Hurricanes

It rarely happens, but every now and then the winds in Wisconsin get fierce which is exactly happened on a 4th of July many many years ago. It was on that day that parts of Wisconsin were slammed by the equivalent of category 3 hurricane-force winds.

We know that life can be dangerous. I will admit that I didn't know that Wisconsin was in so much jeopardy though until I saw 12 somewhat terrifying risk assessment maps from FEMA about potential natural disasters.

I understand why so many people think they need to move to Florida, but I'm shocked that so many in Missouri actually did it. The numbers show more than 10,000 in just one year chose to depart Missouri and head to the Sunshine State which begs the question why.

It has only happened once and will hopefully never happen again. There was a wind event in Missouri that is so legendary that the speed of the winds were double that of even a category 5 hurricane.

This weekend a historic tropical storm is impacting California. Has one of these systems ever maintained enough strength to slam Missouri? The answer is surprisingly yes. As a matter of fact, it's happened on six different occasions.

As storms moved through Missouri this weekend, the St. Louis airport has officially confirmed that hurricane-force winds were recorded there.

It was quite a wind event in Missouri, Illinois and Iowa today as winds equaling a category 1 hurricane were reported in many locations.

As the recent storm has reminded us, hurricanes are an annual concern for coastal states along the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard. But, did you know that even Missouri has been affected by more than 44 hurricanes over the past century and a half?

The fact that the Mississippi River ran backwards after the massive New Madrid earthquake of 1811 is now the stuff of legend, but did you know that it's run backwards at least twice since? It's strange, but true and had nothing to do with earthquakes either.

It's no secret that we had an extreme weather event this week. How windy was it? Answer: very. Over 50 Midwest locations had hurricane-force winds during Wednesday's storms.