Tornado Season Ahead Of Schedule

Severe weather started last weekend in Missouri as officials estimated more than $1 billion in damages in St. Louis alone from a storm.

This started a four day stretch when more than two dozen people were killed across multiple states. 

(WFLD) In Chicago a major dust storm swept across the city as part of the massive weather system. 

(Tim Easley) Clean up in Kentucky took most of the week from the same weekend system. Here in the central part of the state, residents had little warning to take shelter.

Lonnie Nantz, London, Kentucky: “All the walls in the hallways are still there, they stayed there. And the rest of the outside walls, you see them, most of them fell in. That one right behind me is still standing, but you can see it's in bad shape.”

(Credit: KWCH) A round of storms came through middle Kansas on Monday slamming the town of Plevna. 

Several homes were damaged. Here, the roof and a pair of walls were peeled off this home, trees downed in several neighborhoods and even this farm machinery building was impacted with a combine covered in ceiling and support walls. 

Then it was another system Tuesday in Alabama. This funnel cloud in the northern community of Madison forced residents to take shelter. 

The U.S. is on track to have its second-busiest tornado year ever.

Widespread precipitation from the Rockies to the East Coast resulted in at least one inch of rainfall with some locations receiving as much as 6 to ten inches. 

Parts of Iowa were included in the deluge as a small band of four inch rains were reported in a 100 mile band. Corn planting is nearly complete Iowa at 91 percent. Nationally, the pace is 78 percent, 5 points better than the 5-year average. But rains will limit much of the state’s progress towards the finish line.

The above-normal totals helped alleviate some dry conditions in the weekly Drought Monitor which hit its smallest level since July with 47.7 percent of the country in some form of drought.

Areas of the mountain time zone to the west, missed on the big rains, and southern Texas, New Mexico and Arizona stay locked in the most serious levels of drought in the data cutoff of Tuesday morning.

The 6-10 day forecast calls for below to normal temperatures in the most moisture-laden areas while the driest locations could experience at or above normal temperatures. 

For Market to Market, I’m Peter Tubbs.