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In this post, I am examining the causes of the worst heat waves ever recorded in the WLFI  viewing area. To be in the list, there must be 3 or more consecutive days at or above 100 &/or 5 or more occurrences of 100 or greater in a given month.  Basis of the data is through the National Weather Service’s West Lafayette COOP station, which dates back to 1901.  Data prior to 1901 is gleaned from the Lafayette Signal Station.  These weather stations were set up prior to the more modern COOP network.  Diaries & newspapers were considered for old, old data prior to 1870.

I am digging

July 1881:

July 21-27, 1901:

July 2-6, 1911:

July 26-30, 1916:

July 18-21, 1930:

July 14-18, 1931:

July 18-22, 1932:

1934

1936

1954

Still working on this post…………

It was a nice, brief “cool snap” while it lasted, but a long stretch of hot weather is arriving.

Highs today warmed up to as high as 88.1 degrees after morning lows into the 50s on Tuesday morning.

No significant weather pattern change will result in an increasingly stagnant, dirty, pollen-filled airmass across the WLFI viewing area through at least mid next week.

Some scattered storms will bubble up over the weekend & to start next week.  Some are even possible mid-next week.  Right now, it appears these will be scattered, unorganized, rather slow-moving, pulsey storms with no wind fields to support them much.  No widespread heavy storms or severe events are expected given current data.  The main severe threat will evolve where stronger wind fields in the atmosphere exist:  in the northern 1/3 of the U.S.

Hot, humid, hazy weather will dominate with highs at or above 90 with heat indices near 100 through mid-next week (at least).  Given the drier soils & longer night length, most of our nights will be allowed to drop 65-70 degrees however.  It doesn’t look like the really oppressive overnights in the upper 70s like the last heat wave.

Images coming soon…………

This morning, a bowing segment raced across our northern counties with sporadic damaging straight-line winds from Starke to Miami County.  Some hail to penny-size occurred.  Widespread wind damage occurred in northeastern Illinois from this bow, but wind became discontinuous with arrival into our viewing area.  The outflow boundary from the bow traversed the entire WLFI viewing area with a wind shift to the north.

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Multi-cell clusters & couple supercells passed lastnight with sporadic wind damage from White to Howard County.  Some hail of pea size occurred.  Trees up to 5′ in diameter & powerlines were downed in Carroll County from +70 mph winds.  For such large trees to be uprooted/snapped (depending on the species & degree of any rot in the tree) gusts over 70 mph are likely.  If it is an oak that is that large with little rot & it is snapped or uprooted, you are talking winds over 80 mph.  The 100 mph Benton County microbursts snapped large oaks at the base.

A barn was unroofed near Greentown & trees & limbs were downed near Kokomo, Russiaville, Sharpsville & Greentown with wind gusts to 71 mph.

Power poles were snapped in northeast Carroll County.  To snap a power pole, it takes a 70 mph wind (depending on the age of the pole).  Poles less than 3 years old usually require 80 mph gust to be totally snapped.

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August 4, 2010 Overnight HP Supercells & Multi-cells

Multi-cell clusters & couple supercells passed lastnight with sporadic wind damage from White to Howard County.  Some hail of pea size occurred.  Trees up to 5′ in diameter & powerlines were downed in Carroll County from +70 mph winds.  For such large trees to be uprooted/snapped (depending on the species & degree of any rot in the tree) gusts over 70 mph are likely.  If it is an oak that is that large with little rot & it is snapped or uprooted, you are talking winds over 80 mph.  The 100 mph Benton County microbursts snapped large oaks at the base.

A barn was unroofed near Greentown & trees & limbs were downed near Kokomo, Russiaville, Sharpsville & Greentown with wind gusts to 71 mph.  Large trees were also blown down from the Howard County line to near Russiaville.  At one point over 2500 households were in the dark from this event.

Power poles were snapped in northeast Carroll County.  To snap a power pole, it takes a 70 mph wind (depending on the age of the pole).  Strong, new poles less than 3 years old usually require 80 mph gust to be totally snapped.

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August 4, 2010 Morning Bow Echo

This morning, a bowing segment raced across our northern counties with sporadic damaging straight-line winds from Starke to Miami County.  Some hail to penny-size occurred.  Widespread wind damage occurred in northeastern Illinois from this bow, but wind became discontinuous with arrival into our viewing area.  The outflow boundary from the bow traversed the entire WLFI viewing area with a wind shift to the north.

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August 4, 2010 Evening Pulsey Multi-Cell Cluster

A multi-cell cluster of storms formed at the intersection of two outflow boundaries via morning bow in our northeastern counties & storms in Iowa.  A remnant vortex or MCV from the Nebraska/Iowa storms helped to initiate storms in a very hot & rather unstable airmass.

Storms were a bit pulsey in nature, producing sporadic damaging wind belches in parts of the WLFI viewing area.

STORM REPORTS:

Cass County:

East of Galveston:  A 60′ & 100′ tall tree blown.

East of Galveston:  Corn bent/damaged by wind.

Miami County:

60 mph gust at Route 18 & U.S. 31

50 mph gust at Bunker Hill

Boone County:

Large tree down blocking across county road east of Lebanon.

Tippecanoe County:

Tree blown over part of road at Route 28 & U.S. 231 at Romney.

Clinton County:

Tree blown down at Kirklin.

Limbs down in northern Clinton County.

50 mph wind gust reported at Fickle (Clinton County).

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Severe sounding:

Flooding sounding:

June 21, 2010 Severe Outbreak (Splitting Supercells)

On the evening of June 21 a supercell with a history of tornadoes split into two supercells as they tracked across the WLFI viewing area.

As usual with splitting supercells, one of the cells rotated counterclockwise, the other clockwise after a split.  One is often a left turner, the other a right-turner & this was no exception.

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Severe Reports:

Warren County:

Heavy damage to a farm with damaged/destroyed farm buildiings, damaged grain bins, grain drier push by the wind & auger twisted/mangled.

North of Williamsport:  Numerous trees & tree limbs downed with heaviest damage about 5 miles north of town.

North of Williamsport:  Spotter reported “lots of debri in the air” & 80 mph wind gust.

North of Williamsport:  Received another reported of “at least” 80 mph wind gust between Attica & Williamsport.

West Lebanon:  Trees & limbs downed.

West Lebanon:  60 mph wind gust.

Tippecanoe County: 

7 Miles Southwest of Lafayette:  Tree down at West Point Near Route 25 & County Road 750 West. 

10 Miles South of Lafayette:  60 mph wind gust.

Romney:  Tree down & limbs down.

Romney:  60 mph wind gust.

Montgomery County:

North of Crawfordsville:  62 mph wind gust measured.

Newton County:

South of Enos:  Power pole down on U.S. 41

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Damaging winds & golfball-sized hail moving through southern Benton County now between Oxford & Pine Village.

Cornfields have reportedly been destroyed by this hail.

Trees are down in Boswell with the hail.