tornadoes

Rolla Public Library is providing a lost-and-found for people who find photos and other personal items in their yards and elsewhere.

Twisters that tore through Union County, Missouri, killed 6 people. One couple survived against incomprehensible odds in a trailer obliterated by the storm.

High school and college students, families, and neighbors are all pitching in to help clear the debris and start repairing the damage from the tornado that came through Rolla on Friday night.

"The scale of devastation across our state is staggering," Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe said. "While we grieve the lives of those lost, we are also focused on action."

Climate change-driven weather events are causing more damage and wear and tear to school buildings in Missouri, driving up districts’ property insurance costs.

To save Oklahoma from treacherous tornados, scientists in the 2024 blockbuster “Twisters” try to use a real-life technique called cloud seeding. But would this really work? Researchers have actually been using cloud seeding to modify the weather since the 1940s. For professor Katja Friedrich, it’s a promising way to address some of the issues caused by climate change.

With geography already posing challenges for Midwestern forecasters, meteorologist Chris Gloninger says climate change has made traditional models obsolete and has voided historical precedents.

It’s been an above-average spring for tornadoes and other severe storms in the Midwest and Great Plains. Experts say a big reason is that weather conditions were ripe for tornado-forming storms.

There have been 184 tornado warnings in Missouri in 2024, which is the third-highest number on record.

Five months in, this year is already the most active for tornadoes in Kansas since 2019. Two EF-1 tornadoes touched down in Johnson County last week.

Two tornadoes were confirmed out of Sunday evening’s storm — one in western Shawnee and another around 79th Street and Lamar Avenue. But neither county nor city outdoor warning sirens went off, nor was there any alert issued.

Kansas has been seeing fewer tornadoes in recent years, but is that a permanent change? One reporter explains the lull and why experts are more worried about other extreme weather threats in the region — like flooding.