A Little Song For You...

In a post related to my earlier post today... Here is a little jingle I found from an Irish Pop Girl Group... Interesting~~~~

Let's Talk Percentages....

A good part of Region 8 saw lots of sunshine today, much like the image you see above that was taken from Indian Stadium at about 6:00pm. However, not everyone had a great day in the world of weather in Region 8. In fact, at the same time this picture was taken from Indian Stadium, the below image of Storm Vision radar was also snapped. It shows warnings in a few of our Missouri Counties in Region 8. When this image was taken, there was golfball size hail falling in in Campbell, MO and the winds were blowing over 60 mph! It was nice and sunny in Jonesboro! This wasn't just something that popped up late in the day either... Earlier in the afternoon we had a lot of hail falling in and around Doniphan community. Here are some pictures from a couple of our viewers.

The reason I am posting all of the evidence of bad weather today is to show everyone that when we say that there is a 50% chance of thunderstorms that there will be many locations that will NOT see rain. In fact, they may see sunshine all day long.... especially on a day like today. We have a cold pool of air aloft and we actually NEED the sunshine to help the rain develop. It's what some of us call "Self-Destructing Sunshine". The sun comes out... it warms the lower layer of the atmosphere... the unstable air rise... thunderstorms form... sun goes bye-bye.

When we say that there is a 50% chance of storms... it means that there is a 50% chance that it will rain at any given location within the area. It does NOT necessarily mean that 50% of the day it will rain. I does NOT necessarily mean that 50% of the area will see rain. It means that you have a 50% chance of seeing rain on your head given the atmospheric conditions that are present.

I know some of you smart ellic people are saying, "Isn't there always a 50/50 shot at rain?".... All I can say is ...NO. If we have a big high pressure center parked over us... rain chances will be MUCH lower. Here's a cool link from meteorologist Jeff Haby about using percentages... click here.

Here's some "behind the scenes" info for you blog readers.... I decided to write about this after my GM sent me an email wondering why he did not have rain today at his house....HaHa!

Anywho, take care and email anytime!

Ryan

rvauaghan@kait8.com

UPDATE: Tornado reported on the ground in New Madrid County... More details at 10:00.

For You Alabamans...

For all of you Alabamans that are still reading the blog... I got a short email from Jeff Gerber tonight! Cool huh? A usual... he made fun of me and my blog, so I decided to put his mug on the blog again! Ole Gerber and I had some great times back at the old WSFA...

Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

Kid Update....

In case you were wondering, the kids are loving the swing set that I wrote about a week or so ago. As you can see in the above pictures, the swings put a big smile on their face!

In other news, I gave my oldest son a buzzcut this morning! The first picture is the before shot. He had some shaggy hair! The second picture is the new and improved summertime cut! Of course it was much colder today due to the temperature and lack of insulation!!!

Take care and feel free to email me anytime,
Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

Hit Again!

I got to go out in the Wood Ford StormTRACKER last night as you may have seen on the news last night or during the cut-ins that we did as the storms were rumbling through. Once again, the Bootheel got slammed. It was nothing like the storm from April 2nd, but it still caused some damage. I spoke to one guy that got hit by BOTH storms. On April 2nd, half of his barn blew away... this time the rest of it blew away! When will we catch a break! I also encountered the aftermath of an intense hail storm. The ground was covered and the roads were slick!

Here are the severe weather reports from last night... click here. The tornado we were with was ruled an F1.

Take care,

Ryan

rvaughan@kait8.com

Crash Landings!

Last week my Dad gave me a remote control airplane. It survived the first crash... It survived the second crash... and third... and forth. Each time a little more of it cracked away until it would fly no more. You might want to click the picture to make it larger, but believe me... it use to be an airplane. It's name was the "Yellow Bee". I even let my oldest son fly it the last time and the right wing broke off in mid-flight.

Oh well, I am not much of a pilot... but we had a great time as we tore it to shreds!

Have a great day!
Ryan

Someone Tricked Her...

I'm guessing that someone tricked this girl into thinking I would do her homework for her. Apparently she did not read my blog entry from a few weeks back... Click here if you missed it. I don't do people's homework.

Here's the email... I removed her name to protect her identity!

Hi Ryan.. My name is (some girl) and i have to do i project for school where we have to record the local weather conditions over a two week period.And this girl in my class told me that she emailed you and you sent her everything she needed to know. So i was wondering, We have to record the Highs and Lows, Precipitation, and Wind Speed. So if you have even the last two weeks weather conditions or this weeks that would be great. And if you cant do it its know problem, i just thought i would email you and give it a shot!
Thanks so much,
(some girl)

Here's my response:

I'm sorry (some girl), but I can't help you out. I would try a Google search to find your missing data. I will tell you that it can be found on the internet.

Take care and good luck on your homework,
Ryan

Oh I wish these kiddos would just do their homework! I know my son will be in the same position one day and when that day comes we are going to have a long talk! All of these kids will thank me one day for not doing their homework for them.

Take care,
Ryan

Kennett Visit Was Awesome!

I had a great day in Kennett today. This may sound corny, but it was nice to see the place almost unharmed after the F3 tornado (that hit Marmaduke) barely missed the city. I visited three places today. All three were different ages. All three "talks" I gave were very different. Here's how it went:

9:00 am---Church of God Daycare, 2-5 year-olders- We talked about weather safety, the tornado, and we hit the lights and sirens on the Wood Ford StormTracker!

10:30 am--- Elementary School, 2nd graders- We had a blast! They had the best welcome I have EVER had at a school!!! They had the hall decorated with K8 logos that said "Welcome Ryan Vaughan." They had the room decorated! They even sang me a custom made song about me giving them the forecast and keeping them safe! It actually made me blush! One of the kids who LOVES weather also had his birthday celebration today and we had a cake with a tornado on it! His name was Noah Furby, and he was my little helper as we did several science experiments and talked about weather safety. The teacher, Mrs. Prichett, also showed the class and myself video of the tornado from April 2. It was pretty wild! I REALLY had a good time... Those kids have a very caring and energetic teacher that is fired up about her job!

Noon--- At noon I went and spoke to the Kennett Lions Club at the Grecian Steak House. I presented them my PowerPoint presentation on the April 2nd tornado and showed them how blessed Kennett was that day. I made several friends at the Lions Club and actually plan to head back up there in the next week or so to tour the remaining damage from the storm throughout the Bootheel with some of the guys.

I made a connection with folks in Kennett and really look forward to the next time I get to go up there. I'll show some pictures of the visit Sunday night when I hit the airwaves again!

I better get to bed! It's 11:20 and I have to get up early tomorrow to go fly my remote control airplane before it gets too breezy!... Then I have to do yard work... Then it's off to the ASU/Troy baseball game!

Good Night,
Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

More Rain!

We got some rain today (mainly early) and more is coming in for Friday. Here's a look at Storm Vision radar! There will be a few watches and maybe even some warnings, but it does not look to be a big tornado threat.

One more thing, I just got done doing the weather and accidentally said Storm TEAM 12 instead of the K8 Storm TEAM. As you may know, that is from my old station! Oh well, it's not as bad as what I said last night on air when I thought the cameras were off! Ouch...

Anywho, I hope you enjoy the rain!
Ryan Vaughan
rvaughan@kait8.com

Bring It On!!!

From the famous words of The Rocks.... Bring IT! I'm talking about the rain that we are expecting to roll through here over the next couple of days. We should see two rounds. One round will come late tonight and tomorrow (Thursday) morning. This round is not as impressive as the second round that will come through late Thursday into Friday morning. In any case, I think some places may get over 2" of rain in some locations! The HPC also believes that we are going to get some beneficial rain... Take a look at their three day outlook of rain...

Here is some good news too. At this point it does not appear that we will see a whole lot in the way of severe weather! That is GREAT news... I'm not totaling ruling out severe weather because it is still April, but the main threat is going to be to our South. You can checkout the outlooks from the Storm Prediction Center here if you want to read more....

Take care and keep rain dancing!

Ryan

rvaughan@kait8.com

Funny Picture...

If you want a funny Easter picture... checkout Neil Orne's blog by clicking on the link to the left. For those that don't know, Neil was the first person I knew that "blogged". He more or less influenced me to blog too...

-Vaughanski

Great Weekend (kind of)

My dad and stepmom were in town this past weekend and they bought the boys a wooden swing set. Have you ever put together a swing set? The instructions say to allow yourself 6-12 hours to set this booger up and we laughed when we first read that! After see the bag of bolts, I knew that it might just take that long!!! The bag looked like a 2 gallon freezer bag and weighed about 20 lbs!

My dad and I spent all of Saturday afternoon (and evening) putting this sucker together. We were pretty tired this morning during church services! The above picture is one that my stepmom took as we were fighting with one half of the contraption...

What made it even worse was the wind! Everytime we looked at the instructions (yes, we looked at them!) we had to flip around the pages that were messed up from the wind.

It's together now though! Yippee.... The boys are loving it too!

In other news, since my sister was added to my list of blogs, her counter has climbed... Especially from people in Alabama. I didn't know you Alabamians were still bloggin with me! Howdy to yah!!! Anywho, my sister decided she needed to embarrass me.... you may want to go check it out!

Take care,
Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

We need rain!

We need (at least) a good inch or so of rain, but it does not look like it will happen this week. Looking at all of the models, we may squeeze out some rain (especially late-week), but it is not going to add up to much. The HPC agrees too. They are only forecasting about .75" of rain for the grand total over the next 5 days. That might even be generous for many of us! I sure hope we are not in for another dry year!!!

Doing my rain dance,
Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

Sister Enters The Blogosphere!

My sister and bro-in-law have entered the blogosphere and they finally gave me permission to post the link! It's on the left side of the page under "Other Blogs". It's the first link... I must admit, it is a lot better than mine!

Take care!
Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

PS-For thsoe that are confused, this is not the family in Washington...

Back From Vacation!

Good Tuesday everyone! I'm back at work today after taking several days off to go visit family in the Seattle/Tacomo area. As some of you know, my sister and brother-in-law moved there last year because he is in the Army and got stationed there. He is currently in Iraq. While we were there to mainly see family (including my newborn niece!), we got to do some site seeing too! Here are some of the pictures...

One of the many ferries that travel in the area.
A look at Downtown Seattle from the Space Needle! The Space Needle was a VERY cool place to visit as you might imagine!

We spent one day in Mt. Vernon where the Tulip Festival was taking place. It was quite a site!
They not only had Tulips, but daffodils too. We took advantage and made a family picture.

This is a look at Mt. Rainier as we were heading to the top.

The snow was HIGH on our way up to Mt. Rainier. Look at the street sign!

A look from the top at Paradise.
This is the Ranger Station at Paradise. That is some snow!!!
Here is my oldest son holding his new cousin.
My oldest son and my oldest niece went to the Zoo... The Polar Bear was AWESOME!
Both of my boys and niece at the Space Needle. They had a great time...
This is looking down to KOMO 4 news from the Space Needle. They were taping Grey's Anatomy on the helipad.
Here is my ugly mug at the Space Needle, with Downtown in the background.
Here is the Grand Canyon as we were flying home....

I hope you enjoyed!

Ryan

rvaughan@kait8.com

Pray For Marmaduke

I spent a good part of the day with my good friend, Tim Noel, who is a Youth Minister in Marmaduke. I can say first hand that the destruction can simply not be put into words. Despite all of the damage... most of the people are in good spirits! Here are just a few examples of what took place in Marmaduke.... please continue to pray for these people and help them in any way possible! Thanks,
Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

PS- I am going to take off work for several days. I'll be back next Tuesday... Take care!

Viewer Email and Pictures!

Sunday's tornado south of Kennett outside our back door.
Picture taken by Teresa Smith

Tornado at the Kennett Cinema seen between 6:30pm & 7:00pm
Steve Holsten
Kennett, MO

Tornado that ripped through the Missouri Bootheel afternoon of 04/02/06 I give special thanks to my grandson Andrew Carnell for helping get these photo's while I was alerting 911. I am a certified spotter for NSW and NOAA.
They passed right outside our back fence line out on Hwy A between Senath and Kennett with out any damage to our property or our neighbors that we could see. However, as we all know Deering, Brag and Cruthersville did not fair well as they gathered strength from our line of site to do the damage to our out lying towns. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those that lost their homes and perhaps loved one's I have to say perhaps because at this time I am unsure of any deaths at this time.

Sincerely;

Sheena Brown and Andrew Carnell of Kennett Missouri

Photos of storm last night taken looking south over the Eaker Archeological Site, just west of Yarbro Arkansas.
Marion Haynes
Blytheville Research StationA
rkansas Archeological Survey



Hi We were on I-155 south of carutherville,Mo yesterday and took this picture.After it went through we tried to exit on U hwy and the pavement from thesholder of the exit ramp had been blown up onto the concrete part of theroad. "Pretty strong winds". This was about 7:15 PM Lynn Ratliff

This is a tornado picture from today! Address 800 Bridges right by Wynne High School!
Laquita Austin

Mr Vaughan,

Hello. My name is Kathy Morris and I am from Jonesboro, AR. Yesterday during the tornados and severe thunderstorms that happened in Randolph and surrounding counties I was visiting my parents in Pocahontas, AR. Well during the tornados, I managed to get a really good picture of a tornado, pretty closely, it was an interesting day that was for sure.I was in East Pochontas, when I took the picture with my cell phone. We think that it was possibly the tornado that went through Shannon, AR and around Hwy 90 possibly, we are not positive of course but that was our best guess. We were some of the lucky ones, my parents escaped damage and no one was hurt.

Anyhow, the whole point is, I didn't know if you guys might like to have this picture somehow and didn't know where to email it. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those who were in the path of this thing, it was scary enough from where I was at.

Thank you,
Kathy L Morris

These were the clouds that rolled in above the home of David and Cecilia Ragsdale in Weiner earlier this evening. We all thought it was a beautiful sight prior to the storms.
Karen (Ragsdale) Martin

The storm that was southeast of Kennett MO. on Hwy. NN in MO.
Joy Wicker
Cardwell MO.

My daughter, MORGAN HOLLEMAN (14 years old), took this image on her way home from church this evening. The date is not correct on the photos as she has not set the date on her camera.

TAKEN BY WILL PRUETT IN KENNETT-



Pictures of tornado that touched down just south of Wynne at around 7:30pm.I live in the city limits of Wynne and the pictures were taken from my backdoor.
Thanks,Chris Martin
Chelsea Zielinski-
Thanks to everyone who sent pictures! There were WAY too many to post them all, but THANKS to everyone.

Ryan
rvaughan@kait8.com

Tornado Pics...

From Viewer:

Ryan,
This is Corkey Cooksey. Here are some photos of the Tornado and damage in Dunklin Co., Mo.