The preliminary data for Saturday’s tornado that hit Yazoo City, Mississippi is now available. No doubt this thing was a monster.

Long track tornadoes, large hail and high winds are expected today across portions of the deep south. This may be one of those events that catches many people off guard – those are the types of events that end up with a death toll.

A major weather system entered the plains today which resulted in a widespread tornado outbreak throughout the Texas Panhandle, western Kansas and Colorado.

Lloyd Colston, Emergency Management Director for the City of Altus captured these shots of a tornado near Hammon, OK today with his Blackberry.

The first tornado of the decade has been issued. To our knowledge at the current time, an actual tornado hasn’t been confirmed – but the warning went out. So what is the lucky area that received it? Texas…Oklahoma?

One of the most important tools that convective forecasters have is the Skew-T/Log-P Diagram. It is a thermodynamic chart that allows forecasters to view real information about the state of the atmosphere from the surface level all the way to 100 millibars.

We just received a high priority phone call at the StormChase.com forecasting center from the North Pole. It was Santa’s lead elf meteorologist, Dr. Bouncy Sugar Socks. Poor little guy was freaking out!! It seems that Santa is very worried about the Christmas Eve forecast for supercells and possible tornadoes over parts of Oklahoma and Texas, as well as the strong turbulence over the United States due to a strong upper jet.

At the possible expense of sounding “alarmist”, I am personally concerned over storm safety of Florida’s seasonal winter residents. Having been one myself for several years now, I’m surprised at how many people invade the sub-tropical state each winter to escape the harsh cold air and winter storms of the Midwest, although I fully understand their reasoning for doing so.

The National Weather Service in Miami, FL has issued what might just be the final tornado warning of 2009 at 10:27 EST Friday, December 18th.

Due to (I’m not kidding) HUNDREDS of request for a poster print of our Hyannis Supercell panorama from May 20th ealier this year, I’m pleased to announce that we have put the amazingly gorgeous image in the inventory of our store on Zazzle.com. Buy direct from our Zazzle store and save, while also be able to immediately select from dozens of great printing and framing options.

A slow moving system centered over Texas appears to not be in a hurry to go anywhere fast. The lingering system is bring rain and flooding to much of the southern states and even into the central plains. The Norman, OK WFO has issued Flood Watches for most of central Oklahoma as periods of heavy rain are dumping up to an inch per hour in some areas.

BUENOS AIRES – A violent storm described as a freak “tornado” killed at least 17 people in the southern part of South America and punched hundreds of houses off their foundations Tuesday, officials said.

Tropical Storm Fred strengthened into a hurricane over the east Atlantic Tuesday. The National Hurricane Center’s track forecast will quickly push Fred to the north allowing the hurricane to steer clear of any land.

At 5:00 PM AST, the National Hurricane Center named Tropical Depression Seven – soon to be Tropical Storm Fred. Fred however is going to remain at sea and very likely won’t even get anywhere close to the western Atlantic.

A strong tropical wave is showing increasing organization and convection and according to the National Hurricane Center this system is likely to become the seventh tropical depression of the 2009 Atlantic Basin Hurricane Season.