Major Update 1: Tornado warnings issued fohttp://img18.imageshack.us/... St Louis, suburbs and exurbs. This is getting ugly.
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Tornado watches and warnings have been issued from Texas to Illinois along a rapidly intensifying line of severe thunderstorms that crosses Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. A tornado was reported on the ground in Bowling Green Missouri.
This tornado, sighted over Bowling Green, did minor damage.
Photo, public submission to TV station by viewer Bradley Francis.
A tornado is now reported on the ground from the same thunderstorm.
AT 620 PM CDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO NEAR KINCAID...OR 9 MILES NORTHWEST OF TAYLORVILLE. DOPPLER RADAR SHOWED THIS TORNADO MOVING EAST AT 50 MPH.
Severe thunderstorms are now approaching St. Louis.
The line of severe thunderstorms is bright white in the middle of the continent.
A tornado producing thunderstorm has tracked from west of St. Louis to northeast of St. Louis. The extent of damage is not known yet, but the storm has had a long track. First reports said the town of Bowling Green Mo was hit but suffered little damage. More recent reports say a tornado was spotted on the ground but are too recent to report damage.
An intensifying low pressure area, now centered in Illinois, with a large swath of warm, humid air south of strong warm front is setting the stage for the outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes ahead of the approaching cold front.
Conditions are ripe for the development of more severe storms including more tornadoes. One of the weather services experimental indices for predicting tornadoes indicates that severe storms may extend into southern Indiana later tonight.
