Thank you to the person or company yesterday that took out seven licenses for my photography .  You will find a wide range outdoor scenes, especially pertaining to spring and summer. 

The area in in yellow has an enhanced  risk of tornadoes later today. The hatching is where a strong tornado could occur. The brown area has a significant risk. Please keep up on the weather today. 

Tornado Watch: Kansas and Missouri Tornado Watch for "Strong" Tornadoes Tornado Forecast Until 7am Thursday The area in brown has a significant risk of tornadoes. The hatching means there is the potential for strong tornadoes. The threat will begin around 6pm or shortly thereafter.  For Thursday The yellow area has an enhanced risk of tornadoes. The brown area has a significant risk. The hatching means that strong tornadoes are possible. I will be updating on Twitter/X  @usweatherexpert. 

Yesterday, I wrote about some of the considerations applicable to this year's "Vortex 2026" storm research program sponsored by NOAA.  At the same time The Wall Street Journal posted a video pertaining to drone research as it applies to tornado forecasting and warning. The screen capture above correctly points out the great distances between weather balloon stations is a significant impediment to having data on the scale needed to forecast tornadoes with more accuracy.  The video explains that NOAA is experimenting with drones (that cost up to $100,000+ per drone!) to measure the atmosphere up to 5,000 feet above the ground with a goal of getting measurements up to 10,000 feet in the future.  What is the problem? We had a perfectly good method of of taking these measurements -- at much less cost -- as recently as a dozen years ago! The map above displays (red) the location of NWS weather balloon sites as shown in the video (there are about 90 more in the U.S.A.). It also...

Preliminary Tornado and Hail Forecasts for Wednesday  The areas in brown have a significant risk of tornadoes (green has a very small risk). The hatching is where a strong tornado (≥EF-2) may occur.  In addition, there is an enhanced  risk of hail > 1" in diameter in red and a significant risk in the yellow area. Where you see hatching, hail larger than two inches in diameter are forecast to occur.  Please keep in mind that update these situations on Twitter/X   @usweatherexpert .