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Left Panel: A view of the aftermath near the St. Louis Gateway Arch on the Morning of 20 July 2006, Upper Right: A view of the Sky above St. Louis at Dusk on 19 July 2006, Lower Right: Lightning Strikes near Busch Stadium in Downtown St. Louis on 19 July 2006

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== == == == == == July 2006 St. Louis Severe Thunderstorms refers to the series of events, weather anomalies, and resulting aftermath of a mesoscale convective system of thunderstorms that organized over the St. Louis Metropolitan Area on 19 July and 21 July 2006. These severe storms produced high speed downburst winds, 2 F-0 Tornados, Cloud-to Ground and Intracloud lightning, and resulted in massive damage throughout the St. Louis Area. These Thunderstorms downed many trees on top of active power lines which created the largest electricity outage in the history of the City of St. Louis. The Aftermaths of these storms left more than 500,000 St. Louisians without power amid a heat wave during an already hot and humid midwestern United States summer.

On 19 July, 2006, the sky over the St. Louis metropolitan area began to turn. Weather forcasters didn't recognize it as anything but that it was getting late in the evening. Just around 7:45pm Central Standard--65.64.146.141 15:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)--65.64.146.141 15:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)--65.64.146.141 15:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC) Time, a sellout crowd of 43,991 St. Louis Cardinal fans packed the new Bush Stadium to see the Cardinals vs. Atlanta Braves. Suddenly, and unexpectantly the radar screens across the metro area came alive. 70+mph winds whirled around the St. Louis area sending the fans running for shelter. The winds knocked out power and broke windows out of the press box onto fans still seeking shelter. Nearly two minutes after the winds began, they stopped, and it began to rain. The storms went on to hit other Major Cities in Illinois including Alton, O'Fallon, Edwardsville, Bethalto, Glen Carbon and East St. Louis. The neighboring towns of East Alton, Wood River, and Roxanna all house the 3rd largest Oil refinery in the United States with the original Shell Station. When the storms hit, it uprooted nearly 30% of all trees in the area, knocked out power for nearly a week, and left the refineries powerless.

Many people trying to seek generators or ice after the storms left were faced with long lines at grocery stores and Home Depot. Credit/Debit/Check readers were all malfunctioning. Cash was the only usable tender at many locations. Gas lines grew longer and the price wasn't getting any lower.

On 21 July 2006, the area was once again hit by powerful storms. This time the line of stomrs reached as far north as Iowa, and as far down as Arkansas. It moved West to East and created power outages up and down Missouri and Illinois creating the largest power outage in the Bi-State hisory. What power was restored had to once again be fixed. In all, nearly 750,000 residents and business were without power. After a few days, power began to come back on for most St. Louis citizens. Illinois was up and running by July 27, 2006. And the Florissant, MO area which was hardest hit, was finally turned on by July 29.

The storms left a hightened sense of awareness to the local and state governments that this is one of the Largest Metropolitan areas in the country, and is inside the outer belt of "Tornado Alley" and it is not completely safe. Ameren UE has been criticized by some for not attending to their needs as quickly as others. They did however have to deal with such a large scale disaster, and many people didn't realize the full extent. Today they have been praised for their hard work and overtime to put their business, school, home, hospital, or favortie hang outs back up and running. == == == == == ==

Tempature and Heat Index readings for the City of St. Louis during the week of 17 July 2006

The St. Louis area is well known for it extremely hot and humid summers. During the week of 17 July 2006, the St. Louis area was experiencing one of its typical heat waves given the time of the year being summer. St. Louis City had not had any rain since the <> <> and a large heat cell had been lingering the entire Midwestern United States. The temperature measured by the NOAA recorded in St. Louis that week (which the NOAA did classify as a heat wave) had been 96 degrees with 103 degree heat index on 17 July 2006, 98 degrees with a 114 degree heat index on 18 July 2006, and 100 degree temperature with a high heat index of 110 degrees on 19 July 2006.

Map of the 19 July 2006 Severe Thunderstorms.

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