Our cold front has blown through the area...and is now east of KC...NW winds are ushering in cooler air as I type. Temperatures are now in the mid-upper 60s and we should finish the day near 70...actually a very nice afternoon out there. Off to the east of the front, some moisture is trying to sneak northwards. Dewpoints are near 55 in Sedalia with near 60 dewpoints towards the I-44 corridor. This moisture is trying to move northwards towards the Lakes area...and with the front moving into it this afternoon, a few showers are not out of the question well towards the SE of KC. Actually the latest visible satellite pictures are showing the clouds nicely. Take a look while the sun is shining!

Meanwhile this front is attached to a rather compact and potent upper level storm across the N Plains states. Here is it the last day of April and Central and Western ND are under Blizzard Warnings. 6-9" of snow is expected to be whipped by 50-60 MPH winds...real messy up there.

The counties highlighted in Orange represent the warnings. That area is also under a Flood warning as well. Crazy!

For us here the front will move farther away. There will be cooler and drier air moving in tonight and tomorrow. However aloft there is some wind energy that will be creating lift for most of the daylight on Sunday. This lift should mostly be in the form of clouds, that will lower and thicken. However the air below this cloud layer will be pretty dry so I think at this point anything that falls in the metro should evaporate before reaching the ground in the PM hours. I guess a few sprinkles can't be totally ruled out. farther to the SE of here...from Columbia to Sedalia to Butler and Towards Pleasanton, the northern edge of some rain may creep towards you. So areas SE of KC may see some light rain for awhile tomorrow PM. Farther NW of here, should stay dry.

The week overall is looking OK with cool temperatures MON-TUE, followed by a warm-up WED and our next system on THU...whether this becomes an issue for School Day or not remains to be seen. A cold front is expected to move in though...and depending on how much moisture can work it's way back towards us, will dictate whether or not we have to worry much more than some scattered showers.

The weather story continues to be the terrible reports still coming in from the SE part of the country. Yesterday was the 1st confirmed EF5 tornado evaluation from NE MS (see yesterday's blog), the first since 2008. Today the now infamous Tuscaloosa tornado was been rated at least as an EF4 with farther evaluation still underway for a possible upgrade.

There are more impressive images from space courtesy of Geoeye and Google Earth. Dramatic for sure. Take a look. Click on all of them to make them larger.

A closer look...

That tornado was on the ground for at least 80 miles with a max width of 1.5 miles. There are over 5700 buildings damaged or destroyed...over 1000 injured and at least 39 dead i Tuscaloosa alone. The overall death toll is at least 359 and that number may increase. This is now the second worst tornado outbreak in US history. The worst will remain the infamous Tri-State Tornado that killed almost 750 people. Unbelievable.

The rarity of F5 or now EF5 tornados is interesting. There have been close to 60 in the last 50 years. Check out this graphic from the Weather Channel and NOAA...

You'll notice the one on top of the metro...(Ruskin Heights).

The rarity of EF4-5 tornados is also noteworthy...roughly 1% of all tornado touchdowns in the US/year get this rare designation.

As April draws to a close, there have been some 752 reports of tornados. That number will come down dramatically, however the record confirmed touchdowns is 267 for April. It won't come down that much. So this will go down as the worst April for tornados in recorded history.


So far this year we're up to over 1200 reports of tornados...the record being over 1800 in 2004. We still have a long way to go here...and again that 1200 number is loaded with reports from the same tornado...so that number will come down in the end. Yesterday was the first day without a tornado report in the US in about a week and a half. Very impressive for April!

Here are all the tornado reports so far this April...

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Joe