Category 1 Hurricane-Force Winds Confirmed in Missouri Wednesday

It's no secret that wind and hail were a big part of the waves of thunderstorms that roared through Missouri Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. One weather station in the state confirmed that winds exceeded hurricane force on at least one occasion.

This data comes directly from reports from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. There are a lot of reports and numbers to sift through, but here's the report I want to focus on that came from Atchison, Missouri. The report came in at 5:24am Wednesday morning, but the wind speed was recorded just after midnight at 12:24am. It's a 76 mph wind gust recorded by a private weather station.

There were also numerous reports of broken windshields in Missouri including Lewis County as the storms got pretty fierce later Tuesday night.

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale says that a 76 mph wind is barely category 1. Also note that a real hurricane wind isn't a gust, but a sustained wind which is a completely different category of weather event. Still, a 76 mph wind gust (and I've heard anecdotal claims in Missouri that 80 mph were also seen) can do serious damage to trees and power lines and there were many reports of that in Missouri Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

Normally, once spring changes to summer, you see slightly less excitable thunderstorms in Missouri. Emphasis on "slightly". This summer appears to be different as the storms continue to bring damage to many parts of the state.