Month: January 2018

Saturday, February 24, 2018 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Battlefield Mall, Springfield, Missouri

Battlefield Mall will host the 2018 Severe Weather Awareness Expo along with the National Weather Service and other local agencies and partners to better equip Southwest Missouri communities to prepare for the upcoming severe weather season of tornadoes, flash flooding and severe storms. The event will be located in the East Court of the mall and it is free to attend. Mark your calendars for Saturday, February 24th from 10 am to 2 pm…Bring the whole family! An interactive map to Battlefield Mall is available below.

Missouri is known for its dangerous weather ranging from tornadoes, to extreme flooding, and even winter storms. It’s important for Missourians to know about weather safety since we have the extremes. The Severe Weather Awareness Expo at the Battlefield Mall is to inform the community on how to keep their families safe before and after severe weather hits.

NWS Springfield along with other local partner agencies and media outlets will be there to educate the community on severe weather. There will be fun interactive activities and educational material for everyone. We will have our tornado simulation machine on display. There will be meteorologists there to answer your questions and even help you program your NOAA weather radio.

Also trained spotters and volunteers from Southwest Missouri Regional Skywarn will be on hand as well to answer any questions you might have about getting involved with weather spotting via amateur radio. We hope to see you there.

Getting the Buffalo Repeater moved to its new home on the KRBK television tower in Polk, Missouri continues to be a very long yet steady process, but we’re getting close! As you may remember from previous updates, the biggest delay in this project has been the need for us to construct our own “repeater shack” because we are unable to mount our equipment inside of the existing building at the tower site.

Construction of the shack is almost complete (pictured left). Electrical wiring has been installed (pictured below). Once the finishing touches including paint and roofing material are in place, it will be time to move the structure to the tower site. As you can see in the photo to the left, the shack is already sitting on the utility trailer that will be used to transport it.

We thank everyone for their patience and understanding throughout this process. For those of you who donated toward this project, the fruits of your giving will be recognized soon.

More updates on the progress of this repeater are forthcoming. Stay tuned.

The National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri is confirming that a brief EF-1 tornado touched down Sunday night near Mount Vernon and Hoberg, Missouri. The NWS storm survey reports the tornado hit about two miles southeast of Hoberg at about 8:04 p.m. and traveled for about one and a half miles on the ground. It was approximately 75 yards wide and had peak winds of nearly 95 miles per hour. Surveyors say four outbuildings, an irrigation system, two ski boats, and numerous trees were destroyed. Other minor damage occurred to a house and a larger outbuilding. No injuries were reported.

Above left is a Doppler radar image showing relative wind velocities at the time the tornado touched down. The area with bright green next to dark red indicates the rotation

The National Weather Service says the tornado was spawned “when a strong spring-like upper level and slightly negative tilted trough moved across the Ozarks region Sunday evening. The atmospheric environment was highly sheared with low instability.”

Below is a map of the tornado’s path. For more details including photos of damage caused by the tornado, click here.