Hello all,
    Sorry about the tardiness in updates.  It is a New Year's resolution of mine to update more frequently.  New Year's was good, had fun at work.  2008 obviously is going to be a huge year, with lots to look forward to.  One of those events I said would be a blast in 2008 is a big severe weather season (or so I predict), which yes in some form of a way is a sick excitement to most meteorologists.  However, never even in my stretchable imagination did I expect tornadoes on January 7th north of Mendota!  And never did I expect an outbreak like what happened in Missouri.  Absolutely unbelievable.  I received several questions on why this happened.  The best one was Miles who tried once to leave me a four minute voicemail but mine cut him off.  Great effort Miles!  But I certainly do not know the full reason to an event that arguably has been seen once in 50 years or even less often.  It will take meteorologists weeks if not months to study this event.  However, there were signatures that this was shaping up to be nasty in the afternoon and evening.

    First off, here are some helpful links:

Severe Weather Reports From Across the Country
Severe Weather Reports From Northern Illinois
Tornado Damage Survey Results in Northern Illinois
Tornado Damage Survey Results in Southern Wisconsin

    I was at work during the day, which in a sense was nice so I could watch the latest observations and computer models run.  However, to my co-employees it was a bit aggravating because I was practically foaming at the mouth with this ridiculously early season potential of severe weather near home.  To explain what happened, obviously the part of being in the 60's for a few days in a row in January is part of the troublesome recipe.  Even with this warm air, because of the time of the year it is difficult to get deep rising motion known as instability.  Yeah I know, 5 syllable word, just what you want to see in a blog.  Sorry Lucas!  Because the warm up was so drastic and so extreme, instability did exist on Monday, which is what the below image shows.  The more negative the number the greater the instability, or ability for air to rise to form thunderstorms.  Values o f-6 to -8, in the red and pink, is explosive, especially for January.  This is a model analysis at 3 pm.



   The impressive gradient of values in far southern Wisconsin shows where the warm front was located, and set the stage for rotating thunderstorms.  The below image probably won't show up so great, but you can click on it to enlarge it.  The colors basically show warm moist air.  The yellow line can be described as an estimate of the amount of rotation in the lower atmosphere.  Values of 300 or greater have been shown to be correlated with tornadoes, including EF2 or stronger tornadoes, in the right atmosphere.  The black plots are station observations, with the upper left hand value being temperature and the bottom left being dew point.  Both extremely high for the middle of winter.



What created this spin?  Extremely strong winds just off the surface, blowing at times to 75 mph near 5,000 ft, caused what we call speed shear.  This combined with the instability and the high moisture (thanks in part to snow melt in srn WI) to generate the tornado threat.  Watches were hoisted from OK up to MI, and dozens upon dozens of warnings followed.  The worst damage, including unfortunately fatalities occurred in Missouri.

How rare is it?  First off, try never.  In Wisconsin, from what I have heard and found in databases, a tornado has never been recorded in the month of January.  At least three were reported as of early Tuesday near Racine and Kenosha.  In Northern Illinois?  Almost as rare.  At least two tornadoes were reported near Poplar Grove and Harvard, between Rockford and Chicagoland.  The last time this was seen in northern Illinois was 58 years ago when on January 25, 1950 there was an F2 tornado near Momence in Kankakee County.  Still not as far north though.  Unbelievable!

And in Missouri this unfortunately is not that rare, though the amount of tornadoes and how they tracked over the same area is a rarity anytime of the year.  January is part of a cool season severe weather time from the southern Ozarks across Dixieland.  But to have the constant tornadoes like was seen was amazing.

Will we ever see tornadoes this far north again in winter?  Well that's tough and downright impossible to say.  Just consider this: some of the coldest air of the winter had moved over this area on the morning of January 3rd.  Snow cover of 3 inches to as much as a foot covered northern IL and southern WI.  Merely 100 hours later or so, hail and tornado damage covered the landscape of some communities.  The rate of change, during what is climatologically the heart of winter, was ridiculous.  Almost too ridiculous?  Possibly.  What do you think?

Well that's enough from me ... more fun talk next time.  If you have any pics please send them to me.  Thanks to those of you for the calls on Monday!

MTF

P.S.  I am growing facial hair.