It's a stormy evening in central Missouri. As I sit here watching the coverage of tornadoes east of Dallas, Texas, torrential rain is pelting our roof and thunderstorms are rumbling through the area. It may be late December but it feels and sounds more like April.
The agents of this stormy weather are an upper level low pushing into west-central Texas, a cold front draped from eastern Texas to southern Illinois and surface lows along that front. Warm humid air is flowing northwestward from the Gulf of Mexico, providing plenty of moisture and unstable atmospheric conditions across the Southern Plains and mid Mississippi Valley. Expecting two inches of rain overnight, we are under a flash flood watch in Missouri but should escape the severe weather that is producing damage east of Dallas; a tornado watch covers eastern Texas, southeastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas.
On the backside of the upper level low, a blizzard is developing across northwest Texas, southwest Oklahoma and eastern New Mexico. At least that segment of the storm is consistent with the season.
