The current severe weather map shows the entire midsection of the country to be at risk.





Just keep chanting: this is all just a normal cycle, this is all just a normal cycle. Many meteorologists will agree. They might be right. The Gulf of Mexico has been this warm in April before.

I live smack dab in the blue area so tonight should be interesting. Worst thing, yesterday I went to open my garage door and it wouldn't open. Between when I left home Friday morning and the time I got back, the tension spring on my garage door just broke. I can't get it fixed until Monday. I hope that there isn't any hail or if there is, it doesn't do much damage to my car.

Take good care of yourself, Babs

Thanks for the good wishes.

yeah we like u Babs.

I'm so glad because I really like and enjoy you and everyone else at Fogbow. I feel like you guys are family -- only in a good way with no fights at the Thanksgiving table, no drunken brawls at Christmas and no eating my Halloween candy!

Uhh, you got any KitKat bars?

If you got any of those mini Milky Way Darks, they're MINE.

Stay safe, Babs!

Taverl and Foggy, since I don't like Kit Kat bars or Milky Way bars, you can gladly have mine. Now if you want my Snickers bars, Gummy Bears, Cadbury's Eggs or red licorice, well I'll just have to fight you. Sadly, I am a candyolic. I try to never bring a bag of candy into the house because if it's in my house, it is in my mouth and gone before I know it.

I'm glad I never did drugs or had a craving for alcohol because if I reacted to them like I do to the presence of candy, well let's say I would probably be dead by now. As it is, I keep thinking to myself, this could be my last day on earth. Maybe I should make a visit to the grocery store and buy all my favorite candies and eat them until I get sick. It would keep my mind off the dying part and/or tornados -- or so I try to tell myself. With my luck, I'd live and put on 5 pounds overnight and go into a sugar induced coma. I know there is no God because if there were, candy would be good for you and things like kale, Brussels spouts and broccoli would be both fattening and bad for you.

Videos: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/14/us/midwest-storms/index.html

We had some wind earlier but still haven't seen rain. Hope everyone else fairs as well.

I just cross-checked some 50-yr tornado maps of my area. To my horror I discovered 2 very powerful tornado paths intersected 2 blocks from my house seven years apart. I am glad I don't live on that street! AND a third passed within 3 blocks of my house and a fourth 6 blocks!
The first 3 went through my neighborhood. I would have thought the odds would have been staggering. Am I more likely to be struck by a tornado than lightning? Considering I don't live near Joplin, Tuscaloosa, Witchita. OKC, Dallas, Wichita Falls, I am shocked.

My mother, aunt, and daughter are near Dallas and I just checked the Weather.com map.

The front should go through there between 6 and 8 AM. Since there is less atmospheric energy in early morning hours it shouldn't be as bad as some areas received today.

My area near the Louisiana border might get hit fairly hard since the storm will get here in late tomorrow afternoon.

Stay safe in the morning.

A year or two before my house was built, a tornado touched ground right where my house is now. I'm hoping that the odds are such that if, or when, another tornado travels the same path I'll be long gone. I've been lucky. Our TV weathermen can track tornado down to the nearest cross streets. Twice there have been tornados that were heading on a path that would/should have been directly over my house -- and both times the tornados changed paths at almost the last minute so they moved slightly to the north just enough that they missed my house by less than a mile.

I was lucky yeserday. At least 2 tornados touched down in the city (with a lot of injuries) I live in but they were far enough south that all I experienced was lots of rains and really strong winds. Unfortunately, I can expect more tornados between now and the end of tornado season which is about the end of May.

The south side of Wichita, the largest city in Kansas, was hit by a probable tornado. There was significant damage, especially to a trailer park, but no injuries have been reported yet. As of this morning, people are still digging through the rubble of the trailer park. One article reported that last night was "uncontrolled chaos" in Wichita, but it looks as if the heightened warning system might have saved lives. Tornado watches are still in effect and are likely to extend into Monday. This is tomorrow's forecast by Accuweather of severe weather:

I was really surprised to discover Witchita was the largest city. I never realized it was that big. For some reason, I always thought the population was less than 100,000 and that Kansas City had to be much larger than it is. I try to learn something new each day and this is my "new thing" for today. I can waste the rest of the day mindlessly watching TV or something equally frivolous.

eWeather HD has added Push Notifications for severe weather in your location. This could be a life-saver. Do turn down the monitoring of earthquakes from infinite distance to something closer to home and increase the magnitude of earthquakes that appear on the screen, lest you be flooded with information about this active earth. Both iPhone and Android apps are available.

Accuweather May 09, 2012

Tornado Count Way Down For 2012 By Alex Sosnowski

(I have no idea whether this link can be seen with a Premium subscription of some sort to Accuweather.)

In comparison to 2011, the number of tornadoes (as of May 7, 2012) is moving down to the 12-year moving average count.

No cold air in the Deep South this winter. Unusually warm late winter and early spring in Midwest and Atlantic states. Ground is warm over central part of nation. Gulf of Mexico is warm.

There could hardly be a clearer example of why forecasting the effects of climate change is difficult.