Weather & Space News Blog
 since Feb. 2003
 WX - Telegraph abbreviation for weather often used with Morse code
 The Wire - Name once given to the telegraph

Severe weather is forecast in north Texas and southern Oklahoma this afternoon and into the night. Tornado and flash flood watches have been posted in many counties. Here’s the current radar loop from the National Weather Service. Warnings are posted in the right column (under ad) in the National/International page. More radar and webcam images in the Dallas/Fort Worth page and Oklahoma City page.

Update on Mississippi severe weather via Google News

From Missouri: Third Saturday Storm Classified As Tornado

Another Storm Brings Spring Snow To Colorado

Molten Moon image posted on SpaceWeather.com

Astronomy picture of the day=Eyeful of Saturn

Tornado warnings have moved from Arkansas this afternoon to Mississippi tonight. Get the latest radar and cams in the Jackson, MS page and other cities/live national radar, plus check out the live weather warnings box under the right column ad in the National/International page…

Memories of tornadoes: La Plata, Maryland, Bounces Back Two Years Later | Many Reminders of Missouri Tornado Two Years Later | Memorial service planned for last week’s Illinois tornado

More cold in Colorado: A cool, wet end to the workweek | Cold, Snow Replacing Spring Weather

WeatherBug’s parent company, AWS Convergence Technologies, has secured $23 million in financing. Details

And finally this evening, take a deep breath before reading: Most Americans live in bad smog areas

Storm blankets western half of Montana; forces at least 2 highway closures

Storm Knocks Out Power For Thousands In Washington State | Weather Service Confirms Twister Hit Near Sumas

April or August in California? Story … Follow heat wave stories via Google News

New NASA Technology Helps Forecasters In Severe Weather Season

A couple of California stories: Warnings, 24-hour info will help boaters, surfers

‘Sizzling’ day around the bay

From SpaceWeather.com: Comet Bradfield isn’t very bright, but it is beautiful. Look for it in the eastern sky before dawn, rising just ahead of the morning sun. Binoculars are required if you live among city lights.

And, Nations near agreement on global climate tracking

An update to deadly flooding over the weekend in northwest Arkansas and western Oklahoma: Four dead in weekend flooding

Rains Force Evacuations, Strand Motorists in Corpus Christi, Texas, area.

A creative way to say it’s still cold: Jack Frost still taking early morning strolls

The Weather Channel experiences its most successful quarter in company history

Project seeks to use airport radar to detect terror attacks

And, on a lighter, cuter, and off-topic note, here are some photos I’ve snapped recently from the phone cam…

My lovely wife with pink Easter bunny:

My lovely dog, Jake, lounging around …

… and drawing his own bath. He’s an incredible dog!

The city where these things happened: Fort Worth (looks like somebody’s had it with this traffic jam):

Southeast Missouri: Tornadoes, injuries reported

Arkansas: Two children swept away in northern Arkansas flooding | Two Counties Declare Flooding Emergencies

An incredible photo of Comet Bradfield posted at SpaceWeather.com

The weather today: Comme ci, comme ça! Louisiana TV station delivers a French forecast

Couple racks up miles, experiences chasing tornadoes across state (Requires registration)

Flood warnings are posted in Arkansas and Missouri, and watches in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Get the latest watches/warnings from Earthwatch and in our National page. Stories: Central Texas flooding | Houston-area flood watch | Southwestern Missouri rain … More radar, weather and webcam resources in your nearest city’s WXnation.com page

SpaceWeather.com has posted some nice pictures: A boat in Honk Kong and the Moon in San Diego

And, some sad news from the world of webcams: Falcon who became Internet star dies. Sympathy cards for the bird have come from as far away as Germany.

Here are some pictures taken this evening of a wall cloud with rotation, which became a funnel cloud. It spawned a tornado warning in far north Fort Worth and Roanoke, Texas. The first image was taken from my home looking to the southwest. The next three, looking north, were taken about 15 minutes later. Click on the images for lighter versions:

Strong thunderstorms are approaching the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. You can track the storms live (broadband, Windows Media Player users that is), at KXAS-TV’s Feedroom – Streaming StormTrack5 Radar (Opens in new window). All warnings can be found in the right column of the National/International page.

From New Mexico: Woman Killed In 18-Car Pileup Caused By Dust Storm

Storm might bring up to 18 inches of snow in Colorado | Get the latest on the storm via Google News

Severe Weather Hits Oklahoma For The Third Day In A Row

And, I’ve added a new feature to the WXnation.com site, which can be located on the homepage under the left column Top 20 cities list. It is a compilation of the Top 20 city pages visited on this site by month, and goes back to the site’s first full month online, March 2002. It gives us a good idea of where weather was happening… Here is the Top 20 city pages direct link.

Flood and tornado warnings have been posted along the Red River north of Dallas/Fort Worth. Get more radar and cam resources in the Dallas/Fort Worth page.

Post from 5 p.m. CDT: Northeastern Oklahoma is being hit by severe weather again today. A tornado has reportedly been spotted east of Tulsa, and the eastern half of the state is under a tornado watch. Get the latest warnings in the National page (under right column ad), and latest radar and webcams in the Tulsa page.

More recent storm stories from Oklahoma: Severe weather strikes Sapulpa again | Illinois: Why killer tornado caught meteorology team by surprise | Indiana: Meteorologist says twisters were unexpected

A different kind of storm in Utah: Residents Without Power After Weather Damages Power Lines, Poles

And a different place altogether: Weather ‘to knock spots off Jupiter’

In webcam news: On the web, Kraftwerk fans pledged money for a future album, which was recorded with webcams in the studio while supporters watched. Details

A nice picture of Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) in Astronomy Picture of the Day

Death toll reaches 8 from Illinois tornado

Tornado warnings were issued this afternoon in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Story from OKC: Hail Pounds Metro; Storms Continue In Parts Of State and a slideshow is currently on their home page. From Fort Smith, AR: Hometown Area Hit By Severe Storms.

More severe weather is possible in Oklahoma and Arkansas Thursday. Get the latest warnings data in the National page (under right column ad) and locally in the Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Little Rock pages.

Tornado warnings have been issued in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Get the latest warnings data in the National page (under right column ad) and locally in the Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Little Rock pages.

Illinois Workers Search Wreckage For Tornado Victims. Includes video and tornado interactive. Also, check out the slideshows in the center column of the nbc5i.com slideshows page. Much more on the storms in yesterday’s post below…

Six hurt, and four dead, according to AP in Illinois tornado … Get the latest stories on the outbreak from Google News. Stories on today’s severe weather outbreak … From Chicago: Tornado Warnings, Watches Issued For Surrounding Areas | Illinois: Tornado hits Illinois town | Indiana: Tornado rips through Boone, Howard counties | Central Indiana Reporting Tornado Touchdowns

Into the late evening, Oklahoma and Missouri were seeing severe storm warnings. Story from Oklahoma | Severe Weather Rolls Across Northeastern Oklahoma. At 6:25 p.m. CDT, the following counties were under tornado warnings: Tipton, IN; Boone, IN … La Salle, IL; Woodford, IL; Stark, IL; Tazewell, IL; Marshall, IL … Antelope, NE; and Holt, NE.

The latest warnings are available in this warnings text page. A full warnings list is in the far right column of the National/Int’l page. Also, check the Tulsa, OK, Chicago, Quad Cities, IA, Omaha, Indianapolis and Fort Wayne pages for cams and weather resources, or visit the WXnation homepage with new national radar and city list by state.

Here it is: a newly-crafted WXnation home page featuring a high-quality current U.S. satellite/radar map that is interactive (stop cursor over area to get nearest city page). The image comes (legally) from CustomWeather, Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of syndicated weather content that launched MyForecast.com 30 days before this site went online. (MyForecast.com links are available in the city pages). Thanks to Murray and Agustin for customizing the image. I’ve set the image to automatically update every 15 minutes. I hope you find it to be a valuable resource when looking for weather conditions across the country and in your backyard, or when tracking storms. I’ve also placed a city-page breakdown by state beneath the new map, and have placed the Top 20 city pages for the month in the left menu. If you miss the old city-text map, it can still be accessed in the right column under the search box.

Please use the comments link below to send your opinions or to convey problems you are encountering with the new image and layout of the home page. You can also e-mail me

I haven’t posted an image here in the weblog since the wall cloud photos entry on April 7, so I figured I’d spruce up the page with a picture I took at my job at KXAS-TV. It’s me looking into the station’s former studio, now construction area, and soon-to-be-renovated studio. I like the spooky effect as the sun was shining on the door… (My co-worker Frank was the first to discover this haunting effect). NOTE: If you want more (why would you?), clicking on the picture launches a new window and a slightly different/more scary picture!

Hot Weather Posing Boston Marathon Risks

AIM users to get weather updates

Meteorologists confirm tornado in upstate New York | Severe Weather Damages Ontario County

Severe Weather Hits Siouxland

Storm system, tornadoes spin through Minnesota

Tornadoes, Hail Reported In Northeastern Nebraska

OU storm-chasers work to help warn Oklahomans of tornadoes sooner