Weather Archives

August 23, 2023

Predictable Unpredictable Weather

One thing about Missouri’s weather is it predictably unpredictable.

In the last month or so, we’ve gone from weeks of drought, torrential rains that flooded communities like Marble Hill (rain was falling at the rate of better than four inches an hour at my house, and about a week of the heat index above three digits, not counting the decimal point.

The Night of the Big Rain didn’t bring promised (dreaded) winds and hail, but the lightning was almost continuous.

That brought to mind Mark Twain’s comment, “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work.”

Not only hot, it’s humid

You can see from the condensation on my basement window when I started up the stairs to go to bed that there’s a lot of moisture in the air

When the heat index was 106 (116 if you believe the local TV station), I elected to replace a dusk to dawn porch light that had decided to stay on all the time.

The whole process took about an hour, at which point you could ring sweat out of my cap, shirt, suspenders and underwear. I had other projects on my list, but I may put them on hold until the one week in November before temps drop below zero,

February 12, 2018

The Frosty Flag

When I went out grocery shopping late Saturday night, I thought I could feel moisture in the air. In fact, When I came out of Sam’s, there was a fine mist on my windshield.

“This could turn into freezing drizzle and be really nasty,” I surmised. There was a state salt shaker prepping the intersection of William and I-55, so I wasn’t the only one concerned.

MODOT painted an ugly picture

My weather apps couldn’t make up their minds about heavy snow, light snow, no snow, etc. I saw a bunch of posts from truckers saying that north central MO highways were littered with wrecks, and a glance at the MODOT Traveler Information Map showed that almost everything but SE MO was painted as partially covered, totally covered or Don’t Even Think About It.

Facing a frosty flag

When ice finally did start forming, I debated taking a drive to see if it was worth shooting, but it didn’t look all that exciting, so I gave it a pass.

When I woke up this morning, I saw icicles hanging off the carport again. My all-weather, lighted flag had a strange look to it. It had gotten wet, then frozen overnight. It thawed out fine later in the day, but it looked odd for a few hours.

The closeup at the top of the page looks positively arty. You can click on the images to make them larger.

July 29, 2016

Clouds Over Tower Rock

If it’s Wednesday night, that means it’s Liver & Onions night at The Mississippi Mud Tavern in Altenburg. Buddy Gerard and I usually top off the evening with a trip down to Tower Rock to check on water levels and see if any boats are passing.

This night, the only boat traffic we heard on my scanner was far, far away and breaking up, so the prospects of seeing a towboat go by was slim. Radar was painting some strong storms around, but they were mostly east and south of our position. Still, these clouds made for a pretty picture. Click on it to make it larger.

I was sort of hoping for a shot like this recent visit.

I ran into some heavy rain north of Fruitland, but Jackson must have REALLY gotten a deluge, based on how the creeks were running.

November 18, 2015

Serious Rain in SE Missouri

When Curator Jessica and I left St. Louis for Cape in the late afternoon Tuesday, we started out in drizzle to moderate rain. By the time we got south of St. Genevieve, we were in heavy rain, and from north of Fruitland through Jackson, we were in rain as hard as I’ve seen in some Cat 1 hurricanes.

Rain in St. Louis on Monday was heavy at times, but when I pulled onto Brother Mark’s street across from the Botanical Gardens, it had slacked off. The trees in his neighborhood still have some colorful leaves, but they are falling fast.

By the way. on the way home, I stopped at Pevely to top off my tank. Where I was excited about paying $1.73 a gallon for gas on Monday, it had gone down to $1.69. I noticed the price jumped in 10-cent increments the further south you drove.