The massive Pacific storm system that unleashed destructive tornados and torrential rain from Texas to the Great Lakes, finally reached central Missouri last night. A brief period of intense lightning and thunder was followed by heavy rain.
This morning, having delayed our journey to Colorado due to the storm, we drove through rain from Columbia to Kansas City; fortunately, we did not encounter any severe weather. As we entered Kansas, the rain abated and, by the time we reached central Kansas, the air was noticeably cooler due to a north breeze; we had clearly reached the back (west) side of the storm's circulation, confirmed by intermittent showers. This same backside precipitation produced upslope snow in Metro Denver yesterday.
Farther west, the cloud cover gradually diminished and, as we approached Denver, the sky was mostly clear. Nevertheless, as I write this post, tornados are still forming in East Texas and southeast Oklahoma and an arc of thunderstorms extends northward to Minnesota and Wisconsin. This atmospheric monster, fueled by our warming climate, has not yet lost its punch.
