Full Strawberry Moon Highlights the Calm After the Storm

It is hard to believe it is past 2 a.m. I seems like the 11 p.m. show just ended and usually there is a snowstorm on the way when I am up this late. Not this time, oh well maybe in my dreams if I ever do get to sleep. I have gone through over 700 e-mails and I wish I had time to write each and every person back sooner. I will eventually get to everybody. The unbelieveable number of e-mails is mind-boggling but it just reinforces how busy and wild our weather has been over the past 3 weeks.

This made the moonrise over Lafayette on Tuesday night much more appreciated. I really took it in. A few high cirrus clouds and the low moon angle highlighted the moon nicely with a tinge of yellow and it seemed like it was only a few feet away. In reality the moon on average is 230,000 miles from earth. It was like you could reach out and grab the moon last night. This is called the moon illusion which takes place this time of year. It occurs with the full moon near the summer solstice. The sun is higher in the sky than at any other time of year keeping the moon at its annual lowest point in the sky. This causes the moon to hover closer to the horizon and for a much longer time. As a result, the moon seem even bigger to us than normal. In fact our eyes are fooled into thinking the moon is about 10% to 20% bigger than it really is. This is nature's magic act or illusion I think we all can get used to. The full moon in June is called the Strawberry moon because it is the time of year that we get ready to pick strawberries. I cannot wait.

The moon was more surreal than normal after all the storms we had. It is no illusion that we are finally in a quieter pattern and that we are even saving up on air conditioner bills. Notice we have had many more cooling degree days than normal so far in May. A cooling degree is defined as the mean temperature above 65 degrees. It helps companies determine energy needs and farmers with planting crops. In June we were almost 100 cooling degree days above normal and this translates into higher air conditioning costs. But in this new pattern we can open the windows and save some money. Every little bit helps, especially with those gas prices. Yes, the best things in life are free!

More good news! Things are looking up for the corn and it should be knee to waist high by the 4th of July. Sweet corn should be ready in a couple weeks. Farmers told me yesterday the corn is about 2 feet shorter than this time last year and for good reason. We have not had 3 consecutive dry days since April 20th! This has caused our precipitation surplus to surge up over 8 inches!

I know it has been stormy but I didn't think it has been two months since we have seen a nice extended dry period like this. Check out the stats! We average about 36 inches total precipitation for the year. We are already two-thirds of the way there. This much needed dry pattern will help the corn and crops bounce back and also allow farmers to finally bail some hay and that includes Dris Abraham out at Historic Prophetstown.

Bottom line is we have come a long way. Karen Lehe sent in this picture and it was something that looked more like a dust storm or sand storm in the Middle East. No, this is actually near Brookston, Indiana. It is a mix of straight-line winds, a low hanging shelf cloud, heavy rain, and plenty of dust kicked up in the hurricane force winds. Compare this to a picture sent to us from Iraq below.

Hi, I am Dave Southern and my son Anthony took this photo in Baghdad and thought the viewers would like to see it, we are from Stockwell, Indiana.

Thanks, Dave

PS It was taken back in February sandstorm closing in!

Now to my favorite saying...yes, it could always be worse and Dave I wish your son and all our troops the best. Hopefully we can bring them home soon. Here is a picture sent in from Pamela of her son Jason serving in Iraq. He has sent us pictures and reads this blog. You can see what it looks like like in one of those massive Middle East sand storms. So today here at home we can just take a deep breath and enjoy the sunshine. More importantly we remember those like Jason and Dave's son that allow us to bask in the calm after the storm. Like our weather we will never take those serving our country for granted. Thank you troops for all you do. This country's best days are certainly ahead and it is because of you. God bless the USA!

3 Confirmed Tornadoes on Sunday, Pushes our Twister Total to 7 in 18 days!

This video truly speaks for itself! Here is the amazing storm story from where you live. Now here is a real storm story from where you live!

My name is Jennifer and I'm from Griffith, IN. Yesterday around 6PM my friend, another Jennifer, and I were traveling down I-65 coming back home from Indy. We were in Remington, IN and we drove right into a terrible storm that formed a tornado. Now, I read on your blog that it was not a "confirmed" tornado- but when this huge wall of blackness was hurtling towards us from across I-65- to us that seemed like a tornado... and maybe it truly was. Weather or not (pun intended) it was terrifying for two folks from so close to Chicago who have never experienced a tornado before to actually see it create itself and head towards us. I took pictures, and after the fourth shot I took we grabbed our bags (go figure) and ran from the car to take cover in a ditch because it was right on top of us- we did what we were supposed to but it was hard to leave the "safety" of the car to brave the elements outside. I wanted to share the photos with you. They are not as dramatic as many others, but nevertheless- after having a "tornado" barrel directly over our heads while we clung to each other and prayed to God not to die in that ditch, small or large- I never want to be this close to a tornado (or its cousin, nephew, brother- etc.) again!

We feel lucky to be here :) But we can say- wow what a storm season this year has brought us so far!

Here are the pictures they sent in to go with the video. I must have watched this video a dozen times and the pictures are also mesmerizing. Yes, Jennifer thanks to your pictures and video I can confirm this as an EF-0 tornado with wind speeds from 65 to 85 mph.

These pictures show a type of tornado called a gustnado and I like calling the Lafayette viewing area gustnado alley because these occur more frequently here than probably any other part of the country including Oklahoma and Kansas. Illinois would probably be our only other rival in terms of sheer numbers. Remember the big difference between this tornado and the traditional tornado is that the circulation comes from the ground up and not from the cloud down to the ground. Gustnadoes rarely have wind speeds exceeding 85 mph, so they are usually considered weak tornadoes. They still can do plenty of damage, especially to rooftops, barn roofs, trees, and crops. Now I have confirmed two other gustnadoes across the area from Sunday night! The second weak tornado hit Wolcott. Jennifer was cooking up some tasty pork chops when nature decided to cook up something a little bit bigger!

The interesting part about these tornadoes is that our Live Doppler radar technology can rarely pick up on these weak low-based circulations. I can tell you our Live Doppler 18 did do a pretty fine job and did show some purple shades of wind shear in both Jasper and White Counties. It also briefly showed some purple shades in Clinton County and sure enough I did verify another gustado that hopped from Colfax into Antioch with some rooftop and crop damage. I know some video exists out there of this and will do my best to first of all find it and then show it to you. Hopefully that person reads this blog and he can send it to me at storm@wlfi.com. But in the meantime I can at least show you the way the clouds looked in Clinton County just south of Rossville which was a little farther north in Clinton County from Antioch. The storm was ominous and it made our WLFI TV-18 tower look like a toothpick. :) Pamela gives us her take on the picture she sent in.

This is a pic of the storm just before it hit just south of Rossville. It makes the WLFI tower in the lower left look pretty puny. The storm looked really ugly and the worst that we've had in a few years. We didn't see any damage in Rossville, but we didn't look everywhere either. An hour later, two county trucks and a snowplow went screaming past the house, so we figured that there was probably a tree down across the road somewhere to the north and they needed a big truck to haul off what they cut up.

Have you ever listened to the birds sing after a bad storm passes? They sound so joyous!

Pamela
South of Rossville

Thanks Pamela! Tell your son I said hi and a big hello from all the rest of the Lafayette weather bloggers to the troops serving our country in Iraq. I do have some amazing new Iraq pictures to share this week. So check back! Now back to the birds. I think the birds are losing their little singing voices because you need to check out the latest tornado tally compared to normal.

We have had almost 2 year's worth of tornadoes in less than 3 weeks here in Lafayette. We are up to 7 tornadoes and we only average 4 per season in our viewing area. We have not had a blitz of tornadoes in this short time period since our last La Nina year of 2004. We had I wanted to thank everybody for all the great pictures, stories, and video sent in to our weather team. It has made all the difference in the world with not only helping to confirm tornadoes, but helping to keep people out of harm's way. Folks see these pictures and it really helps to make them more aware of how important it is to take the weather seriously. The weather isn't trivial here in the Midwest. Just look at the 500 year floods in Iowa and amazing flood stories farther south in Indiana. Having a safety plan and staying alert can make the difference between life and death. I am relieved nobody has gotten injured or hurt in these past few wild weeks here at home and I want to keep it that way. I am lucky to have the best bloggers on earth and do not know where I would be without all your support. You truly are my eyes and ears and this weather blog proves that humans will always be more important than any computers ever made. Have a great day! Tune in tonight for a look at unusual lapse rates. What is that? I will explain.

Nature whips up the "father" of all wind storms on Father's Day, Possible Tornado in Remington

The worst damage I saw in our viewing hit Creasy Lane. Roof damage was easy to see at Christ Memorial Temple

Hurricane wind gusts of 75 to 80 mph hit this church while folks were praying. Luckily services were being held in the other adjacent church. There was no basement so everybody got to their safe spot by moving to the center aisle as the sky turned midnight dark and opened up with buckets of rain. The roar of the wind sounded as if a jet was lifting off nearby. They did a great job of staying away from the outside walls and getting to the interior of the lower-level. It was a mass many will never forget and the best part was nobody got hurt!

Wildcat contracting fixed this roof almost as fast as the storms blew through!

Simply amazing! Our weather here in Indiana is unrivaled when it comes to not only our weather, but how quickly it can change. We went from having a very low risk of any thunderstorms on Father's Day to a moderate risk of severe weather in less than 10 hours. It is a good thing I cut my body pump class a few minutes short, because the storms hit fast and furious.

You see the sturdy medal rooftop that was ripped off this building like it was a toy house off of Creasy Lane surrounding the Road and Rail Securities. This was some of the most impressive straight-line wind damage I have seen in Tippecanoe County in several years.

I am glad everybody is safe and sound. That was my best Father's Day gift of all along with a very nice "wild thing" card that sang to me from my wife. Nature I guess did not want to be outdone! I did find time to wish my Father a happy Father's Day down in Florida. I will always remember how we went to fly our kite when I was only 3 and he told me about all the different types of clouds. How I remember that day, I will never know. But I do and it was a sure sign I would be a meteorologist some day! Thanks Dad! I also wanted to thank my oldest two daughters for coming out with me on damage assessment. Lauren was a bit too young to come along but it did turn into a special Father's Day I will never forget and not just because of the storms. My daughters took pictures and I explained and showed them why they are told to get in their safe spots during severe weather. Notice this swing set we found under a four foot in diameter tree at Munger Park. This is why we tell people over and over during severe weather to get inside and also get into the lower-level interior rooms away from outside walls. Sometimes these huge trees fall on homes.

Brian Wolf our new weekend weatherman was with me and I do not think he has ever laughed so much. The Prangley girls were quite entertaining. Brian did a great job this weekend! It was his first time on TV and he had almost everything in the book thrown at him. I told him at least he did not have flying frogs like I did my first weekend on the air back in Gainesville, Florida but what happened today you can say was almost the equivalent of that. Brian has a great future in this business!

Brian and I were treated to stories of how the Prangley family reacted to the storms while Dad was at work. Abbey graded better than normal and although she did a lot of pacing during yesterday's storms, she did stay calm. Megan followed our weather team's advice during the heart of the storm by getting some pillows and taking our family dog BJ into the bathroom. Why she did not take the rest of her family with her, I do not know. My Father's Day advice for her is to always make sure the entire family is accounted for and gets in the safe spot with her and then if the dog is nearby to grab him as well. Remember to stay alert and wait for the all clear. You want to turn up your television set so you can hear what is going on while in your safe spot. Do not doze off like Megan was doing. She told me she almost fell asleep.

God blessed me with a great family and I have learned patience that is for sure. They also help me communicate to the public during severe weather because I know everybody reacts to severe weather differently.

So remember to get everybody in your family on the same page, no matter how many different personalities are running rampant. The Prangley's will have a family meeting about this. Maybe I should install a camera in my neighborhood and at my house so I can monitor these people! We can go from the Renaissance Cam to the Prangley Cam and that way I can go over what they are doing right or what they are doing that is not so right. :) You want to talk about good reality TV. The looks you would see on my face would probably be priceless. But in all seriousness, the main thing I care about is everybody staying calm and safe, but you also need to take action and stay alert.

I have confirmed last night's storms as straight-line wind damage, but the wind did hit the earth with such force it did scatter debris that made it look like a tornado was hitting at times as you see above. This was taken off Interstate 65 and state road 18 just outside of Brookston. This was one of the areas where we had unconfirmed reports of tornadoes. Thanks to Bob McCutcheon we can see it was not a tornado. This was an impressive mix of a shelf cloud and haboob or dust storm created by the extremely high winds. It does look very scary that is for sure! There have been no verified tornadoes across area, but I cannot totally rule out a gustnado making brief contact with the ground in portions of White County near Buffalo, another one in Otterbein, and another possible one in northeast Clinton County. Here is what it looked like near Frankfort. Rick Ryan sent in all of these very dramatic photos.

Gustnadoes are cousins of tornadoes and some weather offices classify them as weak tornadoes while others do not. Yesterday was one of those days after looking at all the evidence and looking at pictures where I think these debris clouds would still fit the category more as straight-line winds than tornadoes or gustnadoes. I am very picky about these things as you can imagine. The wind damage in a lot of the pictures above goes to show you that straight-line winds can cause as much damage sometimes as small tornadoes. Speaking of tornadoes check out the picture below.

We took this picture around 6 pm tonight at our home that is just on southside of Remington. We watched the rotation touch the field, go over our house & into the field to the east of us.

Now new pictures and evidence is coming in from Jasper County that there may have been a tornado touchdown on the southside of Remington. You can see the brief e-mail above sent in to our weather team. I do think if there was an actual tornado yesterday it would have been in this area. Live Doppler 18 was showing plenty of purple and wind shear in this area before it became a potent straight-line wind producer. I may have to go check it out in person and if you live in this area please send in some more pictures. Mary Anne Best has us covered and I will talk more to her in-depth sometime today. What do you think?

Check back for more dramatic storm photos here on the blog along with some more storm stories from where you live. I will try to confirm the tornado. Enjoy the beautiful day and I look forward to seeing you tonight with much brighter days ahead. Last night's sunset was a sign of better more tranquil days ahead!

Worst of the weather moving east!

Update at 3 p.m.

We are watching the worst of the storms now moving east of Tippecanoe, Carroll, and Montgomery Counties.

NEWS CHANNEL 18 WEATHER ALERT:A FLASH FLOOD WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR WHITE COUNTY UNTIL 5 P.M. AND A FLASH FLOOD WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR SOUTHEASTERN BENTON COUNTY UNTIL 6:15 P.M. DO NOT CROSS WATERS COVERING THE ROADWAY. IT ONLY TAKES ABOUT 12" OF WATER TO FLOAT A VEHICLE. A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH CONTINUES FOR OUR ENTIRE VIEWING AREA EXCEPT BENTON, NEWTON, AND JASPER COUNTIES UNTIL 9 P.M.

No storm reports have been received from TEMA or other counties at this time. If you are in Howard County the worst of the storms will be moving through between now and 4:30 p.m. The main threats will be heavy rain and lightning with isolated wind gusts near 45 mph.

There will only be a few showers associated with the third line of rain that moves through this evening. I will be back with an update on the storms and your much better Father's Day weekend forecast!

Thunderstorms rolling through the area

Update at 1:15 p.m.

Meteorologist Kelly Greene and I are here and we are both watching Live Doppler 18 very closely. So far we are breathing a sigh of relief. We have a thin line of thunderstorms moving through the area. The main threats at this time would be lightning and heavy rain. These storms are not moving very fast at this time so some areas could see a half-inch to an inch of rain. We are waiting to see if this line bows out a little which would indicate some higher wind gusts. Right now the main threats will be lightning, heavy rain, wind gusts to 35 mph, and maybe some small hail. We do not see any rotation with these storms which should keep the tornado threat very low.

There may be a third line of storms this evening but it likely will not be as strong. I will check back with you in a bit. Thanks for checking in. Stay safe and remember those lightning safety rules.

Friday the 13th Lives Up to Its Dubious Distinction, Oshkosh Hit Hard

Updated storm potential as of 10 a.m. Friday

I am not superstitious but maybe I should be. It will be our 9th Friday in a row with rain. That is fact! The other 8 Fridays did not occur on the 13th but this has become much more than a trend or pattern. It seems you can set your watch to the storms every Friday and today will be no different. I think we could have several rounds of thunderstorms today. We woke up with thunder as expected this morning. We will likely have another round by mid-afternoon, and a third round of thunderstorms during the evening. The sun is out and destabilizing the atmosphere.
Oshkosh, Wisconsin was hit hard last night with flooding and a tornado was reported in Mayville off Highway 67. These are areas I am familiar with and had play by play reports from family on the phone last night. Everybody is okay up there, but there is plenty of flooding and many folks could not even get into their neighborhoods. Sound familiar. The red areas indicate doppler estimated rainfall amounts from the Green Bay National Weather Service Office in the 2 to 4 inch range. The purple areas were swamped with between 4 and 6 inches of rain! I am glad everybody is safe. I show you this because I am really worried about training thunderstorms and flooding here at home tonight and already we have flash flood watches out for much of our viewing area. I know the forecast is calling for one to two inches of rain, but we all know with thunderstorms there can be locally higher amounts.

One of the problems with our front is that it will be moving through our area today at less than 10 mph. I could whip right by it on my gas-saving bicycle. This front will be paralleling our upper-level winds and at the same time it is dying out. These ingredients add up to a flood threat. This brings us to our second threat which will be wind damage.

If there is good news the lower level and mid-level winds are much weaker than last Friday by a good 15 to 25 mph. This means I do not expect a repeat of 80 mph wind gusts that ravaged areas of Crawfordsville and Frankfort. The wind is also unidirection from the surface to the upper-levels which tells me that our tornado threat will remain low. But here in Indiana we never say never when it comes to tornadoes and any severe thunderstorm has the potential of putting down a tornado. Now today as a surface wave moves along our dying front it could help add some shear to the environment which could put down a lone EF-0 tornado or gustnado most likely with wind speeds less than 85 mph. We are not expecting any of those devastating tornadoes we saw across the Plains on Wednesday night. We will keep you updated with Live Doppler 18 and Precision 18. Have that plan B and stay tuned and calm. Let me break down the percentages for you as of 10:20 a.m. This has the potential of occurring within 25 miles of your neighborhood:

Wind gusts of 35 to 45 mph: 55%

Wind gusts of 46 to 55 mph: 40%

Wind gusts of 58 mph or higher: 30%

Rainfall in excess of 2 inches: 40%

Rainfall in excess of 1 inch: 60%

Tornado EF-0: 5%

Tornado EF-1 (less than 2%)

Small hail: 10%

Large hail: 5% or less

Storms return to our forecast cast a shadow on our nice weather today (Thursday, June 11,2008)

Well, it has become a Friday tradition at WLFI. Tune in for the latest on severe weather and heavy rain amounts. This heavy rain has swelled the rivers near Indianapolis to record levels that have even surpassed the once unthinkable levels of 1913. You see the gray areas in the photograph above from NASA that show the flooded areas before and after last Friday's deluge. The latest model runs in tonight have confirmed our worst fears and that is more heavy rain is on the way for Indiana. Here is the latest rainfall forecast.

You can blame the La Nina once again. Here was an update on the La Nina sent to our weather team yesterday from Purdue's state climatologist and assistant professor of agronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences, Dev Niyogi.

Dev believes La Niña's control of the weather pattern will continue to make Indiana's normally severe storm season more intense and generate storms more frequently than average. "Whenever we are in a La Nina pattern, there is increased propensity for severe weather over Indiana during spring and summer with increased likelihood for thunderstorms and rain," Niyogi said. "We are nearing the end of the La Niña cycle, which started last year, but the sea surface temperatures are still about one-half a degree cooler than normal." As a result Dev is thinking La Nina may still have an impact on our weather at least for the rest of June and maybe even July.

The latest take on this from the Australian weather bureau is much more favorable for things improving for us in the near future. Here is their latest La Nina update mate!

Summary: Pacific ENSO-state neutral, but ocean warms

Pacific climate patterns remain neutral, although some aspects of the 2007/08 La Niña lingered in the western Pacific during the past fortnight. The tropical Pacific has been warming gradually during the past few months, with central Pacific temperatures now near-normal and eastern Pacific temperatures about one-half to one degree warmer than average.
The warming in the east has been caused in part by a weakening of the Trade Winds in that region, an effect that has been gradually spreading further west during the past several months. In addition, the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) has been falling and now sits a little below zero for the past 30 days.
Computer model predictions show central and western Pacific temperatures continuing to increase over the next two seasons, but mainly remaining less than about 0.8°C above average, that is, neutral. No model is predicting a return to La Niña conditions, and while the chance of an El Niño developing is small, it can't be ruled out, especially as ENSO events can evolve rapidly at this time of the year.

This is something I will keep a close eye on. I think La Nina is winding down and would be surprised if it continued to wreak havoc on our weather into July and August. This is based on many other atmospheric factors that meteorologists look at which includes sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic basin. These factors should help overwhelm whatever La Nina has left. The latest La Nina graph from region 3.4 has it even warmer than a half-degree below average. The dark zero line above is considered average. You can see the tremendous rebound in ocean temperatures above. We have dug ourselves out of a huge hole. This graph courtesy of the Australian Weather Bureau also shows another interesting footnote. Do you see the big mountain peak on the graph above and how it quickly came crashing down. This was one of the factors that helped cause our great blizzard in February of 2007!


The big factors to focus on as we head into July will be the extremely warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. We are in a positive AMO or what is called a positive Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. You can see this clearly above. The darker yellow and orange water colors indicate where it is above average while the deep blue colors show below average water temperatures. It is hard to find much blue in the Atlantic or Gulf. This is telling me a huge ridge of high pressure will take over the weather pattern in July and August. While it will not be a permanent fixture like we saw last summer, it will act to dry us out and heat us up with an average of at least 1 to 2 90 degree days per week by early July. Rainfall will decrease considerably, but certainly there will be no drought to worry about this year. Here is my latest rainfall forecast for Lafayette.

I do worry about east coast hurricanes this year in this type of set-up and have to even wonder about not just the Carolinas being hard hit but area even farther north from Maryland and Delaware to New York and New England since hurricanes love to "ride these ridges".

Back closer to home, even though my forecast is promising in the long-term, there will still be some big bumps in the road here in the short-term. It has been a deadly night in the Plains with at least 6 fatalites due to tornadoes. This system will start to move our way on Friday. Join me tonight for the latest on what you can expect here at home.



Notice there were over 300 storm reports of damage across the country. Our thoughts and prayers are with those that have lost everything due to storms and flooding. Iowa is seeing flooding right now much worse than they did during the great flood of 1993 and you can add Wisconsin to that list. When great flood and storm years are brought up in the future you will certainly have to always include 2008 and we are only have way through the year. God bless!