Let's go through the story chronologically.
Last night, my dad asked me if I knew anything about the weather. Yesterday, there was supposed to be bad storms coming from the northwest but they never arrived, so I stopped paying attention to the weather system. My dad then told me what the chief meteorologist for Fox 2 News was saying. In a joking manner, he was saying that from the looks of the system to the north, quote "Ohio would be wiped off the map." He finished up saying that if the storms make a right turn, they'll go rolling straight through St Louis, near where I am (30 miles south).
I went and checked NOAA radars and there was indeed some furious storms (wind, hail, weak tornadoes) up in Nebraska, Iowa, and northern Missouri, but they were mainly traveling eastward towards central Illinois. At 10:30pm, I was watching TV when a thunderstorm watch was issued for Pike County, about 100 miles to the north. I didn't think much of it, since I figured it was an area-wide issue for the Quad Cities, IL listening area.
At 2:30am, I woke up from whatever insomnia issues that I'm dealing with to see that the thunderstorm watch was expanded into the area to include five more counties. Radar also showed some light rain immigrating into the far northwestern counties. The storms were not supposed to reach this far to the south.
One hour later, news broadcasting cut in to say that the storms that were in Iowa before I went to sleep just left a trail of wind destruction across Missouri. Columbia, MO reported 75mph winds snapping trees and putting out power. The storms also had brief rotation. They were also much stronger than they were the night before and just so happened to be making a beeline straight for St Louis.
By 5:00am, I was hearing thunder outside. The multi-cell line was morphing into a usual squall system and was about 50 miles away. The entire line filled the map at the bottom of the TV with yellow Thunderstorm Warnings. I wasn't that worried because they seemed to be weakening from the Heat Island Effect surrounding the city. There were numerous accounts of power outages and trees down in their path.
At 6:30am, the primary wave hit. I decided to just watch the news in bed. The storm headed for my location had history of knocking down trees. It also picked up a tree and threw it on a car in Union, MO with a man inside it, trapping him. As I watched the radar, part of the rain signature seemed to clear away making a bare eye in the storm. The radar was switched over to Doppler winds.
Uh oh.
The Doppler winds showed clashing winds in a keyhole signature, which is an obvious telltale sign of rotation. A weak hook echo was on the back of the storm visible in the precipitation radar. No tornado warning was issued on it, but it was clear enough that I knew things could get ugly given the circumstances. The meteorologist zoomed in so close that I could actually see my street on the area-wide map, with the core being mere minutes away.
Time to look out the window.
The rain was coming down in torrents and the wind was jostling the trees around. There was scud (loose shredded bits of cloud) moving deviant to the storm's path and started to move towards a central location on the bottom of a cloud base. There was visible rotation running somewhat parallel to my house, but nothing was coming down. I looked back at the radar on TV and the location matched perfectly. Once the rotating portion disappeared around the front of the house, it disappeared behind a rain shaft and I couldn't see it anymore.
After the storm, damage relays were sent to the news rooms. 8-12" diameter trees were snapped at the trunk about two miles from my house. The storm only traveled about 25 more miles before dying out permanently.
Could've been much more to see, but still cool to see my first rotating storm of the year.
