Project Vortex 2 Year 1 Summary

This is a summary of what project Vortex 2 accomplished during their first year of operation. It was a very slow severe weather season in 2009, at least within the project’s time and space domain.

The Missouri State University chase class converged with the Vortex 2 armada in Sterling, CO on the evening of Thursday June 4th, the day before they (and Vortex 2!) caught their first tornado near LaGrange, WY, indicated by the red dot on the map.

Many of you on the trip were aware that Matt Gingery parted ways with us in Clinton, MO while on the way home Sunday to go chase in northwest Missouri! On this day, one storm in particular crossed into extreme northwest Missouri. It was well-sampled by Vortex 2 but non-tornadic during the sampling. I believe Matt blogged about this chase on this site. If not, I’m sure he can chime in!

I’ll be curious to see if data collected from that storm produces any insight as to why a tornado didn’t form.

More on Project Vortex 2.

The inserted slide was from a Powerpoint presentation with the following authors listed:

Howie Bluestein (University of Oklahoma)
Don Burgess (CIMMS)
David Dowell (NCAR)
Paul Markowski (Penn State)
Erik Rasmussen (CIMMS)
Yvette Richardson (Penn State)
Lou Wicker (NSSL)
Josh Wurman (CSWR)

Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind

Severe Weather Conference

I attended the College of DuPage Severe Weather Symposium held from November 5-7 in Downers Grove, IL.

Some background: the College of DuPage has the longest running, organized storm chase class which just passed its twentieth chase season. Other courses offered at the college provide beginning students of meteorology a “leg up” by providing valuable hands on experience. The program is headed up by professor Paul Sirvakta. Paul is a genuinely nice guy and great facilitator which is why the program is such a success.

Many of you may know that Missouri State University offered a similar (at least logistically) chase class this past June ‘09. It is safe to say that the framework, it not the actual seed for the idea, came from the College of DuPage program.

You can read more about this and other severe weather topics at the website listed below.


Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind

Rain, Rain, Rain

Yesterday’s rain total for Springfield was logged at 1.72″ which is a record for that date, 10/29. This has pushed our October rain total to 9.97″ or 6.75″ above a normal October!

The heaviest rain areas occurred east and southeast of Springfield and included numerous 4″ plus totals and even a few over the 5″ mark.

The National Weather Service has a complete rainfall report here.

Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind

Late Week Storm

The story of the week is the approach of a powerful storm in the upper atmosphere, scheduled to arrive in the Thursday/Friday time frame.

The system is expected to "occlude" which means the most unstable air should stay south of the majority of the Ozarks. This should have the affect of keeping widespread severe thunderstorms either out of our area or possible south of Springfield in extreme southern Missouri or northern Arkansas.

Rainfall seems to be exploding more to our east and southeast as per the HPC rainfall forecast. Computer model forecasts for Springfield specifically are all over, ranging from only around .25" to well over 1.00". It seems as if areas most likely to skew to inches of rain would be areas to the south and southeast of Springfield.

Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind

Big Storm Late Week

The system hung up over the Ozarks Monday and Tuesday is wet but rather weak.

A much stronger weather system is taking shape for Thursday and Friday, one which will bring strong, possibly severe, storms to the Ozarks along with more heavy rain.

More on this developing storm on KOLR News at 5, 6 & 10 and Fox News @ Nine!


Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind

Coolest Has Ruled!

It's interesting to note that since July, every month has seen its average temperature below normal:

July: -4.3
August: -3.8
September: -2.2
October(through 25th): -7.6

I will talk more about these stats and also "reflect" on the unusual amount of rain and cloud days through this same period tonight at 5, 6 & 10 on KOLR and FOX News @ Nine!


Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind

Frost/Freeze Tonight

The clouds we've been wanting to get rid of will finally break rather quickly tonight allowing temperatures to plummet!

The center of the high where the calmest winds will be will pass over central Missouri tonight and this area is under the greatest risk for a sun-freezing low temperature. The rest of the area will likely experience a pretty good frost.

Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind