Friday, October 10, 2008

Two Texas Tornadoes Confirmed

The strong storms that affected northern portions of East Texas this past Monday night and early Tuesday morning did indeed produce two weak EFO tornadoes.


This was confirmed earlier today as the National Weather Service out of Shreveport had a chance to survey the damage.


Here are the rest of the details that the Shreveport Weather Service had to say about the two twisters.



THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CONDUCTED A TORNADO DAMAGE SURVEY INCASS COUNTY TEXAS ON TUESDAY. AN EF0 TORNADO OCCURRED 6 MILES EASTSOUTHEAST OF ATLANTA TEXAS ALONG HWY 77 AT APPROXIMATELY 505 PM. THETORNADO DESTROYED A SMALL STORAGE BUILDING AND PICKED UP A CARPORTATTACHED TO A HOUSE ALONG COUNTY ROAD 4798. SEVERAL SHINGLES WEREALSO TORN FROM THE ROOF OF THAT HOUSE AND SCATTERED TO THE NORTH.NUMEROUS TREES WERE EITHER SNAPPED OR DAMAGED ALONG THE PATH WHICHSTARTED ON THE WEST SIDE OF HWY 77 AND ENDED JUST NORTH OF COUNTYROAD 4794. THE TOTAL PATH OF THIS TORNADO WAS 1.5 MILES LONG ANDAPPROXIMATELY 100 YARDS WIDE. THE TORNADO WAS ON THE GROUND FORAPPROXIMATELY 1 MINUTE.

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ALSO CONDUCTED A TORNADO DAMAGE SURVEYJUST TO THE EAST OF BULLARD TX NEAR THE SMITH AND CHEROKEE COUNTYLINE. AN EF0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN AT 1010 PM MONDAY EVENING NEAR THEINTERSECTION OF HWY 69 AND FM 344 WHERE IT SNAPPED TREES IN A WOODEDAREA. THE TORNADO THEN MOVED NORTHEAST ALONG FM 344 WHERE IT DOWNEDANOTHER TREE BEFORE LIFTING NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF FM 344 ANDINWOOD DR. THE PATH OF THIS STORM WAS ABOUT 0.5 MILES LONG AND 50YARDS WIDE. THE TORNADO WAS ON THE GROUND FOR LESS THAN 1 MINUTE

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Signs of Change on the Way

After enjoying several weeks of cool, dry weather, things are starting to change as our weather pattern takes a significant shift.


Notice the clouds and rain off to our west. This is in response to a developing and intensifying storm system that will head eastward in the coming days, bringing with it some showers and storms by early next week.


We have not received any rainfall since Hurricane Ike over three weeks ago. However, that will change as our humidity starts to increase and a south wind feeds into our storm system. This image to your left is our in-house Futurecast computer model. It shows a Pacific cold front making its way into north central Texas and Oklahoma by Monday evening. Notice the darker shadings of orange and red in southeast Oklahoma. That's indicative of showers and thunderstorms developing along the leading edge of the front. As that front advances eastward, it will give us a good chance of rain on Tuesday of next week.
Some of the rain that falls will be heavy in spots. Now is a reminder that if you have had roof damage from Ike, you will want to put blue tarp or something over your roof to protect it from the rain.
Keep in mind that we could use the rain since it has been rather dry as of late. So it looks as if our string of cool nights and sunny days will becoming to an end rather quick.