Wild Weather Across the US

The past few days have been a wild one all across the country.  A rather large fall storm has been spinning about in the planes states for a few days now, and has everything from large, damaging tornadoes to upwards of 4 feet of snow!  Click HERE for video of the blizzard conditions in Wall, SD.

Closer to home, tornadoes touched down in parts of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska.  Here is the Storm Prediction Center's storm reports from Friday.

 There were 18 reports of tornadoes across the two states.  The National Weather Service says preliminary assessments lead to an EF4 tornado nearly leveled the town of Wayne, Nebraska Friday evening.  EF4 tornadoes of winds between 166mph and 200mph!  There were also several other reports of EF1 and EF2 tornadoes across IA & NE, having winds anywhere between 100mph and 135mph.  It was a very active day.  CLICK HERE to see a slide show of the storms that affected the Sioux City area from our sister station KCAU-TV.  Amazing photos.  Luckily there were no reports of death or *major* injuries.

Those tornadoes were in association with a trailing cold front from the intense low pressure system.  That cold front rolled through the Quad Cities around midday Saturday, having just a few scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms.  We did not have the instability from daytime heating to produce any severe weather.  Temperatures will cool down into the 50s with scattered showers in the afternoon on Sunday as the low pressure moves over our area.

There is also a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico.  "Tropical Storm Karen" is in a weakening stage and is expected to affect parts of southern Louisiana as early as tomorrow!  Karen has struggled to stay alive due to a dry air & high shear environment, both unsuitable for tropical development.