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15 years ago this week, I started working at KAIT. At the time, it was "Your Good Neighbor Station". I started as the weekend meteorologist. I was young! I had a lot more hair and a few less pounds. I was a newlywed with no kids. Now, my wife and I have 4 kids and I spend most of my free time running around at their activities. If you recall, I did leave Region 8 for a couple of years to work at our sister-station in Alabama. We enjoyed our time in Alabama. We made some great life-long friends, I worked with some great people, and my wife gave birth to our second son. In 2 years, Alabama became a very important part of our lives. With that said, it was still great to come back to Region 8! Since returning to Region 8, I have anchored thousands of newscasts with Craig and Diana. They are great teammates and friends. Craig knows this business inside and out. Whenever I have a question, need advice, or need help on editing, Craig is there. He's a great journalist. Diana is o...

I'm very proud of my coworkers. I have not had a chance to watch much of the severe weather coverage from last night, but I've heard a lot of positive comments. That makes me happy! Typically, I don't take vacation in severe weather season, but our kids are getting older and they are involved in sports that take us out of town from time to time. This weekend, we had a trip planned to Atlanta for AAU basketball. The Region 8 Storm TEAM knew we were in an active pattern and that there was a chance of severe weather. I had to be out of town and Justin had vacation planned, too. Being that the severe weather hit on Sunday, both of our vacations overlapped and left a small window of time with Rachel by herself. Nature chose to not play nice with our schedule and tornado warnings were issued. Rachel did an awesome job informing Region 8 about the threats. It's very hard to cover severe weather alone, even for an older dude (like me) that has done it for years. Thankfully, Jus...

The rain will pick up by the middle of the week. The above graphic shows the rainfall intensity according to one of the models we use to forecast. Notice the trend of the rain coming in waves. A few thoughts on this Monday afternoon: 2-3 heavier waves of rain expected.  The heaviest rain will fall late on Wednesday. Along Crowley's Ridge and eastward, storm total of 1-3" is expected. West of Crowley's Ridge, 3-5" of rainfall is expected. Some areas may have isolated higher amounts. The threat for severe weather is low, but not nonexistent.  We will watch it closely! Have a great day! Ryan

There will be some flooding this week in Arkansas and Missouri. The challenge is to determine where the greatest risk will be located. At this time, the areas with the greatest impact may be outside of Region 8. Here are my thoughts on Sunday morning: Most of the rain will fall on Wednesday and Thursday. Rain chances on Tuesday might be lowered and shifted to Tuesday night. Coverage and intensity will go down Thursday night into next weekend.  Beyond those thoughts, everything else is up in the air! :) Models have been back and forth on the position of the heaviest rainfall. The general trend has been that the heaviest rainfall will be south and west of the heart of Region 8. I hope that trend continues.  Something else to consider is the duration. All of this rain is not going to come at once. This is going to be spread out over a few days, even though most of it will fall in the Wednesday-Thursday time frame. This means that we will likely not see "FLASH" flooding, but more...

Following the floods of Nashville, TN in May of 2010, a lot of research went into why they had so much rainfall. The floods in Nashville were the result of several factors, but heavy rainfall was one of the contributors (of course). A term that I saw when reading the research was the "Maya Express". One of my long-time mentors, Davis Nolan, reminded me of that setup on Twitter this week. It's a setup that we may see here next week. The " Maya Express " is a pattern that is typically driven by a ridge of high pressure to the east, low pressure to the southwest, and a direct flow from the south to transport deep moisture northward. This pattern draws in deep moisture from the Caribbean, but also from the Eastern Pacific. Here's the pattern for next week. Notice the origin of the deep moisture: There are still some questions on ow much rain will fall and where it will fall. I think all of Region 8 will see substantial rainfall, but some will get more than other...