Community Wide Drive for Disaster Relief

If you've been thinking of a way to help the victims of the deadly tornado in Oklahoma earlier this week we have just the thing for you!  CBS4 is proud to partner up with the American Red Cross this Friday for a Community Wide Drive for Disaster Relief! 

We'll be collecting monetary donations all day long on Friday at Schwiebert Park in Rock Island and we'd love to see you!  All you have to do is drive up and roll your window down, we'll practically do the rest!  The event runs from 5am to 6:30pm on Friday, May 24th...check our website for more info: cbs4qc.com

Nice Tuesday Evening

So we had no CBS4 News at 6pm today - CBS News had a special 90 minutes of CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.  I had a few extra minutes for dinner so I checked things out at Scwiebert Park in Rock Island!  I've bee nthere many times but each time I go I think about what a great job Rock Island did with this park!  It's great down there and every time I'm there I always see a lot of people having a great time! 

Here's a shot of Davenport this evening, with some nice cumulus clouds!

Stormy Week Rolls On

After a relatively quiet 12 months of severe weather across the country things have taken a deadly turn for the worse over the last week or so!  Starting late last week the atmosphere was primed for several severe weather outbreaks and that nasty trend continues this week. 

Parts of Moore, OK, were leveled today by an EF-4 tornado (EF-4 at least, an official survey report will come out in the days to come.)  This is the same town that was crushed by an EF-5 tornado back in May, 1999.  What makes this even more difficult to stomach - tens of elementary students are among those killed by today's twister...

Follow CBS News for the latest on the awful events of May 20th in Oklahoma...

Here's an early look at some of the storm reports from the SPC today...

More Than Just the QCA Affected by Severe Storms

The severe weather that affected the Quad Cities area Sunday also left its mark in many other areas across the country.  Here is a look at the storm reports from Sunday.  There were 130 hail reports, 168 wind reports, and 23 reports or tornadoes.

One of those tornado reports came from just north of the Quad Cities, between Thompson and Argo Fay in Illinois.  Fortunately, no injuries were reported in the area and there were only minor reports of damage.

More severe weather is possible on Monday due to this slow moving, pesky upper level low off to our west.

Of course, you can count on us here at CBS4 to keep you updated on any severe weather that does develop.

Meteorologist Kyle Kiel

Slight Risk for Severe T-Storms Sunday

Most of our Friday night looks fine, and Saturday looks good too!  Things change though on Sunday, when we have a slight risk for severe thunderstorms starting late in the afternoon!  Sunday warms up quite a bit, with highs into the middle 80s!  Humidity creeps up a little also, and a cold front will be approaching from the West...while it's still a complicated forecast and things could change over the next 48 hours, areas West of the Quad Cities especially are on track for thunderstorms.  Our biggest threats look to be hail and strong winds!

A Good Tornado Record To Set

It's been a very quiet year for tornadoes across Iowa and it's record setting!

As of yesterday, the state has gone 356 days without a tornado.  The last touchdown was back on May 24, 2012, near Hawkeye, in Fayette County, which is located in northeastern Iowa near the borders of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The previous record of 355 days was established between May 5, 1955, and April 26, 1956.

There is a chance that that streak may come to an end late this weekend or early next week.  Here is the latest severe weather threat map from the Storm Prediction Center.

That red shaded area is for Sunday and Sunday night and the purple shading is for Monday and Monday night.  It indicates where there is, at least, a 30% chance of either damaging winds, large hail, or tornadoes.

We'll continue to monitor this situation and keep you updated.

Anthony Peoples
CBS4 meteorologist

Quiet Tornado Season... So Far

For those of you that love the sound of thunder or the thrill of a severe thunderstorm, you've had a rather dismal spring here in the Midwest. 

However, that could change later this weekend into early next week.  While we have a daily chances of scattered showers and thunderstorms, along with a sun and cloud mix, there are growing indications that we could see some strong to severe storms later Sunday into Monday.

Here is where the Storm Prediction Center expects the best chances of severe storms this weekend.

The red is for the Saturday and Saturday night time period, the purple is for Sunday and Sunday night, and the green is Monday and Monday night.  Keep in mind that this is still days away and the forecast will be fine tuned between now and the weekend.

This spring has been rather quiet for tornadoes reported to the Storm Prediction Center.  In the first 14 days of May, there have only been 19 reported tornadoes.

In April 2013, there were only 97 with 26 of those reported on April 11th.  March 2013 saw only 24 reported tornadoes.

Strangely enough, January and February 2013 was easily much more active than March, April, and the first part of May.

In January 2013, there were 94 reported tornadoes.  68 of those were on January 29th across the Mid-South and the following day, 15 tornadoes were reported over the southeastern United States.

In February 2013, there were 54 reported tornadoes. 

From a climatological standpoint, we see the fewest tornadoes in the United States in the winter months of December, January, and February.

Have a great rest of the week.

Anthony Peoples
CBS4 meteorologist

Record highs - May 14th

We missed our record high by a few degrees today, but there were plenty of records broken through the middle part of the country!  What's even more remarkable...a lot of places that had snow in early May soared into the 90s/100s today!  Sioux City, IA broke the record for May 14th, and for the whole month of May this afternoon!

This is a SMALL sampling of some of the record highs set today!

From Near Record Lows to Near Record Highs!

It won't take long this week to go from near record lows to near record highs!  Seriously, a little less than 36 hours is all it will take!  The record low for Monday morning in the Quad Cities is 31°, set in 1971, and we bottomed out at 32°!  The record high Tuesday afternoon is 93°, set in 2007, and we should top out around 90°!

It's not often you see a temp spread like this in such a short time!

Frost Advisory

If you helped Mom plant some new flowers outside today you better help her cover them up tonight!  With temps into the middle 30s late tonight there will be some patchy frost across parts of the area.  Most of the CBS4 viewing area, including the Quad Cities, is under a Frost Adviosry tonight! 

This should be the end of the really cold weather this season though!  By Monday afternoon we're near 70° and we should be way up in the 80s Tuesday afternoon!