Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby reported live from Missouri on the evening of March 14, tracking severe weather after capturing incredible drone video of a destructive, wind-driven wildfire.
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00:00And storm chaser Aaron Brigsby, award-winning storm chaser Aaron Brigsby, is getting in a position
00:04to cover the severe weather. But Aaron, you're also covering a wildfire near Alton, Missouri,
00:09so what are you seeing out there? Yeah, good evening guys. I tell you it's been a productive
00:14day already and that's bad news for the folks of Missouri and many others that have been just
00:20getting overwhelmed. A lot of the fire danger, the dust storms we've been talking about in those
00:24blizzard conditions up north, and unfortunately the time clock is beginning to wind down ahead
00:29of the tornado threat here in the Missouri area down to Arkansas, really all the way down almost
00:34to the Gulf Coast ahead of an even bigger anticipated outbreak on Saturday. Now the
00:39wildfire that started here between Donovan, Missouri and Alton unfortunately did take out
00:45several structures. I'm not sure to the extent of those if it was houses or barns, so I'm waiting to
00:50clarify that. But they did say the wildfire chewed up over 40 acres before they were able to get a
00:55hold on it. And the winds have only gotten worse as the evening progresses and it's going to
00:59continue to get worse ahead of these severe thunderstorms that are going to be rolling
01:02through here. It's going to play a factor for a more supercellular threat that's going to pose
01:07the highest danger for those strong tornadoes into the overnight hours and early morning hours
01:11as they push east. Aaron, we're fortunate that they got a handle on this particular fire because
01:16with conditions like that, I could see it being the case where some of these fires may not get
01:21contained until the rain rolls in. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. And I was even talking to a
01:27few of the firefighters there as we were coordinating with them and they told me that
01:30they were really happy that they were able to get a handle on this humidity, which sounds weird to
01:34say ahead of a severe weather day, got as low as 20% before this next moisture surge comes up here
01:40and it's going to play a factor in that tornado threat into the overnight hours. And the unfortunate
01:46thing is, is that if they didn't get a handle on this wildfire, these winds are only going to
01:50continue to get worse upwards of 30, 40, even 50 miles an hour into the overnight hours. So good on
01:56those crews. A lot of those were volunteer firefighters. This particular part of Missouri,
02:00they're still working with older equipment and the fact they were able to get that knocked down
02:03so quick with the equipment that they had and the limited resources run was nothing short of
02:08remarkable. They were very well prepared today ahead of this fire threat and they have been on
02:12top of it from the get-go and they're going to continue being on top of it in case any more
02:16hotspots pop up or any more fires pop up across this particular area of Missouri.
02:22Looking off to the south and to the southwest, we're getting, seeing on radar at least,
02:26and visible satellite, lots of dust being blown from pretty much the Texas Panhandle in southwest
02:31Oklahoma. Looking to the south and the southwest, are you seeing anything like that? Any of
02:35unobscured or any obscured sunlight? I was seeing a little bit earlier and it was kind of hard to
02:42decipher if it was from wildfire smoke or some of that blowing dust. It was kind of that milky
02:47color to the sky above the sunshine and that has since kind of dissipated. I think a lot of it is
02:52kind of hanging off into the west but those folks like you were mentioning just a bit ago across
02:56Iowa and northern Illinois, they are likely going to see a lot of that dust plume come upward and
03:01we actually just last week in the midwest had what we call a dirty rain where the rain was mixing
03:05with that dust and it caused to have a bunch of filthy cars across a large portion of the area
03:10and people were kind of wondering what the heck was going on and I expect that to be the case
03:14again except this time across Iowa into northern Illinois and even portions up into the Kansas City
03:19area as well. Thank you so much for the update. We'll check in with you here coming up. Yes,
03:25this is going to be a very active situation and area that Aaron's reporting from. Absolutely.
03:31Lots to track here, Damien, and the severe weather threat is escalating in many areas.
03:35Aaron, thanks for your reporting. We'll be looking forward to talking to you quite a bit more here
03:38over the next few days.