Rain Coming to Drought-Stricken Southern U.S.

A storm tracking across the Southern U.S. will bring heavy to excessive rainfall over portions of west-central Texas into tonight then from central Texas through the central Gulf Coast on Friday. The Southeast U.S. will see heavier rain Saturday. While much of this rainfall will be beneficial to the drought, excessive rainfall may bring areas of flash and urban flooding. Read More >

Shortly after 6 p.m. on 21 August 2002, an F1 tornado touched down in Muscatine County just north of Muscatine on Hwy 38. The tornado had about a 1.6 mile path destroying two sheds and causing roof damage to another shed and a farm house, in addition to scattered tree damage. The synoptic and mesoscale environment that day supported severe weather mainly in the mode of straight-line winds. A non-supercell tornado developed in a non-descending mode as a cell interacted with a convective boundary. The use of high resolution 8-bit velocity data was key to the decision to warn and helped provide a 4 minute lead time before the tornado was reported by a nearby amateur radio operator. See especially the radar data at 2311Z and 2316Z.

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