Wicked Winds In The Upper Midwest As Wild Thunderstorms Sweep Through

Ominous thunderstorms bear down on the Lewis and
Clark Marina in Yankton, South Dakota Monday
evening in this web cam grab. Violent storms
caused a lot of damage in parts of South Dakota,
Iowa and Minnesota Monday and Monday night.'

The expected big storms - a likely derecho - in the Upper Midwest developed, spreading hurricane-force gusts in parts of South Dakota and Iowa. 

Damage reports are just started coming in, so we don't know the extent of it. But I'm sure there are structures with roof damage, houses with trees into them, and widespread power outages.

A derecho is officially defined as a batch of intense thunderstorms that spread frequent gusts of 58 mph or more, causing damage along a path at least 240 miles long. 

This just happened, so I don't know whether this will be officially defined as a derecho. But it probably will be. Reports of damage and gusts of 60 mph or more were reported between Sioux Falls, South Dakota and at least Davenport, Iowa, and those two cities are about 340 miles apart as the crow flies.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center will make a final determination as to whether last night's weather meets the derecho criteria.   

The complex of storms created some pretty incredible winds in the eastern half of South Dakota and through Iowa and parts of southern Minnesota.

Wind reports include 99 mph and 92 mph northeast of Sioux City, Iowa; 92 mph in Spencer, Iowa, 90 mph in Janesville, Iowa and 87 mph in Irene, South Dakota. 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had gusts to 83 mph. The city was ground zero for arguably the nation's worst derecho on record back in 2020 when wind gusts in Cedar Rapids reached an incredible 140 mph. Still, last night's storm had to be disheartening for a community trying to regrow its tree canopy from the storm five years ago.

Campers, some of them occupied, were blown over in north central Iowa, near the Buddy Holly Crash site.  At least 27,000 Iowans were without power last night.

In South Dakota, tree damage was widespread through much of the eastern part of the sate. A 200-foot tall cell tower collapsed in the town of Hudson.  The tower had carried signals for Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Companies were working on a temporary fix to return service to the area, according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. 

A second clump of storms that was part of the same system produced storms further north in Minnesota and Wisconsin. A storm gust of 76 mph was reported in Rochester, Minnesota. 

Although there won't be anything as widespread as last night, severe storms are still a good bet in a broad zone from Montana through parts of Wyoming, South Dakota, pretty much all of Nebraska and western Iowa through this evening. 

Video:

Before the likely derecho coalesced, a tornado formed in southern South Dakota. A lightning strike associated with the same storm resulting in this video of the fire and the tornado simultaneously. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

Severe Weather/Tornado Outbreak Upper Midwest Today, We In Vermont Could See Severe Storms Later Tuesday

Widespread severe storms and likely tornadoes are 
likely today, especially in red and orange areas 
on this map. 

The Upper Midwest if bracing for a rough day today of potentially strong tornadoes, giant hail and destructive winds as the weather set up is almost ideal for a severe weather outbreak in that neck of the woods. 

That severe weather is forecast to some extent migrate toward the Northeast, maybe affecting Vermont later tomorrow. More on that in a bit. First, today's Midwest threats.

TORNADO RISK DETAILS

Even before our storm really got going, things were looking ominous Sunday evening. Some supercells spit out a handful of large tornadoes in western and central Nebraska.

Some pretty strong storms were ongoing early this morning in eastern South Dakota and southwest Minnesota.

These are just a preview. The main show will get going this afternoon

The area under the biggest threat for dangerous weather today includes most of Wisconsin and Iowa, southern and central Minnesota and northwest Illinois.  

Major cities most likely to be under the gun are Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota; Madison, Wisconsin; Des Moines, Iowa and Rockford, Illinois.

A somewhat lesser but real threat extends southwestward all the way down to Texas.  

We know we'll see severe storms and tornadoes in the Upper Midwest today, but we don't 100 percent know exactly how they'll evolve.

If supercells manage to form and maintain themselves ahead of the main line of storms later today, then we end up with the risk of strong, long-lasting tornadoes plowing through Iowa, southeastern Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

That scenario is a maybe/maybe not. But if these dangerous supercells erupt, they'll go from nothingburgers to extremely dangerous monsters in minutes. The National Weather Service office in the Minneapolis area is not mincing words in their forecast discussion:

"The takeaway from today's severe storm potential is to remain vigilant of the potential for storms to go up quickly. This may mean checking your phone more often or keeping an eye to the sky, but don't let your guard down in this environment."

 If, instead, the main line of storms exerts itself more, there might not necessarily be those supercells out ahead of the storm  This second scenario is still bad news, as there will be zones of destructive straight line winds and quite a few embedded tornadoes in this mess.

The most likely outcome  today is a combination of what I described above. The main question will be how many supercells form ahead of the main blast of storms. 

TUESDAY'S STORM ADVANCE

Tuesday's severe storm risk area is in yellow, with the
orange area at a somewhat higher risk. Note how the
yellow risk area extends into parts of Vermont, 

By Tuesday, the main threat from this dynamic storm heads east. The storm center itself will race up into central Quebec, but its powerful cold front will press east into the Great Lakes. 

Tuesday's threat area runs from southern Quebec and Ontario, then southwestward through northwest New England, the eastern Great Lakes, northern Ohio Valley then all the way down to central Texas. 

The greatest threat looks go from central Ohio, through northwest Pennsylvania and on into western and central New York.  

While there might be a couple tornadoes in this area, the main threat is damaging winds and large, destructive hail.

As noted, the severe threat extend into Quebec and northwest New England, so that puts Vermont in play. Details next:

VERMONT THREAT

This daffodil looks completely defeated and possibly 
dead after Sunday's snow in St. Albans, but....

Before we get into the severe storm threat, a final word or two on Sunday's snow.

A couple places got an impressive amount of snow. A high elevation spot in Greensboro reported .1 inches of snow. Brownington reported 3.5 inches.  

Here in St. Albans, it was striking how snowy and miserable it was in the early afternoon.

 By evening, it was a downright pleasant spring evening, with sunshine and relatively mild air. Go figure.

Today, by the way, will be gorgeous, with sunshine and temperatures in the 60s to near 70. Enjoy!

Now onto our next threat. 

But same daffodil three hours after above photo was taken
shows a nice recovery. This daffodil, and the rest of
them in the gardens, might have to endure some
severe thunderstorms Tuesday evening in northwest Vermont.

South winds ahead of that approaching cold front will throw a squirt of warm, somewhat humid air into Vermont. 

 Most of the day will actually be nice with highs reaching well into the 70s, with maybe an 80 degree reading or two in a couple of Vermont's more "tropical" towns. 

Dew points - a measure of how humid it will get - should reach the mid 50s to around 60. That's kinda humid for this time of year but not oppressive. 

Thunderstorms thrive on humid air, so the more muggy the air is, the more fuel for these storms. 

So the outlook for the thunderstorms in the humidity category is so-so.  

However, there will be strong winds aloft. Storms that do form can grab that high altitude air and shove it down to the surface, where we are. That's why there's the risk of severe storms.  A few of these could have wind gusts to 60 mph or even a little more. 

The heat from sunshine created instability, which is part of the reason why the thunderstorms are likely to be so strong over New York, since they'll hit there in the afternoon.

Timing is such that the storms look like they'll come in very late in the afternoon and evening. For instance, current forecasts have the best chance for thunderstorms in Burlington between 6 and 8 p.m. Tuesday,

By the time they reach Vermont, the storms will be beginning to diminish. At this point, it looks like a few storms still might have enough oomph to be severe generally in an area north and west of a line running from roughly Rutland to Montpelier to east of Newport. 

As the storms head toward southeastern Vermont later in the evening they'll diminish to nothing scary. 

Note that not everyone will get a severe storm. Northwest Vermont is in a level two of a five point risk scale, five being the hair-on-fire top scary alert. Our level two "slight risk" means scattered severe storms are possible, but they'll tend to be relatively short-lived and not terribly widespread.

So, just keep your eye to the sky Tuesday evening if you're in northwest Vermont and head inside if you receive a severe thunderstorm warning or see ominous skies to the west and north. 

The cold front might also produce some fairly strong winds after the thunderstorms go by.  These winds won't be associated with any thunderstorms, but they could cause very isolated power outages in a  few spots.

Unlike the cold front we saw this past weekend, it won't get nearly cold enough for snow.  Instead, Wednesday looks bright, refreshingly cool and breezy.  

Videos: Nebraska, Iowa Hail, Tornadoes Wreck Towns

Gigantic hail propelled by high winds smashed out
the windows of this Fremont, Nebraska hotel and
pockmarked the exterior walls 

Last Thursday, a cluster of intense thunderstorms unleashed tornadoes, intense winds and gigantic hail on areas of eastern Nebraska and western and central Iowa.

There were at least 23 reports of tornadoes near Omaha, Nebraska.  One tornado in Iowa was 1.8 miles wide, which would hold the record for the widest tornado in Iowa history. 

Communities that avoided the tornadoes were instead bombarded by gigantic hail propelled by winds that gusted to hurricane force. 

The National  Weather Service said the storm in Fremont features hail up to the size of baseball accompanied with wind gusts to 82 mph. 

Some of the videos are wild, so we'll give you some samples in this post. 

Here's a Facebook reel of the chaos inside a home as hail stones crashed through windows, spreading ice and debris through the home's interior. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below click on that. 

Next video shows heavy amounts of hail pummeling Raymond, Nebraska. Click on this link to view or if you see image below, click on that:

Taken just after the storm, video shows the metal exterior of Mel's Diner battered, and a Rodeway Inn in Fremont, Nebraska with all the windows on one side busted out and its stucco walls pockmarked with hail damage as if shelled in a war. Parking lot is full of hail-smashed cars, too. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 We're always wowed by the drama of storm videos, but we can't forget there are real victims. To bring you back down to Earth, here's a news video where a woman whose southwest Iowa house was damaged in one of the tornadoes notes it hit on the anniversary of her husband's death, and the same week her beloved dog died. 

I do hope things get much better for this lady. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Midwest Flooding Has Been Quite Scary, Probably Worst Since 1993

Interstate 29 in southeastern South Dakota looks like
an immense lake after torrential rains caused 
catastrophic flooding in the region. 

 The flooding in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota this month has been scary to say the least, as a summer of storms have unleashed havoc in the region.   

This is far worse than the usual torrential thunderstorms and local flash floods fairly common in the Midwest each summer.

You might have seen the horrible images of collapsing houses, whole solid little Midwestern towns under water, so many square miles of cropland drowned. 

At first, it was the smaller creeks and rivers that caused all the destruction. The high water has now moved into bigger rivers. Even the mighty Missouri and even mightier Mississippi are now flooding. And that flooding is forecast to get worse.

Per the Washington Post: 

"As of Monday, rivers across the Missouri River basin were at major flood stage: The James, Vermillion and Big Sioux rivers in South Dakota and the Des Moines and Little Sioux rivers in southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data."

This flood hits me more in the gut than usual because I have relatives in eastern South Dakota and in Minnesota.

Luckily, their towns, like Yankton, South Dakota, have so far avoided the worst of the flooding, though the James River nearby Yankton is cresting at major flood stage. 

The torrential downpours have tapered off for now, but the damage is not done done. A whopping ten to 18 inches of rain fell on chunks of the Missouri and upper Mississippi River basins last week.  No wonder the flooding is still getting worse.   

Examples of extreme damage are everywhere.

As of Tuesday, several major highways remained closed by flooding, including Interstate 29 in southeastern South Dakota. In that area, McCook Lake and the Big Sioux River combined to wash at least two houses away. Many more were damaged or destroyed, and severely undermined by rushing water. 

In Iowa, at least, 1,900 homes have been damaged or destroyed by the flooding.  Part of a railroad bridge collapsed into the floodwaters at North Sioux City, Iowa. In some of the most widely reported and viewed flood news, water detoured around a dam in Mankato, Minnesota, threatening worse flooding. The dam itself was still holding as of Tuesday. 

 The flooding hit because South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota were on the northern edge of the big heat dome that caused record high temperatures from Texas to the East Coast. The northern edge of a heat dome like this is known as the "ring of fire" because torrential rains and thunderstorms often ride that edge of the heat. 

This is consistent with climate change, too. A warmer atmosphere can contain more moisture. Storms can grab that extra moisture and dump it as torrential, flood-producing downpours. I don't know to what extent climate change had to do with this Midwest disaster, but the potential fingerprints are there.

The rainfall over the next few days in the flood zone looks milder than it's been, but still enough to potential cause issues. Rainfall in Iowa could amount to up to two inches over the next seven days.  

Some of that expected rain is likely to come down as pretty intense downpours, increasing the chance of local floods as those gullywashers hit already soaked ground. 

Even with the relative lack of downpours, the flooding in the larger rivers could last well into July.  

National Tornado Train Continues: Tragedy In Iowa As Ominous Forecasts Continue

Screen grab from a drone video shows the buzz saw
path of the tornado through Greenfield, Iowa.
Click on the photo to make it bigger and easier to see.

 The expected tornado outbreak in and around Iowa materialized Tuesday, with at least 23 new tornadoes reported. 

The biggest crisis was in the town of Greenfield, Iowa, population about 2,000. A powerful tornado chewed a path directly through the town, chewing up everything in its path and leaving little but mutilated rubble behind. 

Worryingly, officials are reporting deaths in that town. KETV confirmed four deaths in Greenfield late this afternoon.  Judging from photos and video from Greenfield, which show some houses swept entirely away, leaving just floor slabs, it's hard to imagine everyone got off unscathed. 

Another death was reported near Corning, Iowa, that of a woman whose car was blown off a road and tossed into a field. Reports are the woman was a storm chaser. 

This despite the fact the National Weather Service office in Des Moines was able to warn Greenfield residents of the tornado 46 minutes before it actually hit. 

Drone view from Reed Timmer shows a massive tornado with numerous sub vortices - tornadoes within the parent tornado - knocking over giant wind turbines in open fields. Some of the collapsed turbines caught fire. 

At one point one of the sub-vortices in the tornado had its own sub-vortice, which is really weird and rare. 

Through yesterday, at least 815 tornadoes have been reported this year in the United States. So far, it's the worst tornado season since 2011, though thankfully the total number of fatalities is well below that of 2011.

There has been at least one tornado daily in the United States since April 25, and I don't see the streak ending immediately. 

For most of that time, the general jet stream flow has been generally been from southwest to northeast over the eastern two thirds of the nation. That has allowed numerous storms to travel from the roughly the central and southern Rocky Mountains to the Great Lakes. 

That's a perfect set-up to send warm, humid air northward across the nation's middle. That air interacts with those storm systems, creating a good environment for severe thunderstorms, giant hail and tornadoes. 

We in Vermont have been mostly spared from worst of that weather pattern because the storms have tended to weaken on approach to New England, or pass too far to our northwest to have much influence. 

Tuesday was the first time this year any severe thunderstorms were reported inVermont, though some strongish thunderstorms appeared on April 28 and May 14. 

Although after tomorrow, the small threat of severe storms in Vermont should disappear for awhile, things look like they might get even worse on other parts of the U.S. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center tells us a "concerning pattern is evident on Sunday across broad region of the central U.S."

According to forecasts a strong storm is expected to move from Missouri to Michigan on Sunday. That, and expected shifting winds in the atmosphere and plenty of humid air ahead of the storm, suggests the real risk of a big severe outbreak and tornadoes later Saturday and through much of the day Sunday. 

Early guesses are that the mid-Mississippi and Ohio valleys are most at risk Sunday. 

There is one glimmer of hope.  Next week, a  pattern change could send high pressure into the United States west of the Mississippi River. That will shut off that parade of storms. However, storminess will continue in the East. And it's late enough in the season so that under the right conditions with the new weather pattern, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes can form from the eastern Gulf Coast to New England. 

It's also unclear how long that new weather pattern will last. 

May is thought by many to be the peak tornado month, but they are also very common in June, so the end probably isn't coming anytime soon. 

Second Day Of Intense Tornadoes Take Toll On Oklahoma, Surrounding States

 The continuing siege of tornadoes in the nation's middle claimed three lives in Oklahoma last night, but this huge bout of severe weather is showing signs of slowing down a little. 

Tornado aftermath in Sulfur, Oklahoma today. Photo
from KayDubEll on Reddit 

At least for now.

It can't get any busier. As of today, there's 78 reports of tornadoes Friday, mostly in Nebraska and Iowa. On Saturday, there were 40 tornado reports from northern Texas to Missouri, with the bulk of them in Oklahoma. 

Tornado activity was somewhat at a minimum in central and eastern Oklahoma during the day Saturday, as atmospheric conditions didn't quite come together enough to set off the expected tornado outbreak. However, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes raked parts of Texas, southwestern Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri all day Saturday. 

Mostly after dark, the atmosphere over Oklahoma set itself up for dangerous, big tornadoes, and unfortunately delivered.

Nighttime tornadoes are especially dangerous because people are usually sleeping or otherwise paying less attention to weather warnings. Plus, many people wait to see a visual clue a tornado is coming, and that's usually hard to do at night. 

The three deaths in Oklahoma are horrific, of course,  but that death toll would have been much higher without the incessant warnings that issued last evening and overnight as twisters roamed the state.

Downtown Sulfur, Oklahoma was destroyed by a tornado. As first responders swarmed into town to help, they were told to take cover as another tornado lurked nearby. Later, at least 20 injuries were reported in Sulfur while rescuers continued to sift through the wreckage looking for other survivors. 

Drone video from Live Storms Media showed most buildings in downtown Sulfur at least damaged, with several completely collapsed. An apartment complex was torn apart, and numerous homes were roofless or otherwise trashed. 

Another tornado was reported in Norman, which is right in the Oklahoma City metro area. Ardmore,  Oklahoma also reported heavy tornado damage. 

Meanwhile, the cleanup started in earnest across parts of Nebraska and Iowa from Friday's intense tornadoes.  Locals marveled that nobody died in those twisters, which is a testament to the advance warning people received from the National Weather Service and local television stations. 

The outbreak was so intense and widespread that the National Weather Service office in Omaha, Nebraska had to issue a total of 42 tornado warnings. 

Nationwide, the National Weather Service has issued 250 tornado warnings are nearly 500 severe thunderstorm warnings since Friday, the Washington Post reports. 

Several interviews I saw included survivors who said they were in their basements or storm shelters when the tornadoes hit because the warnings gave them enough time to take shelter. 

In the coming week, severe weather and tornadoes will not be nearly as widespread as they were over the weekend, but will still be scattered around the South over the next several days. 

This afternoon, forecasters were watching an area where Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas meet for a risk of tornadoes.

On Tuesday, the same areas of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa that were hit so hard on Friday are under a tornado threat again.  But that threat at this point doesn't appear as horrible as it was on Friday.

During the upcoming week, there is a threat of severe weather in the southern Plains and Southeast, but forecasters are unsure how extensive that threat will become. 

Big Tornado Outbreak Underway: Nebraska/Iowa Hit Hard; Oklahoma Under Threat Today

 A destructive tornado outbreak is underway in the middle of the nation, and it could turn out to be among the more significant ones in the past few decades. 

Tornado near Lincoln, Nebraska Friday.
image from X @LNKScanner

Nebraska and Iowa took the brunt of Friday's tornadoes. Dozens of homes and businesses in the two states were destroyed. Amazing, so far I haven't seen reports of any deaths. It helped greatly that these storms were very well warned. 

The worst affected area Friday seems to be on a straight line from just north of Lincoln, Nebraska to the western suburbs of Omaha into western Iowa above Omaha. Dramatic video captured a large tornado crossing Interstate 80 near Lincoln.

A manufacturing plant in Lincoln with 70 people inside collapsed in the tornado but only three people suffered non-life threatening injuries. 

The western Omaha suburbs of Elkhorn and Bennington were hit hard, with at least 50 homes destroyed. But again, casualties were light. Only two injuries were reported.

That so far no deaths and only a smattering of injuries have been reported is testimony to the great tornado warnings issued ahead of the storms. The National Weather Service declared a tornado emergency for the western and northern Omaha metro region as it became apparent a tornado would approach that area.

This "hair on fire" type warning surely prompted lots of people to hide in basements and tornado shelters, and that prevented deaths. 

A tornado emergency was also declared in southwestern Iowa, where a huge tornado destroyed a large chunk of Minden. Aerial views show entire neighborhoods there flattened.

It's possible a tornado was on the ground that entire distance from Lincoln into Iowa, But far more likely is the parent supercell dropped several twisters along that path. 

Typically, a tornadic supercell will produce a tornado that might travel several miles before dissipating. The supercell takes a brief breather, then drops another twister that goes several more miles. Rinse and repeat.

Yet another supercell seems to have produced some occasionally large, violent tornadoes east of Omaha well into Iowa.  Between those two lines, a tornado touched down at Eppley Field, which is Omaha's airport. Some buildings on the east end of the airport were damaged, but the storm didn't affect the main terminal.   

Later at night, tornadoes approached the Des Moines, Iowa area, with damage reported in the southern and eastern parts of the city and its suburbs. 

In all, there were about 100 reports of tornadoes Friday. Many of those reports are probably duplicates, with multiple people reporting the same, highly visible twisters. 

TORNADOES TODAY

If anything, today could be even worse in terms of tornadoes. 

A moderate risk - the second highest in a six-point scale of severe weather risk is up for central Oklahoma, southeastern Kansas and a part of northern Texas.

The Oklahoma City area, especially its suburbs of Moore and Newcastle, seem to be tornado bait for some reason and have been repeatedly hit by large, deadly tornadoes in recent decades. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says several large, powerful and long-tracked tornadoes are likely today. 

Flooding is also likely in many of the same areas that are under the greatest tornado threat. 

Political Silly Season In Icebox Iowa Reveals The "Hoax" Of Climate Change

Esteemed climatologist Lauren Boebert added her two cents
to the climate debate recently. As usual, not exactly brilliant

It's wicked cold in Iowa at the moment. 

And it comes at a moment when all media eyes are on Iowa as the Presidential Caucus is today.  

The low this morning in Des Moines was around 17 below and it was supposed to get all the way up to minus 1 for a high.

Politicians and pundits, never shy from taking advantage of a situation have seized the moment.

 To the far right wing that are running things in the GOP these days, the frigid Iowa winter air proves the climate change doesn't exist.

Yeah, yeah, I know, this is pretty much a run of the mill Midwestern winter cold blast. But the right wing ranging from, ahem, noted climatologist/Fox Business host Larry Kudlow to extreme Beetlejuice fan Lauren Boebert set us straight. 

The ever-reliable Fox Business host Larry Kudlow starts it out for us.  

"Why hasn't there been front page stories," he whines about the Iowa cold snap, ignoring the legions of network reporters freezing their tushes off in Des Moines to cover the caucuses.  

But never mind. Kudlow plows on:

"I mean, every time you get a little heat wave or every time you get a bad rainstorm, everyone runs with these crazy stores about global warming global warming, global warming and climate change."

Repeat that phrase enough, Larry and people will just hang on your every word? I dunno. Kudlow keeps digging his hole:

"How about global freezing? Alright, not just in Iowa, but throughout the whole Midwest of the country and maybe more. The whole thing is a hoax. The idea that it's some kind of emergency is a complete and utter hoax. And the socialist green new deal is hoax also."

Then it was Boebert's turn.  On X, formerly Twitter, she offered us this climatological analysis:

"You've got to appreciate the irony of climate protestors trudging through a foot of snow and -30 degree wind chills to yell about how the planet is warming. They just don't see it, do they?"

Oh, those climate demonstrators get it all right. It's just Boebert and her ilk that are terminally clueless. Or at least duplicitous.  Hoaxers like Kudlow and Boebert have played this game as long as I can remember. It's winter. It gets cold, even with climate change, as we well know.  

But apparently, if it's cold in Iowa, that means climate change was just a mirage. Thank goodness!

Meanwhile, in the past few days  parts of Chile, did set record high temperatures by a wide margin .  Within the last few days record heat also hit Dominica, Australia, the Canary Islands, ,Morocco and Thailand. And maybe some other places.

But that doesn't matter.   Because it's cold in Iowa.  Therefore climate change doesn't exist. Or something  like that. 

 Sure, Iowa is ridiculously frigid today,  but not nearly as bad as it can get in an Iowa January. Des Moines this morning missed tying the record low for the date by a full 10 degrees.  Let's face it. Winter in Iowa sucks. 

Plus one week from today, the expected high temperature in Des Moines is 34 degrees. Above zero.

So anyway, I'm being Captain Obvious here about the difference between weather and climate, and the difference between winter and climate.

The likes of Kudlow understand it too, no doubt. But they are just part of Team Fossil Fuel who continually wish to fool the public and delay the day when oil is no longer king. And at that point we can actually start dealing with climate change.  

And no, the transition won't tank the economy or take away your freedoms. 

 It's nice to see more pushback on these climate deniers than I used to.

Our smarmy GOP candidate Vivek "Why The Hell Am I Still Running" Ramaswamy had a bit of a disagreement with some climate activist  who crashed a campaign event.. Ramaswamy credit, he didn't have a hissy fit when the climate activists confronted him. 

Ramaswamy's campaign has droned on and on about climate change is  hoax that threatens liberty. Yeah, that same old trope again. 

Rhonda Santis, as I call the GOP presidential candidate from Florida, also gets pushback from climate activists. Which he deserves. 

And don't get me started on Donald Trump.  

In any event, I hope Iowa caucus goers manage to stay warm today and tonight in this frigid weather, and I  hope they make wise decisions. 

Another Big Round Of U.S. Tornadoes, But This One Was Typical For May

People try to recover items from destroyed homes after
a deadly tornado in Laguna Heights Texas on Saturday.
Photo by Julio Cortez/AP.

 There were LOTS of tornadoes in the United States over the past several days. But unlike some big outbreaks earlier this year, the spate of twisters this past week was mostly typical for the United States this time of year. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has a preliminary count of 108 twisters, mostly in the Plains and western Midwest between Wednesday and Saturday.  While many of the tornadoes caused a lot of damage, we don't have any reports of fatalities in the main tornado zone.

However, there was one strong tornado along the extreme southern Texas Gulf Coast early Saturday that unfortunately killed one person, injured 10 and caused extensive damage to the little town of Laguna Heights, Texas. 

A tornado watch in Iowa prompted former President Trump to cancel a rally in Des Moines. Although this will make people mad, I can't resist asking why Trump didn't simply use a Sharpie to move the tornado threat to another location so he could have his little festival. 

On average, the United States sees an average of about 275 tornadoes each May. That makes May the busiest tornado month of the year for the United States. 

It's hard to say if this May will end up turning out busier or lighter than average in terms of tornadoes. An odd for May weather pattern features a record breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada.

April this year was also light on tornadoes, with 109 preliminary reports as opposed to a monthly average of about 190. However, tornadoes, some quite deadly, were much more frequent than average in January through March.

So far this year, we've seen at least 64 deaths from tornadoes in the United States. That's definitely above average for the date, but thankfully not the worst it's ever been. Fingers crossed it stays that way. 

That will introduce a rather dry northwest flow over much of tornado country.  That type of weather pattern sure really suppress the severe weather threat for the next week or so. There still could be a handful of tornadoes during that time. After all, it is May. But won't' be any big outbreaks for awhile. 

 However, we don't know whether the final week or so of May will become busy again.  Some long range forecasts suggest the weather pattern in the final week of the month might be pretty favorable for tornadoes, we'll have to wait and see.

Here in Vermont, we know tornadoes are rare, but we do receive severe thunderstorms from time to time. Severe weather season in Vermont starts about now, and peaks roughly from mid-June to early August.

The same weather pattern that is suppressing national tornadoes for the upcoming week will prevent severe thunderstorms in Vermont for the time being. Sure, we might get some showers Tuesday and next weekend, but nothing scary. 

Delightful, Tranquil Weather Continues Here In Vermont, No So Much Elsewhere

Unique photo of a hail storm aftermath in
Nebraska Saturday. In the foreground, little or
no hail fell, in the background,
you suddenly hit an area where a LOT of
hail fell. Photo via Twitter by 
@tractorjockey

 The weather here in Vermont is uneventful, but beautiful!  As mentioned yesterday, this will be a lovely week of spring weather in the Green Mountain State.

Since there's not much to talk about here, we'll look at some of the somewhat less happy moments going on in other parts of the nation. 

SEVERE WEATHER

We're into the month of May, so we're at the peak of severe weather season for the United States.

So of course, there's some to report. Luckily we're not having any kind of super outbreak of tornadoes, but there's plenty of rough moments to go around. There were 13 preliminary reports of tornadoes in the Midwest Saturday and five more on Sunday. 

The big story was big hail. Hail up to the size of baseballs pummeled some parts of Iowa, causing damage to siding, windows and cars. Video out of Grinnell, Iowa from Live Storms Media shows hail up to the size of baseballs driven by winds of up to 80 mph.  As you can imagine, the side of any house or building facing the direction of the incoming hail was trashed. 

Another video shows an Iowa rangeland fire apparently started by lightning under dramatic storm clouds. The video goes on to show firefighters responding to the scene, only to be pelted by large hail and intense winds.  A pretty wild video worth the watch! 

Although more severe weather is in the forecast this week in the middle of the nation, this still doesn't look like it will be an enormous outbreak, at least by historical standards. 

WESTERN FLOOD RISK

After an incredibly snowy winter in the high elevations of the West, there's still a lot of snow in them thar hills.  We have seen damage in Utah and California from snow melt floods already, and it will probably get worse. 

A couple of houses in Utah have already been swept away by a mudslide, and numerous buildings have been flooded. 

Little Bear Creek is already beginning to flood in Utah
because of snow melt. You can see a lot of snow still
left in the mountains in the background. 

Utah officials said they're only a third of the way through the spring thaw in the mountains, so there's a lot of water left to come down. 

Very warm temperatures are in the forecast for the western U.S., including the mountains of Utah and eastern California in the coming days. That will surely send lots of water downhill into populated valleys. 

In Morgan County, Utah, officials are basically guaranteeing a reservoir will overflow, causing a flood crisis in nearby communities. 

In California, Lake Tulare is back.  It used to be one of the largest freshwater lakes in the United States, but it was drained to make room for agriculture. 

Now, it has re-appeared because of all the rain and snow melt California has seen.  It has already submerged about 100 square miles of crop land. 

But the bulk of the snow is yet to melt from the mountains. This will create a crisis in the coming days and weeks as Lake Tulare butts up against levees, and potentially busts through them. 

This is a long term problem, too. Once the snow melt ends, it will take forever for Lake Tulare to drain again. The last time this, happened, in 1973, it was two years before the lake was gone and agriculture could resume. 

I guess this is a good reason not to drain lakes to build farms or anything else. 

In any event, you will be hearing a lot about flooding in the western U.S. in the coming days.

It's Feast Or Famine On The Mississippi River: From Too Low Water To Major Flood

Mississippi River floodwaters surround a ballpark in
Davenport, Iowa this week has another major 
flood crests its way down the northern half of the river.

 Last autumn, long stretches of the Mississippi River were at near record low levels, thanks to drought in much of its immense drainage basin.  

Fast forward to now, and we have the opposite problem: Parts of the river are at major flood stage. 

A flood crest has been moving down the Mississippi through Minnesota and down into Iowa and has been cresting this week. 

In late April, the river crested at 15.89 feet, the highest since 2001, says ABC News. In St. Paul, Minnesota, the river reached its highest level since a substantial flood in 2019.  

The flood crest on Monday at Davenport, Iowa was the eighth highest on record for the Mississippi.  That comes just four years after an even higher crest flooded swaths of that city's downtown.  Water broke through some of flood defenses in 2019, causing enormous damage in and around downtown Davenport. 

So far, flood defenses have held around Davenport and other Iowa cities along the Mississippi. But the battle against the river has forced businesses and streets to close, and some people to evacuate homes as a precaution. It's no picnic. 

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has issued disaster proclamations for 15 counties to help residents respond to the Mississippi River flooding, says ABC. 

It looks like the Mississippi crested at Davenport on Monday and is slowly receding. There could be a second crest if heavy rains develop in the upper Midwest.  Forecasts over the next week call for moderate amounts of rain so they should be OK.

Flood warnings along the Mississippi extend southward to just north of St. Louis.  Below St. Louis, the river gets bigger, so the contribution of snow melt water in the river is less of an influence. But the water will still run high all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy rains could cause flooding later in the spring and summer below St. Louis. 

The high water is disrupting and closing off barge traffic along the Mississippi in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois and soon, possibly Missouri.  Last autumn's low water also disrupted barge traffic. 

You can't win.  

The flooding this year can mostly be blamed on snow, not rain.  The winter brought amazing amounts of snow to areas around the very upper reaches of the river and its tributaries in and near Minnesota. Duluth had its snowiest winter on record. Minneapolis had its third snowiest.  Pretty much all that snow melted in late March and April, and here we are with the resulting flood. 

Another Dangerous Weather Day Today, Vermont Again Lucks Out With Fringe Effects

  Today's going to be another pretty awful day in terms of weather in the United States.

This is the severe storm and tornado forecast map for today 
with the orange and especially red areas the biggest risk areas...

We have another big tornado threat in a broad swath of the nation's middle, a blizzard is raging in the northern Plains, and there's even an ice storm in parts of the Upper Great Lakes. 

Tomorrow won't be much better with severe weather and tornadoes possible as far north as northern Michigan. 

Here in Vermont, once again, we're in for very changeable, inclement and occasionally downright stormy weather. But our lucky charms are holding. We shouldn't see anything extreme or super dangerous. 

.......And this is the severe weather map ahead of 
last Friday's tornadoes. See any similarities?

I'll get into details with Vermont further down (Spoiler: There's even ice in the forecast).  But the news today will focus on the middle of the nation.

I'm struck by how the big trouble spots today are exactly the same as Friday.

The first one is in Iowa and western Illinois, which were hit hard on Friday.  This time, supercells are again expected to develop this afternoon.  Some of them will produce gigantic hail and tornadoes. A couple tornadoes could be quite strong, as they were Friday. The threat will continue well into the evening. 

The second big trouble spot is in Arkansas and southern Missouri. Again, much of this area was hit hard by strong tornadoes on Friday. 

In one respect this new potential outbreak could be worse.  The strongest supercells and tornadoes are expected to roar to life overnight tonight. As I've said previously, late night tornadoes are often more deadly because they catch people unaware as they are sleeping, or it's too dark to see visual cues of oncoming trouble. 

Tomorrow looks bad, too.  The threat of tornadoes and intense thunderstorms will extend from near Memphis, all the way to central and northern Michigan, southern Ontario and western New York.

Some of this seems awfully far north and east for this early in the season. But it has happened before, most notably in the Super Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974.  That was easily among the worst tornado swarms in U.S .history. I don't think this one will be quite as bad as the 1974 storms, but you never know.

Also today and tonight, a blizzard will rage from northeastern Wyoming through the Dakotas into northwestern Minnesota.  Hot, dry winds gusting to 70 mph will hit areas from New Mexico to Kansas, raising the risk of dust storms and wildfires

VERMONT EFFECTS

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington
is actually forecasting a little freezing rain in some
parts of Vermont with the upcoming storm.
Yellow areas get just a little over a trace, orange areas
a tenth of an inch or more, and red areas at least a quarter inch.

I guess you could the effects of this vast storm on Vermont a little weird, and kind of unpredictable.

A weak cold front dropped through Vermont yesterday and stalled in southern parts of the state. This thing will turn into a warm front attached to the parent storm that will gradually work northward.  

Meantime, cold air is draining southward from high pressure way up in Quebec. Above that shallow layer of chilly air near the surface, the big storm will create a big punch of warm, very wet air high overhead. 

The result, at least near the Canadian border and eastern Vermont north of White River Junction is the risk of freezing rain. 

The risk will be highest in northern New York and maybe the northwestern tip of Vermont tomorrow morning. Then it will shift to the Northeast Kingdom late tomorrow and tomorrow night. 

Temperatures will be touch and go, so the freezing rain might be spotty. Most of any trouble on the roads would be rural stretches that are untreated, and bridges and overpasses. There won't be enough ice to damage trees, except possibly in the far northeastern corner of Vermont Wednesday night. 

The Champlain Valley and southern Vermont will just have mostly bouts of rain with this. There could be a hint of snow or sleet at the onset of all this tomorrow, And maybe even a rumble of thunder Wednesday or Wednesday night because the warm, humid air high above has quite an unstable layer. 

The storm's cold front will come through Thursday with more showers and maybe rumbles of thunder. We get another cold-ish shot Friday and Saturday, followed by a nice long breath of spring starting Sunday and continuing into next week. 

Tornado Update: At Least Nine Dead, Dozens Injured In Big Tornado Outbreak

Severe damage from a tornado Friday in Wynne, Arkansas.
Photo by Ray Sharp, via Facebook and CNN

 The death toll from swarms of tornadoes and intense thunderstorms on Friday is at least nine with dozens injured.

The storms caused damage even more widespread than the tornadoes that afflicted Mississippi last week.  

Nine or more deaths is of course terrible news, but the fact that it wasn't worse is a blessing. 

One factor that probably reduced the death toll was the dire tone of the alerts and warnings issued on Friday. A rare "high risk" alert for tornadoes was issued in parts of the South and Midwest.  As the tornadoes developed, it became clear that some of them, as forecast were quite strong and long lasting. 

Warnings for the tornadoes carried "particularly dangerous situation" alerts which tends to wake up people to the danger even more. 

Another, probably somewhat lesser factor in the could-have-been-worse death toll is many of the tornadoes happened during the day.  Even though we're told not to wait for visual cues when a tornado warning is issued, humans are humans. We instinctive need that jolt to take cover when we see that menacing funnel bearing down on us. 

It appears some of the worst damage was around Little Rock Arkansas and points north and east of there.  The report of 600 injured around Little Rock that I saw turned out to be an exaggeration, but dozens of people were sent to hospitals with tornado injuries in the Little Rock metro area. 

The same supercell thunderstorm that unleashed the tornado in the Little Rock area dropped another powerful twister well to the northeast on the city of Wynne, Arkansas. Two deaths were reported there, along with extensive damage to the community. 

Several tornadoes later roamed the area around Memphis, Tennessee, causing more widespread damage. The twisters avoided the center of Memphis, and instead struck its northern and southern suburbs. 

AccuWeather reported two additional deaths from a likely tornado or tornadoes in Sullivan, Indiana. Widespread damage was also reported in this region, as you might expect. 

In Belvidere, Illinois, a tornado or intense thunderstorm caused much of the roof of the Apollo Theater to collapse during a concert. One of the 260 people inside died and 28 others were injured. 

In Iowa, several large tornadoes roared across the flat landscape. One of the tornadoes caused a lot of damage in Coralville, Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register.

Luckily, though, many of the largest tornadoes threaded the needle and just missed larger Iowa cities such as Ottawa, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Marshalltown and Waterloo. 

Overall, there were 65 preliminary reports of tornadoes in the U.S. on Friday. The number will change as National Weather Service investigators probe the damage swaths. 

Today, the tornado threat is less, but a few twisters could pop up in the Northeast, especially around New Jersey, Delaware and eastern Pennsylvania. 

Signs are pointing toward another possible big tornado and severe weather outbreak early next week in the Midwest and South. 

After that, the weather pattern seems to want to calm down, at least temporarily, so there might be a week or so starting about Wednesday or Thursday in which there won't be many tornadoes, hailstorms or severe thunderstorms. This being April, though, you never know. 

Tornado Outbreak Is, Sadly Very Bad, And It Isn't Over

Image from television station KATV shows a large,
destructive tornado today in the Little Rock, Arkansas area.

Just a quick evening update on the tornado situation in the Midwest and South. 

We're probably not even halfway done with this tornado outbreak as of 6 p.m. eastern time and already the news is bad. And it will get worse. 

So far, the worse news is from the Little Rock, Arkansas, area. The west and north side of the metro area was hit hard by a large tornado this afternoon.

Details are still sketchy, but there are reports of at least 600 injuries, and not enough ambulances to transport victims.  in Local hospitals declared a mass casualty event. Video emerging from Little Rock show badly damaged or destroyed houses and cars tossed about on highways. Commercial buildings appear to have also suffered a lot of damage.

More tornadoes remain across much of Arkansas. Little Rock might be hit again, as supercells with possible tornadoes look like they might be headed toward the southeastern side of Little Rock. 

Meanwhile, at least one large, long lasting tornado was marauding through Iowa. Video from Iowa shows a massive tornado chugging through farm country. At last report, the huge tornado was just west of Iowa City.  It appeared that Cedar Rapids could be endangered by this twister a little later on. 

Tornadoes, some violent and long-lasting, are forecast to last well into the evening in a broad area of the Midwest and South. 

Meanwhile, back here in Vermont, it snowed today. But they have increased the threat of severe thunderstorms. As of this morning, only a low, low marginal risk of severe storms was up for southern Vermont. It was level one on a five point alert scale.

Now, southern Vermont is  under a "slight" risk of severe storms, which is level 2 on the five point scale. The marginal risk has been extended north to just south of the Canadian border. There's also now a very, very low, but not zero chance of a tornado in a narrow band, from the Vermont/New Hampshire border near Brattleboro, through southwestern New England, the New York City area and on into New Jersey.

I'll have a much bigger update tomorrow.

Impressive Derecho, Storms And Dust Swept The Northern Plains Thursday

Violet storm and haboob approaching Sioux Falls,
South Dakota last week. Photo via twitter, @NancyAllard17

While we await some potential severe weather later today, I am still agog at the wild storms that swept through parts of the Midwest this past Thursday.  

The storms later today might be dangerous, but Thursday's episode was in a league of its own. 

An impressive line of storms known as a derecho swept through a good chunk of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota Thursday with wind gusts as high as 107 mph.  Needless to say, widespread damage was left behind.

The storm has been blamed for three deaths.

The storms were a derecho, defined as a fast moving line of intense thunderstorms that lasts for many hours. By definition a derecho produces a swath of damage of at least 240 miles and causes frequent wind gusts of at least 58 mph.

Thursday's event easily met this criteria.  

Preliminary data indicates there were 55 reports of wind gusts of at least 75 mph. This ranks second in the number of such reports with a derechos. Thursday's derecho now means the top four highest wind speed derechos, at least as measured by the number of hurricane-force wind gust reports, have happened in the past two years. 

The derecho with the biggest number of 75 mph+ reports was 64 with a storm last December. Ranking third is the Iowa derecho of August, 2010, which was the most expensive thunderstorm in U.S. history.  Iowa has now been hit with three of the top four worst derechos. 

Thursday's derecho focused its fury on eastern Nebraska and eastern South Dakota, and large swaths of Iowa and Minnesota. 

As the storms briefly turned day into night, the howling winds caused immense damage. 

In Tripp, South Dakota, the wind gusted to a whopping 107 mph. Drone video from the town showed four large grain elevators toppled, and structural damage to several buildings. 

The fast moving line of storms - the forward motion of these things was more than 70 mph - kicked up walls of dust. These are known as haboobs, which are huge dust storms that drop visibility to zero and are obviously very dangerous to anyone out on the highways. 

Haboobs are pretty common in places like Arizona and Texas.  But they're relatively rare in the central and northern Plains. At least they've been rare since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

At least five tornadoes were embedded within this derecho. The worst was in Castlewood, South Dakota where a tornado swept through the middle of town, badly damaging the community school and destroying a number of houses.

Video.

As always, click on the links if you can't see the video displayed in this post on your device.

Here's video from the Argus Leader of the haboob sweeping into Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

Fox Weather obtained video of the tornado and storm sweeping into Castlewood, South Dakota:

Kevin W. Ray captured the approach of the storm and a tree falling in his Sioux Falls neighborhood:

 

Keeping Up With U.S. Storms: So Far, Lots Of Damage, Relatively Few Injuries

While much of the nation struggled with rough, even 
dangerous weather on Tuesday, we were blessed in 
Vermont with a spectacular spring afternoon 

 So far, the wild weather in much of the United States is playing out as expected. Tuesday brought tornadoes, blizzards, high winds, wildfires and dust storms to vast swaths of the United States.  

Warnings and alerts from the National Weather Service and local meteorologists seem to be doing their job, as, knock on wood, there hasn't been that many injuries or deaths to report, which is a glimmer of hope, I suppose. 

That said, today is going to be the most dangerous day for tornadoes this week. Possibly the most dangerous day so far this spring. 

A huge swath from the southern Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf Coast is under the gun for tornadoes, high winds and gigantic hail.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center warns that some of today's tornadoes could be quite strong and long-lasting. This is especially true in a broad area of the Mississippi Valley from central Missouri and Illinois south to much of Louisiana. 

I've lost track of how many times this year the Gulf Coast states have been threatened and hit by severe weather and tornadoes. The National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama last evening tweeted  this message:  "Dear Mother Nature. We're tired. An uneventful 2nd half of April would be much appreciated. Sincerely, All Southeast US NWS Offices."

Yesterday's tornadoes focused pretty much in spots where forecasters said there was the greatest chance of rough weather: Iowa and Texas.  Several large tornadoes formed in Iowa, but the mostly stayed in rural areas. There were reports of damage to farm and houses in small towns. 

In Texas, an even worse tornado injured 23 people and caused a lot of damage, especially in the town of Salado.  Hail up to the size of grapefruit accompanied the storm. 

A very large area of the nation, the areas in yellow, orange and
red are at risk for tornadoes and severe thunderstorms today.
Dark green means just a marginal risk of severe weather 

Snow/Blizzard

In North Dakota, residents are hunkered down for a second day of an epic blizzard that is still forecast to dump as much as three feet of snow on parts of the state.  It's already being described as the "storm of the century" up there. The only storm to rival this one in recent memory was in April, 1997.

Temperatures are remarkably low for this time of year in North Dakota, too. High temperatures today through Sunday are forecast to be in the 20s to low 30s. Normal highs there this time of year are in the low to mid 50s. 

So far at least, no deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the blizzard. 

Further west, Portland, Oregon by far set a record for the latest measurable snowfall on record. Remarkably, that record could fall today as more unseasonable snow is possibility.  

Wildfires/Dust

Wildfires broke out as expected in the southern Plains and Southwest yesterday.  The worst fire was in New Mexico, where a blaze destroyed several homes and forced thousands to evacuate. The risk of wildfires remains pretty high through the weekend in these areas. 

Vermont Update

Here in Vermont all that storminess in the nation is keeping us in an active, but not super dangerous weather regime.

A warm front will bring showers later today and tonight mostly to northern Vermont. A strong cold front is still expected tomorrow. There might even be a thunderstorm or two with this in the southern half of Vermont.   Some of the showers and storms might have some briefly heavy downpours with them. But they will be moving along pretty fast, so I don't see much of any kind of flood risk.

A slot of dry air moves in Friday, so we should have at least partly sunny skies. It will be quite windy, with gusts in the 30 to 40 mph range. Temperatures should manage to get into the low 60s, but that will be in the last mild day, probably for quite awhile.

Another sharp cold front will arrive Saturday with another batch of rain and much lower temperatures. It'll stay a little cooler than normal at least through Tuesday. 

 

As Storm Chasing Season Ramps Up, So Does The Crazy Driving Debate

The alleged or real recklessness, depending on your 
perspective, of a tornado chaser's pursuit of this March
5 tornado in Iowa has set off the annual argument over
what to do with unsafe or careless chasers. 

Sometimes you just have to ask: What's more dangerous, the tornadoes or the storm chasers racing down rural highways to film the twisters?  

We're heading into the heart another tornado season.  Severe storms and tornadoes are expected in the South almost every day for the next week.  April and May usually bring the U.S. many more tornadoes, especially in the South and Midwest.  

There will be hundreds of storm chasers trying to document each tornado, mostly for income from viewers on YouTube and other social media. The pressure is on to obtain the most dramatic footage available. 

That pressure annually brings out the warring factions in the chaser community.  Add the emotional power of participating in a chase, the monetary stakes in making a good tornado video and simple ego, you end up with rash decisions and recriminations afterwards. 

When does chasing a tornado bring added and real dangers to the poor souls in communities already dealing with the damn tornado?

As CBS News reported, at least one incident proved deadly for the people chasing a Texas tornado.  The tornado didn't hit them. Alleged reckless driving did it to them.

A storm chaser ran a stop sign while chasing a tornado near Spur, Texas in 2017 and collided with a Jeep driven by another storm chaser. The two chasers in the vehicle that ran the stop sign, and the man in the Jeep all died. 

The mother of the man in the Jeep sued The Weather Channel for $125 million because the pair in the SUV that ran the stop sign were working for the network and allegedly had a reputation for unsafe driving during chases.  The lawsuit was later settled out of court. 

For every tragedy like the Texas collision, there's dozens of near misses either by chasers getting too close to tornadoes, or worse, driving recklessly to get close to the storm. 

The arguing and worry about harebrained storm chasing got off to an early start this year. It all highlights a potentially toxic mix of ego, ambition among some storm chasers, and pleas from other chasers to just tone it down already before somebody else gets killed. 

 Blame or credit for the boiling controversy already underway this year fall largely on a storm chaser named Stas. He was one of many storm chasers in Iowa on March 5 chasing a tornado outbreak there. The videos the chasers took added to the zillions of dramatic tornado videos already on YouTube and other social media. 

Sometimes, some of the chaser go to dubious lengths to deliver on the most wild twister videos. A few of the chasers get too close or even inside tornadoes. A few - not many, but a few - get in the way of emergency responders or drive super recklessly to obtain their precious tornado footage. 

Which leads us to Stas, or @StasIsChasing on Twitter.

STAS IN IOWA  

Stas claims to have gotten the best video of the big tornado that roared through southern Iowa. Maybe he's right. It might be the best footage of that twister, I don't know.  What raised hackles is the way Stas drove to obtain his footage.

In his video, the forward speed of this tornado is super fast and our chaser is racing down the roads to keep up.  He races at top speed through a small town. Luckily, there was nobody on the road as residents were presumably huddled in storm shelters. Then, just as he's leaving the village, Stas  encounters two pickup trucks completely blocking the road, with the tornado visible ahead.  .

The two trucks were apparently blocking the road so no motorists would get too close to the twister. Stas blares his horn, and veers around the trucks, appearing to drive over a lawn. 

He then stomps on the accelerator and continues down the road at a high speed. The vehicle then reached a T intersection. Stas either couldn't or didn't stop in time, blew through a stop sign similar to that fatal one in Texas. His car bounces into some grass and weeds and almost goes over an embankment. . Luckily, nobody was coming through through the intersection so there was no crash.  and went into a field on the other side of the intersection, almost going over an embankment.

After viewing the tornado for a short while, the vehicle backs out, sounding like it was spinning out in the process, then tears down the road toward the tornado again.

Comments on social media about Sta's resulting video were blistering.

"Awesome footage of you speeding through  small town and blasting through a stop sign. Guess we've learned nothing," tweeted veteran storm chaser Mike Olbinski 

"If toxic masculinity in chasing needs definition, lol,"  Ian Livingston commented. 

The comments went back and forth between what a jerk they thought Stas was for driving like that, and others who said the wild driving was worth it to obtain such great tornado footage. 

"You have my full on consent to blow through my small town. Everyone here is just pressed they didn't get the footage. People are just looking for drama to cry about. Everyone wants to play saint, but forgets about their daily life choices," wrote @TheJadenHart.

For what it's worth, the video Stas put up on YouTube had a respectable but not huge 150,000 or so views within 10 days after it was posted. 

For his part, Stas doubled down in a brief subsequent video in which he says he "doesn't give a shit" about the criticism because he got "the best tornado video by far. and if it didn't measure up to your safety standards, then tough shit."

CHASER VS CHASER

The chaser community is full of egos, personality clashes, disputes, turf wars, machismo and all the other sorts of drama you have in every industry or enterprise. 

The problem is this drama doesn't stay in a particular workplace or coffee break room.  When a large tornado menaces a particular town, there will be dozens of chasers in that town trying to document it. 

A tornado is a traumatic event for any community to go through, even if the twister manages to miss most or all of the area's homes and businesses.  On one hand, I see how the excitement of the chase can lead to taking dumb chances or letting the adrenaline get the best of you. 

On the other hand, you don't want to make a bad situation in a storm-threaten town worse by causing death and mayhem on local roads. 

Personally - and this is just my taste - I like the more thoughtful, storytelling tornado chase videos than the ones that involve a lot of screaming, high speed road rage and unsteady camera handling you see from chasers who are more daring than others. 

Weather geeks like me often can't resist the type of video StaIsChasing makes. But I also want to steer you to artistry from some of the calmer chasers, 

I'm talking about chasers like Mike Olbinski, mentioned above, or Pecos Hank. I won't condemn StasIsChasing here, but if you're worried about hazardous storm chasers, one thing we can do is throw more support toward the safer, more conscientious ones.

It's one way we can reward the less reckless chasers while enjoying both the power of nature and the videography skills of the people like Olbinski and Hank.