes interested individuals will take advantage of any chance they have to take the training.

The classes teach attendees how storms form, why certain types of severe weather develops and where to look in a storm to see if certain phenomena are developing, such as a tornado.

Bailey says it can take a while to sink in. “After just one training course they’re probably still a little bit fuzzy but if they come back every year or two to get training and they go out spotting quite a bit, they really get to be very skilled at identifying that weather.”

See the schedule for spotter training classes offered in the Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield Weather Service coverage areas.