Storm Australian Severe Weather Forum
Severe Weather Discussion => Tornado Alley Outbreaks and Severe Weather Worldwide => Topic started by: Mike on 07 February 2008, 07:54:03 AM
-
An apt thread to kickstart the season off in the US - albeit action firing early!
Members might like to vent some thoughts on what they see as the season ahead, any patterns seen this early is similar to other years they have seen or chased therein. Perhaps brief posts on the weather patterns or conditions to watch out for so that the not so familiar members with such storms can check now and then to see what's happening over there and be able to understand more of what they see.
Already there's tornado watches/warnings out today in Arkansas: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0169.html
Radar animation of the squall line- (this site has lots of info by the way) :
http://www.wx.com/wxmaps/radar/wxradarSSanim.cfm?submenu=maps&radar=PAH&time=20500905022008
Mike
-
Mike,
I have a regular check on the Accuweather website to see what they see as the upcoming weather patterns in the US are like, and the warnings came on as early as 10am AEST (7pm CT (US)) - they had tornado warnings and watches in Arkansas, and a couple of states to the E thereof. I don't know if they had any tornadoes at that time, but they were predicting large, long pathed tornadoes in the Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee areas on Tuesday their time. And also that some parts of the Mid-West region did have some unseasonally warm-to-hot conditions prior to this event.
Maybe worth a look - go to www.accuweather.com and click on the link for severe weather to get the latest updates.
Big Pete
p.s. this could be a good indicator for a wild season to come.
-
Already going I would say from this story on news.smh.com.au
Tornadoes across four southern US states have killed at least 22 people and injured dozens more.
The twisters that slammed Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky were part of a line of storms that raged across the mid-section of the US at the end of a day of Super Tuesday primaries in several states.
The tornadoes tore through homes, ripped the roof off a shopping mall and blew apart warehouses.
-
Terrible loss of life with this outbreak. There was also a couple and their 11 year old daughter killed when one struck.
Lots of info here http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/02/06/tornadoes/index.html
There's plenty of footage already about. This one from YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=bnnUfDD2wk4 Reed Timmer at http://tornadovideos.net chased a supercell and documented it, the video features some footage also from Scott Currens from http://violentplains.com
It's so sad to read of deaths with these storms. Even with all the technology the forecasters must be so frustrated with just how little they still know about tornadoes and how unpredictable it must be to forecast touchdown areas. It's something that just is - they may be the ultimate thing to chase but hey, one life lost is one loss too many.
Mike
-
SPC trend graph and related track map from these recent tornadoes. Graph indicates a possible severe outbreak for 2008 for tornadoes? One to watch with interest.
-
I had been watching FoxNews on Foxtel today and an article came up about 40 twisters hit the mid-west US over the weekend, including an EF3 that hit Prattville, ALlabama (forgive me if i got the spelling wrong). Quite some footage of heavy damage there.
Did anyone else get some reports on this?
Big Pete
-
Big Pete,
Try these reports on the archives of the Storm Prediction Center website:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/080217_rpts.html
44 tornado reports - yet another caning. Hopfully no fatalities.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
I have some great photos to share of actual personal documents that were found over 90 miles from where the tornado struck during this event and some other damage photos from Atkins. The thing was on the ground for over 100 miles! ...incredible stuff.
*here's some courtesy of Heidi Farrar who actually had her home damaged by this tornado and took photos of the damage path etc .. Also is a shot of a person's dental records AND x-rays of his teeth! This is truly an amazing find because they were found here in a field 58 miles away . Heidi contacted the person and all is well with the return of the documentation. The other is of someone's invoice for some tyres! Just astounds me to see this......
video of the tornado at Prattville. The guy was 3/4 of a mile from the EF3 - great footage!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NPqdpwj3M44
-
Mike,
That You-tube footage was amazing! It looks as if he was a lot closer than .75 of a mile away (just over a km away)!
Thanks to all who have found footage, and details. This makes this forum the best in Oz for storm chasers by far (nationwide) in my books.
Big Pete
-
Big Pete,
You will find that the tornado based on the circulating winds was remarkably close - perhaps 100 metres or so. Spectacular being so close but scary!
I recall a video of a tornado from close range but this specific one was an F4 tornado! The debri was incredible and the change in wind direction just as spectacular.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Jimmy,
In all the chases you have done in the US, how close to and how violent a tornado have you chased?
Big Pete
-
Pete,
The best way to describe this is to perhaps go to the videos in the tornado alley section:
http://australiansevereweather.com.au/video/tornado_alley_videos.htm
That will explain how violent a tornado the White Deer tornado was May 29 2001. The closest obviously was the Dunoon event October 26 2007 - where do you take the edge of a tornado - I would safely say within 200 metres to 300 metres of this tornado. Of course the debri hit the power sub-station which was only 30 metres from the road I suspect.
http://australiansevereweather.com.au/video/movies/2007/dunoon_tornado_substation_explosion.wmv
I hope that is sufficient for your question. In terms of violent, the White Deer event was violent.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Further to your question Big Pete, Jimmy and I (and another guy Ray) were chasing May 4 last year in Kansas and were 10 or so minutes behind the wedge (and associated satellite funnels) that destroyed Greensburg. Because it was at night I only saw brief flashes (due to lightning) of one of the tornadoes (either strengthening or dissipating - not sure?) and Jimmy has reviewed his video footage to show the outline of the wedge in video stills - I am yet to sit down and review mine frame by frame.
Video still of the Greensburg tornado (http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/stills/2007/20070504.html)
(http://www.australiasevereweather.com/video/stills/2007/0504jd144.jpg)
These were taken from the same Nth-Sth road we were on (I would guess we were at least 5km further south at this stage):
http://towerofstorms.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=925
http://www.blufie.com/images/greensburgks/F5_GreensburgKS05042007full%20wedge.jpg
Brad
-
March02/03 tornadoes
Currently tornado watches out for parts of Oklahoma and Texas. Chaser in the US emailed me to say he encountered an EF1+ elephant trunk crossing the highway a quarter mile in front of him. another chaser intercepted two large supercells, one which showed signs of rotation but was mucked up by closer storms and the other turned into a HP which really got messy. As soon as I get some pics I'll post them up for you all. Brisk start to the season! Here's a link or two http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/ww0087.html and http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/wwa/
Here's the video hot of the press so to speak. Some debris and rotation around the meso included in the footage - nice captures! Courtesy http://tornadovideos.net
Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A_fbhQ3SMs
-
Just been looking into the US weather reports from Accuweather.com - and there have been some reports of tornadoes stretching from Texas to the Mississippi Valley occurring right now and have been occuring from some time - if one looks at the dopplar radar for the above mentioned areas one can see quite severe weather moving in a front-like position heading from SW to NE - and quite a large number of supercell storms have formed in this region - at midnight US central time (3pm melb time) - 5 states had tornado watches in effect.
If anyone else is tracking this - for the season opener, this could be a good outbreak to start with - any further comments/sightings?
Big Pete
-
I like the live weather cams. I was looking at David Drummonds' a couple of days back and interesting to get the live view of a wall cloud.
-
April is looking quite active. Look at those digging long waves in the modelling. I'm not sure about tomorrows set up though, maybe SW Oklahoma after dark. Reed Timmer was on NZ National radio this afternoon live from Oklahoma and he said tomorrow was looking like a good tornado day for Oklahoma. He was talking about tornado chasing and his chase tour company. Interesting guy.
-
Hello
I have been reading reports of a tornado hit on the city of Little Rock (Arkansas). A twister went through parts of the city's northern suburbs and planes were flipped at an airport (4/4/08). Not sure of its strength.
Last week, an Oklahoma City suburb in the city's northern suburbs was affected by an EF1 tornado causing some damage to homes but damage was not severe.
The interesting thing is, this is the third large urban centre / city in the United States that has suffered a tornado strike in the past four weeks which proves that tornadoes do hit large urban centres.
Another twister from the same storm system went through Benton in Arkansas inflicting significant damage on a mobile home park as well.
Harley Pearman
-
Hi all,
I usually get bored with our weather at this time of year and start forecasting in the US so here goes...
Looks like one of those marginal slight lack of moisture days coming up in the US although the cool upper level temps should assist instability somewhat. My target is Magnum in SW Oklahoma- at least for initiation, with somewhere like Snyder, OK probably being my bet for tornado time. This should put the virtual chaser (me) somewhere close to tail end charlie. RUC is seemingly pushing a bit of a dryline bluge here and its further S than most are targetting as I think the moisture will be better down in SW Oklahoma than up along I-40. Cap (which isn't that bad I don't think) should break at around 4pm and with shear like it is, storms should rapidly begin to rotate (25-30knts at 850mb from the SE to ESE and 40-50knts from the W at 500mb with the nose of a 100knt jet at 250mb kicking into SW Oklahoma late in the daylight hours). My concern is that there may not be enough speed in the lower levels to get the job done with these storms but they should be at least very photogenic isolated supercells with a chance of a tornado or two close to dark as the LCL lowers and the LLJ picks up. SPC only going for slight risk at the moment which is fair enough I think.
Macca
-
Not the worst forecast in the world given there was still another run of data to come out before an exact target would have to be determined. Storm initiated 50km due S of Magnum and produced at least one brief multi vortex tornado 50km due S of Snyder (just over the Red River WNW of Wichita Falls). 2.75 inch hail was also reported although warnings were out for larger than baseball sized hail.
Chasing the Red River region is tough as there are only limited opportunities to cross into Texas (or Oklahoma depending on which way one is coming from). A few chasers waited up north in west central Oklahoma thinking that the Texas storm was not going to be the only one but alas…it was (well…it was last time I checked…in any case it would’ve been the only daylight show). Hard to say what call I would’ve made but I’ve been burnt before by not heading S to a developing/developed storm so my gut tells me I would’ve probably pushed for a southward move.
Happy enough with my forecast for now. Looks like I might get another shot at it later this week too with more SVR weather forecast.
Macca
-
By all accounts that was quite a nice supercell. Look forward to your forecasting this season Macca, was interesting following it last year in the US. Yes, I would have gone after the developing storm to the south.
-
Ok...as suspected, it looks like another round of severe weather on Thurdsay (just happens to be my birthday) for the US. The last MAJOR outbreak they had on that day was back in 1979...the infamous red river outbreak which saw Witchita Falls and Vernon both take direct hits from F4 tornadoes. 57 lives were lost that day...lets not hope for a repeat. Some good info here... http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/wxevents/19790410/
There is a moderate risk out already from the SPC which is no surprise given the set up. A strong shortwave upper trough is forecast to dig into eastern New Mexico and the western Tx panhandle resulting in rapid moisture return to much of Texas and into southern Oklahoma during the evening/night hours as it rides the LLJ. A surface low is expected to develop in the southern parts of the Tx panhandle with dryline extending southwards and warm front extending off to the ENE across northern Tx and into southern Oklahoma.
Fairly significant warm air advection in the lower levels should limit the southward extent of development somewhat with the most likely outcome being storms forming on the triple point where the dryline and warm front intersect. This area is typically highlighted by a dryline bulge. (however other storms are likely to develop along the dryline (not far S thou due to capping)). GFS and WRF are slightly varying at the moment as to where this triple point/bulge will be come Thursday with GFS pushing it slightly further N and W than the WRF. The position of this will move around a bit over the next 36 hours but true to form in prior years and as was evidenced today, sitting just NE of the bulge is a pretty good starting point.
Shear is fairly nice with a 30knt LLJ (increasing to 40-45knts around dusk/after dark) with 50-60knt 500mb flow aloft (increasing to 65-70knts around dusk/after dark) and a 100+knt jet up the top at 200mb (increasing to 110-120knts around dusk/after dark). When storms do develop (late), they should again rapidly become supercellular and shouldn't take long to become tornado warned (an hour from initiation which at this stage I would say would be around 4pm). Storms will have a better chance of tornado'ing later in the day as the LLJ increases and the LCL lowers as a result of both more moisture coming in and also cooling of the lower layers.
At this stage, I'd put myself at Aspermont, Tx but that said, its still 36hrs away so I'll refine tomorrow night if I get a chance.
Macca
-
Ok...time for an update. Haven't yet looked at SPC's outlook but I'm suspecting they may move the risk area further S than initially anticipated. If I was in Aspermont, Tx now I'd be wanting to drive S rather soon. The latest RUC model (which extends out to 21z - with 0z being the prime time) shows distinct failure of moisture return up into the texas panhandle tomorrow. That said, it is still quite a complex set up tomorrow even if a few small things change, it could become potent rapidly. It looks like widespread convection will pop up with the strong forcing from the upper trough which is set to dig in and this widespread convection could kill off the chances of an outbreak across northern texas into the south eastern parts of the panhandle. That's why I'm playing the southern option....too little moisture return further N and too greater chance of being cluttered.
My initial thoughts are to play just S of I-20 maybe somewhere around Ballinger (half way between Abiline and San Antonio). I think initiation will be early (by US standards) with the strong upper level forcing and the relatively weak cap. Elevated storms are currently in progress across much of the southern panhandle...i'm wondering if these will push out an outflow boundary that will intersect the dryline and create a focus for some more interesting storms. I'd want to be in Ballinger early (midday) so that a jog westwards could be made should it become evident during the morning that the action is going to be a little further W (although the better shear is further E) or a jog further S could be made if it looks like the outflow is pushing further S. Storms should've have too much of a problem getting some legs and booting it eastwards thou with a rapidly strengthening mid-level (500mb) jet of 50knts in the afternoon, increasing to 60+knts in the evening.
SPC is all over the tornado threat with a fairly large hatched (F2-F5) area with 10% probability and a smaller area of 15% probability of tornadoes. I think this might be a little overcooked....hrm...perhaps not. Just saw that the LLJ increases from 25-30knts over the target area (Ballinger) mid arvo up to 50knts by dusk (thou current analysis shows solid 40knts over much of central Tx atm). No shortage of energy with CAPEs up to or above 3000j/kg and LI's of -6 to -8C.
Current analysis shows the warm front holding back a heap of juice with mid 60's DP's ready to boot nort eastwards towards the target area over the next 8 hours. If that boundary doesn't move over the next 4 hours, I'd be wanting to boot even further S as that may end up being the play of the day.
So lets say Ballinger for now but like I said, if that warm front hasn't retreated N any by midday, I'd be looking to hit the road and get down nearer to I-10. Maybe Ozona. (bit of a dryline buldge heading for this area...interesting).
Macca
-
I am hoping either next year to be able to go over for the season and chase if not next year definately the year after
-
Your reports are so informative Macca. There's so much information that even a novice like myself can understand exactly what you're experiencing and what you are relaying re the conditions, top stuff! Good luck with some tornado activity, by the sounds of all the set ups is there a likelihood of perhaps an outbreak of sorts?
-
Hi Mike,
I'm not actually over there. Just forecasting and virtual chasing. But its great for during our off season here in Australia.
Macca
-
I see, just goes to show I'm not paying attention! If our forum was a summer weather discussion arena it would be going nuts all year in all states, fortunately brilliant sunshine does nothing for storm chasers!
The next month or two will be an intersting one to look out for in the US once the season kicks into gear. Are these storm events that you have been 'nowcasting' similar to conditions of pre-tornado alley seasons in the past whereby there's a general increase in supercell activity as the weeks go by or does their season come in waves of outbreak scenarios?
-
Mike,
I'm also attuned to some of the virtual world (internet) when it comes to US weather, also I have a sister who lives just outside Dallas TX, and she sometimes keeps me informed on dangerous weather there. They did get a tornado to the NE of their house a couple of days ago, but it was too far away for her to see - they do get some ferocious supercell storms crossing over, but so far according to my brother-in-law they have never had a direct strike from one.
A good place to check for report updates on US weather, I found, is www.accuweather.com - they give informative discussion to storms and also have 2 meteorologists / storm chasers on their team that also give quite informative details on storms.
Worth a look if interested.
Big Pete
(ps - maybe one day I will get the chance to go and see live supercells and tornadoes over there - at least I'll have a place to stay if i need to).
-
My initial thoughts are to play just S of I-20 maybe somewhere around Ballinger (half way between Abiline and San Antonio).
So lets say Ballinger for now but like I said, if that warm front hasn't retreated N any by midday, I'd be looking to hit the road and get down nearer to I-10. Maybe Ozona.
Macca
Not a bad forecast again for (last) Thursday in the US. The warm front lifted during the late morning to be located about 30mi N of Ballinger by the time storms initiated. This was the more obvious play for the day and most chasers eventually locked onto the main show of the day which developed W of Abeline (50mi N from Ballinger). This storm rode the warm front for several hours and cycled through various phases. I know hindsight is lovely but I suspect I would've cruised N with the warm front as it passed over Ballinger on its way N so should've been relatively close to the storm had I been chasing. It displayed some AWESOME echos on radar with some impressive hook echoes. There were several tornado reports from this cell and hail up to 2.75 inches was also reported.
It looks like things will be quiet for the next week or so over there with this system forcing all the moisture way back into the southern Gulf (of Mexico) and it'll take some time to replace it. The next system might end up being slightly moisture starved (moreso in terms of moisture quality) but give it 10-14 days and things should be well and truely back to normal ready for what is seemingly becomming a fairly standard severe weather period from 26th April through to 6th May.
Macca
-
I wasn't going to do a forecast for tomorrow (today in the US) as I initially thought that moisture was going to be a problem but it appears this may not be the case. The quality of the moisture isn't great but if I was there, I'd be playing with tomorrow anyway.
Low level shear is not great in my target area but the mid and upper level shear is definitely supportive of supercells. Also, instability is decent and I reckon there is a good chance of daytime convection as the front sags southwards. Target town...Throckmorton, Texas. Looks to be near the intersection of the dryline and the front. Dryline runs nearly N/S and the front kicks off to the NNE. Not a great alignment of the boundary given the shear but I'd take it if I was chasing. GFS hints at the intersection of the D/line and the front to sit slightly further S (closer to a town called Putnam on I-20). If this was the case and convection initated there, with the shear, storms should move NNE initially with stronger storms moving NE and that would put them in the Breckenridge - Graham corridor which is not far from Throckmorton anyway so I'm happy enough to stick with Throck. as a target for now with some south and slight eastward jogging possible depending on position of intersection of these boundaries by mid afternoon.
Instabilty is reasonable in this area too with LI's in the -6 to -8 range and CAPE (ML) being around 1500-2000j/kg. With 25-30knts at 850 from the S, 40knts from the SSW at 700 and 70knts at 500 from the SW, shear is pretty nice too so supercells are definitely on the cards. DPs are just nosing into the low 60's in the models which will limit tornado potential but I can see why SPC is going for a 5% given the combination of instability and shear. If the front aligns itself slightly more E-W than it is currently forecast, the low level winds will swing more to the SE and things could get interesting with moisture pooling in a triple point situation. Per my target, best bet for a tube IMO is in the Throckmorton - Olney - Graham area.
Incidentally - both GFS and RUC have a subtle (yet kicky) shortwave moving into this region by mid afternoon with -16 to -18C at 500mb moving into the region. Decent hail would be on the cards tomorrow - i'd suggest up to 3 inches with the strongest storms.
Enough from me.
Macca
-
What's your success ratio with the forecasts you've done yourself looking afar? Have your interpretations been pretty well spot on from the information you have gathered when doing your research? From reading the posts you have a fairly knowledgable insight for discecting the models! A great read and I'm learning much from them.
-
Hi Mike,
Of the three forecasts I have done so far this season, the best storm of the day has been within 50mi of my targets so I think I'm doing ok. I'd like to get that number down into the 20-30mi range (have had one 20mi, one 40mi and today's was 50mi) but I guess its not too bad given that I usually miss 7 or so hours of data between when I got to sleep and when I next check in the morning...given that this is the most important part of the day when you need to refine your forecasts based on how the day is unfolding its not going too badly.
Macca
-
Turns out that yesterday's storm was quite a bit better than I anticipated with reports of baseball hail, 1 tornado and lots of other golfball or larger hail reports coming from it. It had great structure on radar and had very intense reflectivities several times during its life.
A few quiet days coming up now before another decent event in a few days time.
Macca
-
Here's a neat video showing golf ball hail in Texas 17 April 2008 from a tornado warned storm....quite a bit of it also from the amount on the ground!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uCf7gPXuZA4
Also Macca...just on your forecasting. I was asked this today by someone in the US who is just now starting to get into chasing, although he has been educating himself for over a year to assist him. He said this re 21/22 April 2008 days.. 'As I look at the model data (500 speeds, 850 speeds, dewpoints, SBCAPE, MLCAPE, CIN), I see things of interest as well. My problem is that I'm not really sure how everything interacts with each other to produce a severe weather potential.'
Now this is probably the $64,000 question. From what you have been noting and deciphering, is he looking for all the right numbers? Is there something, the one model that you look at religiously that aids your forecasting so that I can pass the info on to him to help him? From what i can gather from him he reads all the right numbers, but has trouble working out where they all fit in and 'what' to look for in advance for severe weather potential.
Any info you can give would be appreciated!
-
Hi Mike,
Sounds like he is looking at the basic key indicators. There are so many different things that people look at and its a matter of becoming comfortable with your own set of parameters which are used for forecasting.
Few things with regard to 21st. Looks like the cap is pretty strong and the moisture looks to be quite shallow (850mb relative humidity is pretty low with dry SW'ly winds pushing in from SW Tx/New Mex.).
Kenny Drake posted on stormtrack earlier today and pretty much sums up my thoughts- he said "at this stage I won't be chasing but I'll keep an eye on the next 24hrs of model runs in case things change".
Hope that helps.
Macca
-
Looking a bit ridgy over the southern plains atm with the upper air dynamics being shunted north a bit. These situations are hard work for storm chasers but I wouldn't be suprised if a good severe weather day pops up this week. The dps and CAPE look OK.
-
Don't really have time to look at much else but the Mesoanalysis atm but d/line bulge (weak) is sitting over south west central OK. A few "AWS's" are showing low 70's DPs in N TX, S OK with some high 60's around it. This is to the E of the bulge. 850 Td's (dewpoints) also show a similar pattern. I'm concerned about the SSW (nearly SW'ly) flow at 850mb and also the lack of decent convergence at the surface. That said, the mid level trough is nice (700mb). It is currently sitting over the TX panhandle and will move eastward over the next 3-4 hours. This will result in some nice destabilization and should see the cap erode. 500 temps aren't too bad given the temp/dp with -12 to -13C across much of OK. This *may* cool by a degree or so during the rest of the day but the main upper level support is still quite a way back to the west.
Instability is quite nice with surface-based CAPE's sitting above 4000j/kg at the moment over south central OK and LI's of -11 to -12 at the moment. :D
At this stage, there is nothing that I can see which screams "target here" apart from the weak dryline bulge (which may sharpen up over the next few hours). So that's my target for now. I don't think there will be any signficant tornadoes today (brief spin ups would be a *very* slight chance) but if the cap breaks, there should be some MONSTER hail :D . Hail parameters are up to 3 (inches) already and that will no doubt get better over the next 2-4 hours!
I'm going to sit myself (virtually) at Marlow in SW Cent Oklahoma (60mi SSW of Oklahoma City). Its right on the dryline (bulge) there at the moment. I might even consider a further 5mi west of there if it means there is better visibility in the dry air. Its still a bit dubious as to whether the cap will break given the limited forcing but its worth playing with with 4000j/kg and 35-40knts at 500mb because if something does take off its going to look very very nice indeed. :)
Macca
Edit: Ok...just looked at the latest RUC run and its picked this like a dirty nose. It has convective precip starting up at 21z (soon) with quite a bit forming over S Cent OK this afternoon (for them). I'm pretty happy still with Marlow as a target based on this.
-
Cap broke 20mi ENE of Marlow during the late afternoon. SPC issued a tornado watch for this area. There was possibly a brief window of opportunity for a brief tornado (in daylighthours) in the area just E of I-35 but I don't think anything was reported.
A severe thunderstorm watch was also issued for north central Oklahoma up into S Central Kansas which went up later than the southern Oklahoma stuff in slightly less instabilty. It was a fair enough call from SPC to only go for a severe as opposed to tornado watch in that area.
One report of hail to the size of baseballs from the right mover of the two storms over south central Oklahoma from earlier today. The report was from near Maysville (only 35mi from Marlow).
Albeit no lead up forecast, I'm happy enough with my forecast this morning.
Macca
-
Good stuff Macca.
Looks like a few decent photos being posted on storm track http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?p=174777#post174777
These are the large hail reports from SPC:
0130 175 1 N MAYSVILLE GARVIN OK 3483 9741 (OUN)
0149 175 SLAUGHTERVILLE CLEVELAND OK 3510 9728 (OUN)
0153 195 MAYSVILLE GARVIN OK 3482 9741 HAIL WAS ABOUT TWICE THE DIAMETER OF A 1 EURO COIN. REPORTED BY A METEOROLOGIST FROM MUNICH GERMANY. (OUN)
0225 75 7 SW SHAWNEE POTTAWATOMIE OK 3526 9700 (OUN)
0230 225 3 W PAOLI GARVIN OK 3483 9732 LARGE HAIL BROKE WINDSHIELDS (OUN)
These times are UTC so convert her http://hurricanes.noaa.gov/zulu-utc.html
To get a feel for time of day go here >> http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html
-
I'm going to target Snyder, Tx. There is some convection ongoing in the area in at this stage in response to a shortwave moving through but with the 40-50knt mid level jet, this should clear off and the atmosphere will recover to deliver the goods this afternoon as well. (Or ongoing convection will become surface based and go beserk).
My target...Snyder, TX (with the thought of having to drop south down to I-20 to get to the southern most side of any convection which develops). The cap is quite strong S of here so hopefully could get onto tail end charlie and BAM. Tornadoes not out of the question with hail to at least 3 inches with the best storms. Cloud is prevalent across most of TX atm with a nice storm heading for Snyder but its elevated. Still hefty thou and would provide a nice wake up call if you were there already. Cloud should clear during the day.
Macca
EDIT: Actually - the dryline is currently sitting a LONG way west. I'd be keen to keep an eye on this. Whilst it should shunt eastwards during the day, if it takes its merry time, I'd considering dropping from Snyder down to I-20 and then westwards towards Big Spring.
-
Macca,
Looks like tornado alley area is a bit quieter this year, than previous seasons - wonder if the proposed great outbreak season seems to have been put on hold?
Keep up the updates though, coz if i ever get the chance to go chase in the US, I might need u as a guide.
Big Pete
-
I didn't follow todays set up but have had a quick look at tomorrow. The numbers look big over southern Kansas and so my virtual target will be Pratt. There are road options from that town as well.
Pete, the Alley has looked quieter thus far compared to recent Aprils but the last 3 seasons have been funny in that they have ended early or not been that active for tornadoes after early May. This year I am optimistic for a change in this pattern with a more active May. But I am no expert so just being hopeful I guess. I am heading over there early May.
-
Nailed yesterday's target well with a tornado reported 5mi E of Snyder.
But today...
I'm going to be greedy today. Apart from the fact that I'm forecasting from LAX (working in Vancouver for 4-5 days before heading down for a chase for a few weeks), I'm going to pick two targets. Note that you couldn't actually chase both on the same day as they are a day's drive apart and given that I would've chased central western Texas yesterday had I been there, I would've had to play the first target today (see below).
I'm going to send half of me (not literally, just virtually) to Medicine Lodge in south central Kansas to play the dryline bulge. In this area, CAPE is forecast to get up over 4000j/kg and whilst shear is nothing to write home about, it that was here, we'd be pretty damn excited. There should be some big storms in this region but quite late given the warmer air keeping a lid on things. I wouldn't expect anything in this region before 5pm (local time). With the amount of instability and shear that is good enough, brief tornadoes are definitely on the cards as is some more VERY large hail (baseballs+).
My other half (virtual) is going to play with some upslope flow over the Nebraska panhandle. I was originally going to say Sidney, Nebraska but the road network there is cr@p to say the least so I'm going to head a little further east and sit at Big Springs, Nebraska. Instability is still looking ok in this area with CAPE forecast to get up over 2000j/kg. Also up in this area, the low level shear is nicer with ENE'ly winds at 850 of 25-30knts (compared with 25knts from the S in my other target) and this is sitting under a 40-45knt mid level jet and sitting on the nose of the upper level jet. 500mb temps are forecast to be about -18C and DP's are forecast to hit the mid 50's (which is nice given the elevation of this region coupled with the cold upper temps). I expect this area to fire earlier than my other target and also turn to crap more quickly but there is probably a 2 hour window (3-5pm) when supercells and tornadoes will be possible.
Its somewhat amusing but both of my targets are JUST outside of the moderate risk area issued by SPC with Medicine Lodge being just S of the moderate risk and Big Springs, NE being just west of the moderate risk. However, I suspect the majority of this moderate risk will relate to the MCS which is likely to develop during the late evening/overnight hours. (Just read the SPC convective outlook...sounds scarily similar to what i've written...).
Macca
-
Southern Kansas was a good bust today, cap just too strong. From what I saw on the visible imagery there wasn't much in the way of turkeys either so the cap wasn't tested that strongly either. Northern target fired.
-
Yep - good ole clear sky bust in S Kansas y'day. Sunburn for those who stuck it out and reward for those who headed N (although reports on stormtrack seem to indicate the it went HP outflow beast on dusk and the reported tornadoes were impossible to see).
Interestingly enough, mesoanalysis late yesterday showed 850 temps increase to 23-24C over S Kansas which probably didn't help the situation at all. From what I saw, not too many of the models (if any) had it quite this warm over the area. I think the SW'ly flow at 850 probably pushed a little further north east than was initially thought, thus resulting in the warm air/cap.
Tell you what - its much easier to take a clear sky bust when virtual chasing as opposed the real thing. Lesson learned though (which is the main thing).
Macca
-
Nailed yesterday's target well with a tornado reported 5mi E of Snyder (Tx)....
Macca
Macca - i think you may have stumbled upon the tornado that my sister (who lives in Plano, Tx - which is NE of Dallas on the outskirts) felt the shockwave from. She reported that the house at her place shook for around a couple of minutes before the tornado warning sirens sounded across her area. She did say there was a tornado not far from her place - may well have been the Snyder storm.
Big Pete
-
I think i'm going to target the area around Big Springs, Tx. DPs should get into the mid 50's (possibly high 50's) with CAPE values up to around 2000j/kg. Shear isn't great but should improve LATE in the day but it should be enough to support supercells with hail to 2 inches possible. ;D
Macca
-
Macca,
I observed some good cells forming between Abeline and Fort Worth, Tx. earlier today (melb time). May have been potential super-cells based on radar pics from accuweather.com
Big Pete
-
Had a look at the mid-term outlook over lunch. While it is far too early to start talking specifics, the H5 pattern alone looks supportive of a classic southern/central plains severe weather outbreak around May 1.
Global Ensembles Forecast is consistent with some impressive height falls during the period 1/05 overnight into 2/o5 as a pacific trough winds up. With this dominant feature, the questions inevitably focus on the timing, location and mode of convection.
As it stands with the 0Z GFS that I looked at, the timing might be sub-optimal in that the main height falls, or 'destabilisation', during late afternoon / evening occurs from 0z (7pm) through to 3z (eg from -13C [18z] to -24C [03z] eg around Hays Ks; in the dry air). The rich surface moisture and low-level winds, with respect to both strength and projected trajectories (850 is ssw), are slightly mismatched and are somewhat further east (~east of 96W line) of the said mid-level trough axis. So it is not all cut-and-dried for a tornado outbreak, and with such progressive troughs the timing is crucial. Other issues at a glance. There is the threat of a surging cold front being dominant in initiating storms, with the prospect of storms firing up in numbers along the western extent in limited moisture with the front and under stronger mid-level cooling. This can promote cold-pooling and up-scale development into a complex during the evening in areas further east, where parameters would otherwise likely favour strong tornadoes.
Overall looking good though, but a nail-biting build-up for anyone chasing.
-
Here's a link to some tornadoes that dropped Monday April 28 2008 (their time) on the east coast. 200 injured and one death which may not have been a result of the tornado.
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=8239023&nav=23iidhDw
-
Mike,
I have found out from other chasers that the photograph below look suspicious as to perhaps not be from the area. Is anyone familiar with the area that could possibly confirm the landscape?
This tornado and landspout looks like the 24th May 2004 tornadic event in southern Nebraska
http://www.wvec.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=9485&nextimage=39
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
I have been reading about three tornadoes occurring in the US state of Virginia via CNN.com and associated networks.
In addition to the weather channels and weather web sites, CNN has provided links to the various television stations such as WTRK (With live coverage), WVEC and the National Weather Service including photo galleries and video coverage.
One tornado appears to have injured 200, 28/4/2008 in Suffolk. This appears to be the strongest of the three twisters to hit the state of Virginia. A fatality was originally reported but this has been determined to be unrelated to the event.
Another tornado has hit Colonial Heights, approximately 100 km NW of Suffolk near the city of Richmond and a third twister has caused some damage near the town of Lawrenceville about 110 km south of Richmond.
Harley Pearman
-
Regarding the 1st. Still have several concerns as far as tornado potential. That 20C isotherm at 850 is awful close to the dryline - would not want the lid any hotter in this situation. I don't see substantial upper level cooling happening till after dark either. Veered 850mb flow is never good, so will be interesting to see what happens. There's a bit of upper level moisture being picked up too although I doubt it will factor in terms of cloudiness inhibiting insolation
Pros. It looks as though mid 60s dp could be realised (certainly hope so otherwise, given capping and lack of strong forcing then forget daytime storms). Delta region of upper level jet stream in place. Cold front looks way back and wont figure until the night. Overall, shear is excellent so, aside from that tendency for the the 850 winds to be SSW, strong tornadoes are possible.
I would like to be in Enid tonight and be prepared to drive east. I think, despite aforementioned concerns, that there will be a few significant tornadic supercells tomorrow esp NE Oklahoma and across the border into Kansas.
-
Why is there such interchange between degrees C and degrees F - do the US chasers do this as well? I see upper temps are generally always in degrees Celsius yet surface dew points and temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. It would help if any use of F could include the equivalent C value though I suppose it's because terms like 'high 80s' 'mid 60s' etc don't match Celsius values too well.
regards, Michael
-
Hi all,
I arrived in the US on Monday after a few (interesting) days at work last week in Vancouver, Canada and am chasing with Brad Hannon, Andrej Matko and Marko Korosec. We have been cruising for a few days watching as the models have toyed with us about tomorrow (Thursday here). We are starting to get into the timezone of more confluence between the models so its time for a forecast.
There are a few areas which have been suggested as potential targets. The warmfront in Iowa, the triple point (warm front vs cold front) in north eastern Nebraska, or the dryline through eastern Kansas and Oklahoma.
A surface low is deepening over western Kansas/eastern Colorado in response to a strong upper level trough. This is expected to deepen further overnight and move eastwards along the Kansas/Nebraska border. As the pressure falls (and has fallen over the last 24hrs) over the southern plains, strong southerlies have returned and moisture is gradually flowing northwards from the gulf of Mexico. At 8pm Wednesday DP's are currently 56f over a reasonable portion of central Oklahoma with 60-65f DP's through southern Texas. The LLJ will continue all night tonight and tomorrow with 30-45knt southerlies which will push this moisture northwards. How far this goes, nobody knows (seriously...there is substantial debate about this). In addition to this, a strong warm layer (cap) is coming in across the top of this moisture from about 870mb and above with 850mb winds of 35-50knts from the SSW. So the moisture depth is not HUGE (but ok IMO), the moisture (amount) is questionable as to how far north it is going to get, and the cap is strong so lots of quetions.
The Iowa target is being suggested to be a potential tornado producer with DP's forecast to get into the high 50's-60f (13-15C) as the pool up against the warm front and the directional shear is nice with lower level shear being south east to easterly upper level flow being south westerly, however, the speed of the shear is in question with only 25-30knts at 500mb. The best upper level shear is not due to arrive in this area until much (much) later. With the lowish DP's (and the quality of moisture being in question as well),
instability may not be that great. There is also the cap which looks to be relatively strong in this area too. So...IF the cap breaks and IF the DP's can reach the upper end of the scale (ie 60f+), shear *might* be good enough for supercells and possible tornadoes (and hail to 2 inches).
The Nebraska target is under similar conditions to the above, however, there will be stronger convergence as the front surges eastwards so the issue of breaking the cap will be far less in this location (as the convergence between the cold front and the warm front will be quite nice). The issues with this area are that it is even further for the moisture to travel (although pooling "in" the triple point could see DP's being ok) and also the surging of the cold front could see storms being rapidly undercut by cold air. In addition to this, this area's location in relation to the upper low will see upper level shear being more S'ly in orientation and as such, directional shear will be less with SE'ly's at the surface and
S'lys in the uppers. This is the "guaranteed storm" target. There will be storms here and they are likely to be severe but I would suspect these will be shorter lived and unlikely to produce tornadoes. Once the front moves through and the upper trough moves over this area, there is also the chance of snow in the early morning hours on Friday...rofl!!
The Oklahoma/Kansas target is the most interesting of them all in that there are serious questions over the cap breaking....but IF it breaks, it is likely that there will be some very severe storms with strong tornadoes possible. As this is the southern most of the three areas I have mentioned, the moisture is probably going to be best in this area. The dryline is set to extend south of the cold front from north central Kansas through just east of central Kansas and Oklahoma ("the I-35 corridor"). DP's are forecast by various models to get into the mid 60's (18C or so). There is a lot of debate at this stage as to whether this will actually verify (but as I type, the 9pm data is in and DP's are looking healthier in southern Texas with some nice 64-68f DPs). Also, as you head further south along the dryline, you head into more strongly capped air. 850mb temps are pushing just on 20C (thou vary between 17 and 20C depending on which model) which is my cut-off for chasing although i have been known to test 850mb temps exceeding this on various occassions - all unsucessful. Convergence along the dryline doesn't appear that it is going to be strong at this stage and models are showing the cap to be virtually/completely eroded by 00z (7pm - late!). The area I would expect to have the best chance at breaking the cap would be the intersection of the dryline and the cold front. As noted above, this is set to be somewhere around north central Kansas by late tomorrow (around Emporia, Kansas). So...lets assume the cap breaks (just for fun). With surface winds from the south at 35knts, the LLJ in this area tomorrow evening is forecast to be around from the SSW at 35-40knts and the 500mb jet is nosing into this area with SW'ly winds of 50-60knts. With temps in the low 80's and DP's in the mid 60's, CAPE is approaching (or even exceeding) 3000j/kg and with shear like that and lowish LCL's, supercells and tornadoes would be a definite possibility. The cap *could* break further down the dryline (as far south as central eastern oklahoma), in which case, any storms which do develop would likely have very large hail (to 3.5 inches) and tornadoes.
So...after all that...what is our plan. We are currently in Wichita, Kansas (on I-35). We are going to see how the moisture is recovering tomorrow and also how the sat pic looks during the afternoon. We can head NE towards Emporia quite easily (about 1.5hrs away) and also eastwards easily if need be. At this stage, I could see us heading towards the Emporia area simply as it should be the best chance at breaking the cap (with shear and instability being pretty much the same from there right down along the dryline).
Will post another update tomorrow. SPC is likely only to issue a slight risk for much of the area due to the uncertainty surrounding initiation but they will probably "hatch" the dryline so as to say that if storms develop, they will likely be severe. (Currently a slight risk and 30% chance of severe over much of the area/s mentioned above).
Macca (& crew).
-
Why is there such interchange between degrees C and degrees F - do the US chasers do this as well? I see upper temps are generally always in degrees Celsius yet surface dew points and temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. It would help if any use of F could include the equivalent C value though I suppose it's because terms like 'high 80s' 'mid 60s' etc don't match Celsius values too well.
regards, Michael
Hi Michael;
When you talk surface obs and everyday weather, everything is in degrees F, so it is just easier to go with the flow. On the other hand charts and things more scientific do use SI (edit: and derived) units.
-
Hi all,
Currently in Fredonia in south eastern Kansas. SPC have a moderate risk out for this area :). The dryline is about 20mi to our west and is aligned NE/SW. This is allowing the southerly winds to converge nicely into it. General consensus is that the cap will break in the 6-8pm time frame with any storms which develop rapidly becoming severe. DP's are a little lower than we'd hope but have managed to get into the 62-63f range (17C or so). Surface temps are hitting around 28C and upper level support is on its way from the west. Shear is nice with the LLJ at about 35knts at the moment. The upper trough is causing a second surface low to develop over western oklahoma and this combined with dirunal cooling (?) help drag the dryline west again from about 6pm and also in response to the developing surface low, the low level winds should back to the south east, increasing chances of tornadoes LATE today.
We will hang here for now with CAPE of 4000j/kg heading this way from northern Oklahoma.
Macca & Crew.
-
SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT NATIONAL
WEATHER SERVICE TULSA OK838 PM CDT THU MAY 1 2008OKC113-117-020230-/O.CON.KTSA.TO.W.0059.000000T0000Z-080502T0230Z/OSAGE OK-PAWNEE OK-838 PM CDT THU MAY 1 2008...
A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 930 PM CDT FOR PAWNEE AND WESTERN OSAGE COUNTIES...
AT 834 PM CDT...WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR AND STORM SPOTTERS CONTINUED TO TRACK A LARGE AND DANGEROUS TORNADO. THIS TORNADIC STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR RALSTON...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 30 MPH.
A LARGE TORNADO HAS BEEN CONFIRMED...TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY!
-
Tornadoes - Kansas City Missouri 2/5/2008
I have been looking at the National Weather Service and their severe weather reports and at 8.30 am (Eastern Australian Time), severe weather watches and warnings are in force for the following counties in Missouri:-
Bates, Cass, Henry, Johnson and Petts.
A line of thunderstorms moved across Oklahoma and into Arkansas overnight and throughout the day. Last night I was watching on various radars a narrow squall line in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas pushing east and north east and severe weather watches were in force for many counties affected by this.
Kansas City has suffered a direct hit from two tornadoes which has left hundreds of homes and businesses damaged.
A high end EF2 tornado with wind speeds of between 111 and 135 miles per hour (About 180 km / h to 219 km / h) hit 2 am Friday and cut a swath 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) across North Kansas City near Liberty.
A second tornado hit a little further south in Gladstone (Actually suburbs of Kansas City).
There may have been a further tornado near Independence NE Kansas City as well. There is debate in the National Weather Service as to whether the third one was a tornado. It occurred on the leading edge of a bow echo.
Up to 23,000 homes are still without power but 40,000 homes lost power during the peak of the storms.
Initial estimates (From CNN) suggest the damage is as high as $50 million.
The system as I write this post has pushed well into Missouri now. This is obviously a strong system. The air behind the front is cold that some winter advisory watches have been issued including snow in a few but more northern areas.
Harley Pearman
-
Further to my earlier post and of interest, viewing the National Weather Service network, I have been watching the same storm system push across western Tennessee and eastern Arkansas.
This is indeed a major storm system.
At 11 am Eastern Australia time, there are no less than 4 to 5 tornado watch boxes close to the cities of Memphis and Tupelo and stretching SW into Arkansas.
I have been watching a thunderstorm NE of Tupelo intensify. It is severe warned (11.10 am Eastern Australia Time) and a tornado watch box is in place around it. This storm looks exceptionally strong and capable of producing a tornado. The radar signatures and signatures of it suggests large hail as well.
There are other severe storms SW of Memphis as well, some developing and some mature.
There is a narrow line of severe weather situated in this region.
Tornadoes - 2/5/08:
There were reports of 23 tornadoes 2/5/2008 via the National Weather Service.
The best ones are:-
1) A single storm near Ralston (Osage County - Oklahoma) - (David mentions this storm in his post) produced two tornadoes simultaneously. The storm tracked through Pawnee and Osage Counties. Also at Pawhuska - Osage County, there were other sightings and reports of two tornadoes on the ground as well.
2) A tornado tracked 7 miles (11 km) across countryside near Goodhope (Douglas County Missouri).
3) A large cone tornado tracked across countryside near Blackburn (Pawnee county) Oklahoma.
The rest were weaker or smaller tornadoes.
Harley Pearman
-
As per my last post, we were in Fredonia in south eastern Kansas waiting for the cap to break. We had driven from Wichita to El Dorado and then to Fredionia moving along with the faster than anticipated dryline during the early afternoon. We finally decided that Fredonia was about where we wanted to be given that the dryline was expected to stall and then slowly retreat in the early evening hours. In conjunction with the approaching upper level energy (cooling) and the convergence along the dryline, we figured that this area was the most likely to break the cap. Within 20 minutes of that post to the forum from Fredonia, off she went. About 40mi to our SW (pretty perfect given that storms were going to move NE initially) two storms blew up and went from nothing to 40,000ft and 45dbz reflectivities in 20 minutes - indicative of the instability. We waited in Fredonia a little while to get an idea of which storm was going to be better and then we dropped south and west to intercept. We only moved about 10mi S and 5mi west and we had a nice view of the base of the northern of the two cells which had a brief wall cloud which occluded but it looked a bit messy. Both cells were severe warned at this stage (no tornado warnings yet). Quite a few other chasers were in this area thou most were pretty sensible. The storms were not racing along and the road network (albeit gravel) was quite good in this area, which is not quite flat but its *relatively* treeless. (Quite a few chasers don't like chasing east of I-35 due to the trees/hills but its not too bad in NE Oklahoma and SE Kansas (compared to SE'ern OK).
Anyway - back to the storms. We played with this storm for a little while jogging slightly northwwards as it came closer to us (moving NE) and it took on some nice structure near Buxton with a nice vault region and some nice inflow bands but it never really looked like producing. After about 45mins or so on this storm we dropped back to the S about 10mi (to near where we had been earlier) and started watching the next cell in the line (note the term "line"). It was looking somewhat linear at this stage but the base area to our SW was quite nice with a ragged wall cloud although the outflow from the cell we had left was now pushing out a but of a gust front which didn't help the situation. We could see another cell building on the southern end of this line (about 15mi further SW) but we waited here and watched as this cell made a last ditch effort to produce as the wall cloud exhibited some nice rotation and upward scud motion and a few funnels (nothing substantial). It was quite photogenic but it was quickly evident that it wasn't going to get the job done so we dropped S again to get onto the last cell in the line.
It was looking VERY nice with barber-pole like striations up the side of the updraft which was absolutely explosive. We were about 8mi NE of this beast and it was coming right for us...sort of...it went ENE so was going to cut us off soonish but we will managed some great photos of the structure until the hail started...hehe. It was only small 1-2cm with the odd 3cm stone in there. We thought this would be the main show (we had about 1hr of daylight left) and it put out an ok wall cloud but the surge of outflow from the other storms we had been on seemed to have too much of an impact on it and it became linear (again...FRUSTRATING!). It was still quite photogenic as the sun poked through the rain curtains and lit up the base area. Eventually we moved east to get a better view of the whole line and we ended up only a few miles from Fredonia where we had been earlier in the day. We were watching this line of storms which extended from the NE across to the SW with the tail end of the line of storms about 20mi to our SW. It was somewhat photogenic here with some nice mammatus and more nice light on sunset.
The sat image that James posted sure was nice but that flanking line was the downfall of our cell/s in that it just kept building too quickly back along that line so that one particular updraft did not sustain itself as a new one built downstream of the previous one.
The lightning rate was not quite what we were hoping for though. We eventually got a little bored and a nice core came down just west of Fredonia so we decided to go and sample some more hail (it had reports of golf balls). Unfortunately this passed just N of town so we sat in the same carpark we had been in 5 hours before and pondered what to do - we couldn't get net access for some reason and inconveniently, the wx worx data dropped out (computer issues at our end). We now had cold gusty outflow winds from the NE but the convergence along the line of storms wasn't too far off to our S with the line still stretching off to the near SW. We finally got one of the cells to pass over us with some quarter sized hail (2.5cm) but this soon stopped. Suddenly, the winds rapidly went easterly and then STRONG southerly winds. Within seconds, the sirens in Fredonia went off...oops...hehe. The local sherriff came racing around with his siren on (not sure what he was trying to achieve here) and we all just grabbed out video cameras and were videoing. We didn't see anything but then the Doppler on Wheels (DOW) and a bunch of chasers took off east (following the storm). Our data popped back up and we realised that the tail end of the line had just passed over us and had a 90mph shear marker on it as it went over us...oops...hehe.
We packed out things and gave chase too - why not. Sure it was dark but this storm was going to parallel our east road just to the N so it was safe. We spent the next hour and a half or so watching various nice wall clouds just off to our N. We didn't see any tornadoes but there were a few reports of funnel clouds and we saw some suspicious lowerings from it. We eventually gave up on this cell at Moran about 60mi (100km) from Frediona as it became outflow dominant again.
We headed west to Iola to get a room and some food before our planned lightning attack on the front which was now pushing in from western Kansas at a fast rate. We had sucess in getting a hotel but little sucess in getting food so it was donuts, GIANT milky ways, chips, museli bars and juice/milk for dinner (the joys of chasing late into the night). So after a great dinner we headed west to intercept the front and set up forlightning. A slight miscalculation of the speed it was moving saw us have enough time for one 15 second exposure photo and BANG. A wall of wind, rain and hail BLASTED is back into the car (which is a Toyota Highlander 4WD - see pics). We sat here for about 5 mins as rainfall rates pushed into the 200+mm/h range and wind gusts easily of 100km/h and some smallish (2cm) hail. The line had pushed out a great bow right onto us (which went on to smash Kansas City 150km to our ENE). We got ahead of the line again just near Iola on our way back to the east but the outflow had pushed well ahead of the line by this stage so it was substantially weaker so we cruised back to Iola and called it a night at around 2:30am (although within 15mins of our arrival another strong cell had developed to our SW and moved over us giving some more torrential rain and some big BOOMs of thunder).
It was a day of rollercoaster emotions with excitement in the morning with the upgrade to moderate risk, then the concern that the cap wouldn't break, then the realisation late afternoon that it was going to break and that it was going to be a good evening, and then the dissapointment in that we didn't bag a tube but overall it was a pretty good result for our first day of storm action. Everything seemed to go really smoothly from our perspective - we were never rushed, the camera gear all seemed pretty organised, the navigating and wx worx (radar data, etc) systems all worked well.
Pics to follow (either tonight or tomorrow).
Macca & Crew
-
More from us...
We decided not to chase today even though there was a moderate risk. Apart from the fact that it was going to be a 400mi drive to get to the target, the target was in south eastern Arkansas where the chase country leaves a lot to be desired (significant trees, hills, poor road network). In addition, this area has received significant rainfall over the last few months and with the storms, flooding was a distinct possibility. Storms will also be flying along (40+mph) so with all of those factors combined, we decided to save 1000mi of gas money (around $150) and cruise back west across to central Kansas and then south to central Oklahoma in preparation for the next bout of severe weather. (Update - we are in Chickasha, OK).
(Incidentally, as I type and we are heading west and south across Kansas, the westerly winds behind this front are STRONG - we recorded a 48mph (80km/h) gust with sustained of 30-35mph. Dust is flying everywhere - it reminds me of the Mallee in a strong north westerly! Oh - and there was bizzard warnings for north western Nebraska last night).
Looking at the models, this next bout of weather could kick off as early as Sunday although this is heavily dependant on how strongly this front pushes through Texas and how far. If it weakens (which it may given the upper level support lifts out into the north eastern parts today), we could see return moisture flow starting up overnight tomorrow (Saturday) and throughout Sunday. This would push 65-70f DP's (17-20C) into southern Texas by late SUnday afternoon, creating a chance of storms (very) roughly around the Austin area along the warm front as it lifts back to the N. Another upper trough/low is currently sitting off the California coast and GFS and EC treat this quite differently over the next 4-day period. GFS basically holds it there until Day 4, whereas EC ejects this out over northern Mexicoon Day 2 (Sunday) meaning that by Monday it will have an incluence on Texas and give us some shear to play with (along with the instability). This upper system appears to be quite slow moving and the models (and forecasters) are expecting at least 4 days of storms to result from this (better than the 1-day event we had yesterday).
So at this stage, we are in central Oklahoma and we will probably drop southwards tomorrow into north central Texas (no idea where as yet but thinking somewhere around Wichita Falls to Seymour area) with the thought of dropping further S on Sunday if the moisture looks like making it back (I am slightly doubtful of this thou can't completely rule it out). And if the moisture doesn't look like making it back by Sunday then we will use Sunday as another positioning day for Monday's action (which is more likely than not).
More tomorrow evening when we work out what we are going to do re: Sunday/Monday.
Macca, Brad, Andrej & Marko.
EDIT: 70+ tornado reports from out east today. Most of the tornado reports coming from Arkansas were quite early in the day 11am - 4pm. For us to get near there or even into the path of the next bout (which is still ongoing now at 9:30pm) we would've had to have driven all night.
-
Just a few interesting things to note from our travels around the US so far this visit....
1. Some of the people we have interacted with (mostly in restuarants if you can call them that) seem to have no comprehension or consideration of the world outside of their towns. One person couldn't comprehend that someone didn't know what the "coke products" were (or that english/american may not be their primary language).
2. Overalls seem to be a popular form of attire.
3. The term "cheers" is used in many circumstances across the world - well...at least in Australia and Slovenia (so far it has been used as a substitute for "bless you" (post sneeze), "excuse me" (post burp/fart - thou as has the term "oops"), in addition to the common Australian use when starting a round of beers as was the case on Tuesday, etc.). The American's don't seem to use it much - when we say it (randomly to toll booth operators, fast food tellers, etc) they seem to have no idea what we mean - thou sometimes neither do we...
4. Americans love sticking cars/vehicles into the ground (kinda similar to us having "the big everthing"). So far we have seen a truck standing on its nose, a paddock full of Chevy's half dug into the ground, a pickup (ute) backed into a mound of dirt up to its cabin.
5. Ordering a side salad here means you get 4kg of lettuce, about 1 shaved tiny pieces of carrot and 1 piece of tomato.
6. It is safer to eat burgers and fries for every meal rather than trying to find something healthy (attempting this has already resulted in 2 bouts of minor food poisoning).
Macca & Crew
-
Macca, Brad, Andrej and Marko,
Great you have not had to wait much for the first round of action. I look forward to seeing the pictures as there were some impressive structures from the few I have had any chance to see. There were some tornadoes as suggested by Harley and David previous to this post but it seems most were late in the day and night time.
Liked some of the sayings above. Look forward to the next round after the pictures are posted.
Beats marking exams and reports!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
As promised, a few pics from yesterday...
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/010508/
Macca
(the other guys may post links to their stuff later)
-
Great photos Macca. Fingers crossed for some big storms for you. If you end up with the DOW convoy see if you can spot Reed Timmer, he'll certainly give you some great forecasts and info if you need it.
Great observations there also! You should 'edmucate' the locals on what a 'salad' is actually contrived of! Overalls and the straw hat with about 8 siblings tagging behind do you mean....?
So that means you'll be around 5 kilos heavier than when you left!!!! :)
-
Macca et al,
Rather impressive updrafts and inflow structure! You could imagine the updrafts exploding upwards rapidly given those back sheared anvils. It always seems to amaze me.
Tell Andrej, are they short longs or long shorts! Also make sure Marko to keep his eyes on the clouds - not on the women haha. Keep him under control!
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/010508/010508am12.JPG.html
Glad you guys are enjoying yourselves.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Fantastic reports Macca. I for one are green with envy! An evil looking storm from the looks of those photos.
A chaser from Oklahoma sent me this picture yesterday from a tornado that he intercepted in the evening at Osage Oklahoma. Reed saw this storm but was too far away to get close, but encountered another tornado during the night which could only be seen with lightning flashes highlighting the funnel.
-
USA Tornadoes 2/5/2008
Excellent reports and photos for those enjoying the chase.
I am happy with my effort and picked the right storm to analyse for a possible tornado. Yesterday 3/5/08 I was tracking a storm NE of Tupelo - Mississippi (I mention it in my previous post) (2/5/08 USA) that I could easily see was warned and had a tornado watch box around it.
That storm went on to produce one tornado in Alcorn County (Near the Prentis County line) along Highway 45 near the town of Hinkle. This is south of a much larger town called Corinth.
More importantly there were 55 tornado reports 2/5/08/. Most of them appear to be weak but a few substantial ones (Mostly late in the day) reported into the National Weather Service includes:-
a) 2 Tornadoes in and around Damascus in Van Buren County (Arkansas). One tornado had winds of between 217 and 265 km / h (Varied).
b) At 4.40 pm, a fatal tornado occurred in Pulaski County (Arkansas) near Hensley.
c) A tornado was reported near the towns of Earl, Turrell and Gilmore in Crittenden County (Arkansas).
d) A large tornado was reported at Mc Millans Corner in Chicott County.
e) At 8.20 pm (USA time), a large tornado was reported south of Parkin.
Many of the thunderstorms produced hail but it seems the largest reports of hail came from Union (Missouri), Bogalusa (Washington County in Louisiana) and Tickfaw (Also in Louisiana) where hail up to golf ball size occurred.
The main system that caused this episode of severe weather has degenerated mostly into a rain band and is over eastern United States and moving off the coast.
Harley Pearman
-
Hi all,
Just a quick one. We are in Midland (actually - Odessa) in SW Texas. There is a chance of marginally severe storms down this way this afternoon and we were relatively near by so decided to head down here. A weak shortwave upper trough is expected to pass over this region late today and a nice moisture plume is heading up the Rio Grande towards us on a 20-25knt LLJ from the SE. Atop this is a 30-35knt mid level jet from the WSW, giving some OK shear. Moisture is somewhat lacking but by later this afternoon we should see DP's in the low-mid 50's (not *that* bad considering we are at 1000m here).
Tomorrow and Tuesday (and Wednesday) are quite dependent on the timing of shortwave upper trough's kicking out of the developing cut off upper low off the California coast and also the amount of capping and convergence on the dryline. This means there could be storms anywhere from northern Kansas to southern Texas with no real focus point for these at this stage. Each day will only become apparent less than 24 hours out so we could have a few longish drives ahead of us. Either way, moisture will increase over the next 2-3 days across much of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas (and even up into Nebraska/Iowa) resulting in moderate instability at least. Wednesday is looking particularly interesting as the upper level cut off low ejects out over the plains, bringing with it cooler upper level temperatures and better shear.
Anyway - more from us later.
Macca & Crew
-
Video of Pawnee/Osage tornado shot by of Matt Chatelain, Daniel Betten, Matt Van Every, and Curtis McDonald with Reed. Great structure shown on the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv8PciVvYEo
And this from May 2 of a very large tornado in Cross County, Arkansas just 22 miles northwest of Memphis, TN on May 2, 2008, shot by Don and Nicole Guiliano. Plenty of lightning strikes around the funnel and debris seen also. A+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrgJv30QtoA&eurl=http://extremetornadotours.com/
-
Looking at the latest model runs, I think we'll play somewhere along the dryline between the bottom of the Texas panhandle and SW Kansas - possibly heading west into eastern New Mexico or SE'ern Colorado to where the dryline will be (big area I know but there are no real defining features tomorrow). I think moisture return will be feeble north of SW Kansas with the really deep moisture still down in southern Texas. Without a strong LLJ over the next 18 hours, I can't see the "good" moisture getting much farther N than the OK/KS border regions.
Latest model runs are also kicking out some strong energy from the upper low off California slightly earlier than previous runs with Tuesday potentially shaping up quite nicely in the southern parts of the Texas panhandle (early to call at this stage so likely to refine/change this).
As indicated in the Norman, OK forecast discussion, Wednesday will be dependent on how Tuesday's convection affects instabilty on Wednesday. If Wednesday can recover enough, it also could be quite potent over eastern OK/KS.
More in the morning. We'll be looking for any boundaries tomorrow given the somewhat diffuse surface pattern. There is a chance of overnight convection (tonight's) putting out a boundary of some sort and if this could interact with the dryline tomorrow it would increase the focus for severe storm development.
Macca & Crew
-
Hi all,
Just a quick one after perusing the models and finally getting an indication of something to hint towards a target for today. Convection fired up this morning in the early hours over central Kansas. This has put out an outflow boundary (OFB) which is pushing southwards across south western Kansas, heading for the OK panhandle. And so are we. Although the DP's may not be as nice as further S, its hard to ignore a boundary like that. There should be severe storms and a few supercells around along the dryline through much of the western Tx panhandle up to south eastern Colorado but the best chance of one of these getting nice is going to be along that boundary in the 6-9pm timeframe as the LLJ strengthens across the OK panhandle. Albeit a low chance, I would suspect that any chance of a tornado today would be along that boundary.
Macca & Crew - heading up north.
-
Been watching a report by weather site Accuweather.com; and their meteorologists and experts believe that tuesday and wednesday USA time that a major outbreak of tornadoes are possible in the W-NW Texas, Kansas, Tennessee and Mississippi regionals. There is a possibility of H2-H3 size hail, and flash-flooding cannot be ruled out. The dryline is following these moist cells at the moment, causing instability to rise.
There are, as of 5.40 am (Pac E time - Dallas/Fort Worth time), some cells already forming just west of Dallas, that could spark into classic supercells later on today - and these cells could spawn several tornadoes. I will keep an eye on this event, if and when the work i have here permits me to.
Big Pete
-
Hi all,
Quick post as things are likely to happen here fairly soon. We are in Brownfield, Tx. Nice area of convergence right over us here and its looking quite nice for severe storms/supercells over the next 3-5 hours. We are almost hoping convection doesn't initiate for another hour or so to maximise the instability.
Macca & Crew
EDIT: Heading S to Seminole.
-
Hi Macca and crew,
You are in great country and hopefully would have intercepted a nice supercell over the vast plains near Seminole or wherever the storms may have occurred!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
Posted on: 07 May 2008, 11:37:12 PM
Hi guys,
Don't get yourself in trouble in this county!
http://www.kwes.com/global/story.asp?s=8286980
A storm chaser was arrested!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Hi all,
Another short post (will write more from the car today of our last few days).
Three days ago we played around with a nice storm near Dodge City, Kansas. It was relatively high based but was quite photogenic. We eventually dropped S to Perryton in the far northern Tx panhandle where we stayed the night but not before venturing out to take lightning photos of the cluster of storms coming up from the SW.
Two days ago per my post we were in Brownfield, Tx (far south western panhandle after driving down there from the nothern panhandle) and we got onto the cluster of crap (which at times looked really nice) and we persisted with this due to the incredible 40knt dust filled inflow. Several brief wall clouds later, a nice storm finally developed on the OFB and took on some HP characteristics near Spur (200km from where we started chasing it). We were possibly the only chasers on this storm during daylight hours (unbelievable!). As the shear improved on nightfall, so did the storms. Several rounds of clustered supercells developed or moved into the area between Aspermont and Childress. We played with these after dark (moreso for lightning) and we were treated several times to some nice CG barrages. We eventually called it a night at about 2am and stayed in Childress. Quite a long day and our persistence rewarded us with some nice HP structure, some brief wall clouds and some great lightning. Quite a long chase given that we drove the entire length of the panhandle to the target, then followed storms NE half way back up the panhandle (that is assuming the panhandle ends down near Midland...). Part of the problem this day was the westerly component to the upper level winds, meaning that anvil precip fell into the updraft region.
Yesterday we headed east after the dryline passed over us at Childress at 10am and targeted Gainsville - Sherman in northern Texas (north of Dallas). Shear had the potential to be great with 80knts at 500mb and 40-50knts at 850mb. Instability was questionable with lots of convection from the previous night sapping a lot of the energy. SPC mentioned strong tornadoes in their 3pm update but this wasn't to evolve. Instability just wasn't enough and the 850mb winds veered to the SW and limited the tornado chances. We got onto the tornado warned storm NE of Dallas but it decayed shortly after we punched through it (est 50mph winds and a few 2-3cm stones on the way through). Again we got some photogenic storms but not the elusive tornado.
So far this chase has been a little frustrating. Several days have held promise but things haven't quite come together, whether it be lack of moisture, the direction of a certain level of wind, or something else.
Today we (actually...just me at the moment - others are still asleep) have woken up in Ardmore in southern Oklahoma and we are planning on heading up to Dodge City, Kansas (about 340mi away...6 hours drive) for some high based supercells and an MCS tonight.
Saturday looks like the next day for some strong convection/tornado chances but its 3 days away so we'll wait and see.
Macca & Crew (pics to come in a day or two).
Posted on: 08 May 2008, 11:44:07 PM
hi all,
ultra quick post - lots more to come tomorrow...
that was the storm of the trip so far today - so much for high based supercells...no tornadoes but INCREDIBLE structure and inflow winds of easily 50mph (likely closer to 70mph with houses unrooved and power poles snapped by the INFLOW!).
the sounding taken from Dodge City at the time of the storm (when it was 30km NW of there) is INCREDIBLE... 0-1km SRH of 600, 0-3km SRH of 900 with -9LI's. How this thing didn't tube I do not know. it came close a few times but didn't quite get the job done (but who cares with awesome structure, awesome roads and shed loads of hail...we copped some solid golf balls :) ... will check for dents in the morning.
more to report tomorrow from the last 4 days + pics
Macca & Crew
-
Macca,
The inflow in the US especially in events like you have suggested is what I love about that place. I guess we rarely say any storms with half decent inflow in Australia. 70mph inflow is powerful - up there with the strongest inflow one can achieve in any supercell.
Looking forward to the images.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Hey Jimmy,
It was certainly a great storm. A western Kansas special (like May 25 last year).
Here are some of the more interesting reports from the SPC reports log from yesterday:
00:10z 2.75inch hail JETMORE HODGEMAN KS 3808 9989 (DDC)...(we were in Jetmore about 2 mins earlier and got golf-balled very shortly after).
00:00z UNK 1 E JETMORE HODGEMAN KS 3808 9987 5 POWER POLES REPORTED SNAPPED (DDC)...(the main core of the storm didn't reach Jetmore until 00:20z...this damage was from inflow!)
00:25Z UNK 1 S KINSLEY EDWARDS KS 3791 9941 A BARN WAS BLOWN ACROSS HIGHWAY 183. (DDC)...(i think this was from the actual storm - not inflow...hehe).
00:43z 70 LEWIS EDWARDS KS 3794 9925 TREMENDOUS THUNDERSTORM WINDS TOOK DOWN POWER POLES AND REMOVED ROOFS IN LEWIS. (DDC)...(again the storm didn't reach Lewis until after 01:00 when more storm reports were received from the town...this damage was from inflow...quote from Stuart Robinson (chaser) who was in Lewis at the time..."Extreme INFLOW winds right now, power poles down!, roofs coming off in Lewis!").
Amazing stuff.
Anyways - I've put some pics up in my gallery here from the last 2 days. There will be more from the 2 days prior to that coming up as well.
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/
Macca
-
Holy cow!!!!
check this new footage out of a tornado passing through a carpark and watch what the security cameras picked up. This is why you don't stay in your car when a tornado is coming. I've been left numb - honest! Click on the image at the top.
Caught on Tape: Cars Go Flying as Tornado Hits Business in NW Alabama (http://www.whnt.com/global/video/popup/pop_playerLaunch.asp?clipId1=2470192&at1=Video+Player&vt1=v&h1=Caught+on+Tape%3A+Cars+Go+Flying+as+Tornado+Hits+Business+in+NW+Alabama&d1=65667&redirUrl=wwwwhnt.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=)
http://www.whnt.com/
-
Thanks for those pictures Macca. Nice green tinge and structure. You can definitely see the inflow. Awesome contrast too! Well done guys!
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/080508/070508am23.JPG.html
Seems like a wall cloud region in this shot.
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/080508/070508am26.JPG.html
Development occurring here with scud hangig from the base near the inflow notch.
Is this near the intersection of the road just west of Greensburg that turns NW to Dodge City? Or is it near Kinsley?
Nice flat country!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Numerous storms and tornadoes USA 8 and 9 May 2008
As I write this, a tornado warned thunderstorm including a watch box is located in Grant County Nebraska WSW of the city of North Plate. The radars are showing interesting structure as well on this storm. This storm is also very isolated.
8/5/2008
I read reports of 21 tornadoes on the SPC for this date including two weak tornadoes NW of Oklahoma City in a suburb called Bethany on Wednesday afternoon. Oklahoma City and suburbs copped it again with 14,000 homes losing power. Thunderstorms also caused some flash flooding in Oklahoma City and Tulsa with falls of around 50 mm.
Additionally a tornado hit a suburb in Tupelo (Mississippi) damaging a shopping mall.
On the subject of severe thunderstorms, Friday (Thursday USA time) I tracked a small cluster of thunderstorms (3 in total) move out of Kitt Carson County in eastern Colorado that were severe warned tracking ESE that by late in the day were over central Kansas near Hutchinson and Wichita. These storms were constantly being warned for large hail. It was interesting watching Severe Thunderstorm Watch 279 on the National Weather Service for these.
Obviously the risk of tornadoes were low being (20% for 2 or more tornadoes) and (5% for a strong tornado) but the risk of large hail was high (70% for - Probability of 10 or more severe hail events) and 40% for the probability of hail larger than 2 inches. I am unsure if this storm produced tornadoes but the storm system was constantly warned for hail and other severe weather.
I was reading an interesting forecast from the National Weather Service some of it reproduced here for Saturday:-
Eastern Oklahoma / Texas:
"Scale pattern is for organised severe storms. Storms will struggle initially on the dryline but should develop on the warm front oriented from GA into AR but expected afternoon.
Upstream, strong cold front is surging south across OK where it will intersect a well pronounced dry line near the Red River. Extreme instability could develop across SERN OKL SWRN AR into E Texas. CAP will suppress storms initially until late. Convection should fire on the cold front then more isolated along the dryline into Texas. Shear suggest supercell profiles veered south of west front. Multiple severe thunderstorms clusters could easily develop from ERN OK / AR ESE WD into NRN gulf states as upper trough deepens over MS Valley during overnight hours. Very large hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes are all possible threats along the multi faceted convective front".
This is one to watch for further tornadoes.
Harley Pearman
-
This is a statement from a news report (courtesy Jesse Ferrell of Accuweather.com) from near Clemments, NC on what has been recently classified as an EF-3 tornado to hit the Clemments and Greensboro townships:
Quote: "Authorities began combing through the wreckage in daylight this morning (Fri, 5-9) caused by a reported tornado that killed one person and injured three others in central North Carolina. A possible tornado touched down on the outskirts of Greensboro late Thursday as severe storms swept across the Southeast, damaging homes and businesses in at least three other states. At the Greensboro-Highpoint airport a Fed-Ex plane and one other could be seen where strong winds blew them. Guilford County emergency services director Alan Perdue says one person was killed in a small truck that overturned in a parking lot west of Greensboro. He said three others were injured - one when the storm knocked down a wall at a distributing business, and authorities were looking for any others in an industrial park on the edge of town. Michelle Brock, assistant coordinator for Forsyth County Emergency Management, said several homes in the Clemmons area, just west of Winston-Salem, were heavily damaged and a number of downed trees were causing problems. She said firefighters rescued five people because of flooding in Winston-Salem and that high water had displaced about 10 people. Davie County Manager Terry Bralley said four or five homes were severely damaged by the storm but no one was badly injured."
This storm came through 09/05/08 US.
Looks like things could get even more volatile as the weekend progresses from eastern Colorado through to West Virginia. Moderate storm risks and forecasted severe weather are on the maps. For further info - see http://www.accuweather.com and click on links to extreme weather pages.
Big Pete
Posted on: 10-05-2008, 18:09:29
append: - this obviously means the tornado season is defintely underway and firing.
Big Pete
-
hi all,
ok - i've finally had some time to catch up on some chase reports (sorry for the delay - you'll see from the reports we have covered a few miles lately...hehe).
Michael - we did just that yesterday - after the Thursday show in western Kansas, we didn't chase y'day and went to Greensburg to catch up with some friends to see how they were doing after the tornado from May 4th last year (more on this later...an amazing day) and then we headed south and east to Tulsa.
We are going to target central eastern Arkansas today - it will be my first proper warm-front chase so interested to see how it goes. SPC are about to update their convective outlook - wouldn't surprise me to see a HIGH risk pop out for that area.
Ok - back to the reports...refer to the following posts :).
Macca
Posted on: 10 May 2008, 10:16:46 PM
Day 7
We drove down to south west Texas in the hope that something would kick off on the mountains and move NE towards us. Shear was ok (20-25knts at 850mb from the SE and 30-35knts from the SW at 500mb) and moisture was returning along the Rio Grande but lack of upper level support surpressed convection until very late. We waited in Odessa and storms bubbled away on the mountains all afternoon but died each time they moved off. At 6pm we called it a day as we needed to be up in southern Kansas for a better chance of storms the next day. Of course 1.5 hours drive into our venture northwards, storms moved off the ranges towards Odessa (although they didn't make it to there until nearly 1am). The storm/s were severe warned in the early evening (8:30pm) so our target wasn't overly bad. Just a few small things didn't come to the party in terms of the weather.
There was a general consensus amongst the group that the far south west of Texas is an interesting place that we would be happy not to visit again for a while.
I think the highlight of this day was on our way S along I-20. A large 4WD overtook us doing about 85mh (in a 70 zone) and shortly after a highway patrol car coming the other way slowed, drove across the median (the grass...not a turning point) and FLEW past us (easily near 100mph) and pulled this 4WD over. As he stopped behind her, he threw his door open, jumped out and pointed viciously at another car behind us and ordered it to pull over too!!! Unbelievable! The car he pointed at slammed on its brakes and pulled over in front of the first car. It was fairly exciting to say the least!
Anyways...so no action this day.
Posted on: 10 May 2008, 10:18:29 PM
Day 8
So after leaving Odessa the night before, we headed N to Lubbock for the night. From there, we headed N through the Tx panhandle, targeting the Oklahoma panhandle (Guymon - Boise City) where two outflow boundaries looked collide later in the afternoon. In addition to this, a weak dryline was developing along the mountains over eastern New Mexico. DP's were forecast to get into the mid-high 50's with a mid level shortwave trough forecast to move through the area in the late afternoon. This area is quite elevated (around 1000m ASL) so mid 50's DP's aren't too bad. Low level winds were forecast to be 25-30knts from the S and upper level winds were forecast to be in the 40-45knt vicinity. As we cruised N, a cluster of storms developed over the Colorado/Texas/Oklahoma border area and moved slowly ENE. We jumped on the southern side of these N of Boise City, however, with daytime heating, moisture levels had dropped over the panhandle region into the high 40's so the storms were quite high based. We played around on some dirt roads as we jogged east and south and east again with the storms and eventually the storms moved into some slightly better moisture over south eastern Kansas. The storms were primarily outflow dominant but one developed a weak wall cloud and the storm was warned for hail and damaging winds. Another storm further NE of this one produced hail in Garden City up to the size of softballs (!!).
We played with this storm in south west Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle until just on dark before dropping south to Perryton. Storms had developed along the dryline in eastern New Mexico and had developed into an MCS and we were anticipating some lightning action from these storms later in the evening. So we got a hotel room, dumped our luggage and headed S from Perryton where we intercepted a more isolated storm N of the MCS coming up from the SW but it was raining well ahead of it making lightning photography difficult. To alleviate this problem, we headed west through the storm which had some heavy rain and hail to 1-1.5cm, and then stopped and photographed it from the back, out of the rain. The only problem was that the cell died just as it passed over us so we were only left with anvil crawlers. Some of us managed to catch a few but the show only lasted about 15 minutes so we headed back to Perryton for the night since the MCS was just a mess of rain and was moving east quite a distance to our south.
Posted on: 10 May 2008, 10:18:59 PM
Day 9
The overnight MCS had pushed out an outflow boundary well to the S of the Texas panhandle (and we were in the far north of the Texas panhandle) so we had a relatively early start to the day which saw us heading S. The upper low which had been sitting off the coast of California for a few days ejecting out shortwave troughs was now forecast to start moving towards the plains and with it came some better shear. The dryline was forecast to sharpen over eastern New Mexico and the associated low level jet was forecast to increase to 30-40knts by the afternoon from the S. A mid-level jet was forecast to arrive over the Texas panhandle by late afternoon bringing 50-60knt WSW'lys with an 80knt jet aloft. There was nice moisture to the S of the outflow boundary over south central Texas so we had to be south of that but further west where storms were likely to initiate, the moisture wasn't as nice. DP's were in the mid-50's with surface temps pushing into the mid 80's. So what we needed was storms to develop on the dryline and move eastwards into the more juicy airmass.
SPC had a 10% chance of tornadoes for the area we were targeting (the area around Lamesa - south of Lubbock). As we drove south through Lubbock, it started drizzling - classic stuff. But shortly after, we crossed the outflow boundary (which had similar characteristics to a warm front by this stage) and the sky cleared to reveal some nice cumulus. We stopped for data in Brownfield along with the DOW and convoy (per my post on the day) and noticed two areas of interest. One on the New Mexico/Texas border south of Hobbs and another further south near Midland/Odessa. Storms had already developed SW of Midland/Odessa and were looking nice on radar and an area of enhanced cumulus were bubbling into a small storm out near Hobbs. We dropped a little further SW to Seagraves to get closer to the Hobbs action where we waited for a little while and watched. A line of rapidly developing TCu to our S and SE had us interested as did the severe warned storms which were now heading NE out of Midland heading to the area S of Lamesa so we headed east to keep both as options. The developing TCu became storms quickly and were warned for hail and winds shortly after as we drifted just south of them. We stopped between Seagraves and Welch where the inflow into these storms had picked up considerably. Dust-filled southerly winds were racing into these storms at about 35-40knts - it was incredible. A left mover emerged out of the complex of storms to our SW (the Midland stuff) with a solid base on the nothern side. This soon put out one of the strongest downbursts I have seen with a massive blast out outflow which raced north and probably smashed Seagraves (i'll have to check the SPC storm reports for wind reports from this cell as it was VERY intense looking at it from a distance (of 5km or so)).
The base of this left mover and the other cells to our north had merged into one BIG nasty base with solid rain cores on both sides and was moving ENE. We jogged eastwards to Welch whilst being blasted by the insane inflow winds. Along this east-west road, a large 4WD towing a caravan had been blown off the road by the inflow winds with the caravan lying on its side (oops). It was raining from the anvil on us nearly the whole time since our earlier stop east of seagraves and the storms didn't seem to like this much. We had some interesting moments as the core of the now merged beast got VERY close to us as we had to take a north, then west, then north, then east detour to stay on sealed roads. Some smallish hail (2cm or so) and some pretty hefty wind gusts smacked us before we were able to go futher east. After the merger between the two storms we witnessed a brief wall cloud which wrapped up and looked quite nice (from near Welch) but after this, we followed this now crappy looking complex to Tahoka as it moved at about 35mph to the NE but it was outflow dominant. We persisted with it figuring that the insane inflow and the fact that it was moving into an area with better moisture that it would eventually get better.
Finally between Tahoka and Spur a new bunch of storms went up on the southern edge of the complex (just to our SW). We raced east to Post and then south east. We were now off the flatest of the flat lands and were getting into the "hill country" of Texas which is covered with smaller trees/bushes and small hills and is kinda swampy (not ideal for chasing). We managed to find a decent view SE of Post and these storms had developed into a HP monster!! Over the next hour or so we watched this beautiful striated storm moved across in front of us and blast us with outflow (the storm was moving ENE and our road went SE with no other options for 30km so we let it go). The sun then poked through under the storm and lit it up in spectacular fashion. We eventually dropped S to Jayton and then east to near Aspermont where we finally had a road option northwards. It was now dark but we were intent on getting some lightning so we booked it north and managed to intercept the storm again just S of Guthrie (Texas). We got some nice CG's from this cell but it moved off to the east. More storms had developed to our SW so we waited for these cells and scored some great lightning!!
Eventually we called it a night (after midnight) and headed N to Childress for the night. We were subject to storms/lightning for the next 3 or so hours although I think we all fell asleep before the storms finished.
It was quite an eventful day but again no tornadoes. If moisture had been better and the upper level flow had been more SW'ly I think we would've been in business but the high bases and the anvil seeding of the updrafts seemed to be the telling factors this day.
Posted on: 10 May 2008, 10:19:33 PM
Day 10
After a mere 5 hours (or so) sleep, we were up again to play another dynamic day. The upper low was now moving rapidly eastwards and in response, a surface low was developing just as rapidly over the eastern Texas panhandle/south west Oklahoma. The system was nearly stacked (meaning that the surface low was sitting very close to the upper low) but it seemed as though it would allow a narrow corridor of instability to develop ahead of the dryline in an area of strong shear. 500mb winds were forecast to reach 80-90knts from the SW and the LLJ was forecast to get to around 50knts from the S. The axis of instability east ofthe dryline looked to sit somewhere around Gainesville - Sherman (this was our target) in north central Texas and with the shear, storms would rapidly move NE. SPC had a moderate risk out for north eastern Texas with 15% hatched area for tornadoes!
The dryline passed over us at about 9:30am in Childress with another storm and some heavy rain. We headed east and overtook the dryline near Vernon. We stopped in Henrietta for some data and saw the DOW + convoy again and after getting data, we continued on to Gainesville where we again encountered chaser convergence with the DOW + convoy.
I'll keep this fairly brief. A storm developed on the dryline in far northern Texas WNW of Gainesville and produced golf-ball hail but was never warned for anything more than hail and winds. We watched this from a distance but it looked multicellular with the strong shear seemingly preventing it from maintaining a single updraft. I think quite a few chasers went after this. We were also keeping an eye on a weak storm passing over Dallas. We headed east to Sherman so we could keep both storms as an option and shortly after, the Dallas storm went from nothing to tornado warned as it intensified rapidly and showed a hook echo on radar. We went for it and core punched about 10km N of the main action and encountered some more strong winds and hail to about 2cm. As we broke through to the south eastern side, it was evident that this cell had gusted out and undercut the wall cloud. We watched as this cell raced off to the NE and waited for the final line of storms to come through along the dryline. This didn't take long given the strength of the shear but this storm had also gusted out. It was quite photogenic in the late afternoon light thou.
Again no tornadoes with a few things just not coming together again. The best storm was in an area of higher instability (the one WNW of Gainesville) but the shear was too linear and the area where the shear was better, the instability was lacking.
Posted on: 10 May 2008, 10:20:30 PM
Day 11
WOW. Not sure how to even start typing about this day. Lets start with the set up. SPC's Day 2 outlook was showing a 15% chance of severe storms over western Kansas with hail and damaging winds the main threats as moisture was expected to be an issue. In its 7am outlook, SPC noted that shear was sufficient for high-based supercells with hail up to golf balls possible in stronger storms but did not have any percentage for tornadoes.
We started the day in Ardmore, Oklahoma and as Friday wasn't expected to deliver any storms, we thought we'd go for the chance of some nice structure and a lightning show in Kansas before heading back east for Saturday (which was looking potent). We needed to be on the ball in the morning as we had a 7 hour drive ahead of us to our target area (Dodge City). The various models were in consensus (for the first time in AGES) that a dryline bulge would set up over south western Kansas in response to an approaching upper level shortwave trough. The models didn't really seem to correctly guage the strenth of the upper trough and also the quality of the moisture return. We were a little surprised to see DP's in the Oklahoma panhandle and south western Kansas to be in the mid-50's after the significant weather events of the previous day (perhaps a sign of real May moisture coming).
By early afternoon, DP's were into the high 50's over south western Kansas and CAPE was getting up above 2000j/kg with LI's of -8. This was quite a bit higher than forecast with the models going for 1000-1500j/kg and -5 to -6 LI's. By this stage, SPC had upgraded the tornado chances to 2% given the slightly higher DP's. A storm fired north of the dryline bulge north west of Scott City and before it had even reached the higher end of the reflectivities it was tornado warned. We later learned that it spawned a few landspouts in its early stages (conditions early on were classic for landspouts). At this stage we were in Woodward in north western Oklahoma and were probably 240km away at a guess. We continued on our trip towards Dodge City as there was a chance convection could fire further S along the dryline closer to our location.
Over the next hour or so the storm clearly tapped into better moisture and intensified rapidly and was again tornado warned as it passed just S of Scott City. Intersetingly enough, it was crawling along at no more than 15-2omph. Low level winds were forecast to be about 30-35knts from the SSE and with the upper level shortwave coming through, the mid level flow was supposed to be 50-60knts from the west so shear was definitely nice. We caught distant glimpses fo the anvil and dropped west to be near the dryline in case something went up further south but after reaching Meade in southern Kansas with a clear view of the dryline, we could see that this was going to be the southern most storm. It was on - we raced northwards and watched updrafts explode up the back end. In its 4pm update, SPC had upgraded to a 5% risk of tornadoes in the area of this storm!
We continued north through Cimmaron and finally got a view of the base and updraft structure - it was AWESOME. The storm was still tornado warned for doppler-indicated rotation and had shear markers on the Threatnet with 103mph of shear. We dropped west a bit and then north and pulled up amongst a bunch of chasers just as the storm was pushing out a nice RFD. When we got out of the car, the inflow surprised us all. It was easily 40mph with gusts getting up over 50mph and it was from the SE! Trying to video and photograph in these conditions is difficult to say the least. Tripod footage is almost out of the question as the wind blows over even the sturdiest of tripods. The road network in this part of Kansas is incredible (if you are willing to drive on dirt/gravel roads) with a cross road every mile or so. We stayed at this location as long as possible but we had to move eventually when the storm put down another RFD to our direct north which surged southwards towards us - it was this downburst which started the storm's transition to HP. We, along with a bunch of other chasers, raced eastwards before we scattered in various directions - some went north (into it!), some went south and some went east. We stopped briefly for more photos before busting it south end east again.
The easiest way to put it from here is that we jogged east with the storm to Kalvesta and then to Jetmore stopping every 5-8 miles for photos and video at various locations. THe storm exhibited strong rotation for much of this time. During one of our southward jogs, an area of intense rotation developed about 1/2 to 1mi behind us - it was REALLY cranking - probably the strongest rotation I have ever seen without producing a tornado - if this thing had dropped one, it was going to be pretty close to us (within 1 mile!).
We stopped just west of Jetmore to take more pics and there was a HUGE hail-filled green RFD which had dumped down just to our west - it was RACING towards us. We later heard that tennis ball sized hail fell just east of Jetmore not long after we left. We copped a nice battering of 2-3cm hail with the odd 4cm stong thrown in and we left quite a way ahead of this nasty core. We had the choice of going S from Jetmore but we chose to go ENE. As this storm was now HP, we wanted to be able to see (be in) the notch as if any tornadoes were going to happen, it was going to be here in the notch. As we left Jetmore, we were battered with CRAZY inflow winds with branches coming off trees and sparking powerlines. It was incredible - dust was coming from everywhere into the storm. As we hooned ENE, a barrage of clear air CG's started to occur out in front of us - it was awesome to watch these bolts hit out ahead of us with clear blue sky in the background! We got out of the hail and got a way ahead of the beast and as we drove ENE towards Sanford the anvil crawler activity went nuts! Daylight crawlers every 4 seconds were ripping across the underside of the anvil. We stopped in Sanford where we watched the storm wrap up again. It came close to producing here again with tendrils of scud rotating around each other quite rapidly. We had parked beside some large pools of water from previous days storms and it wasn't long before the hail started again. We stayed here for nearly 10 minutes in sporadic 2-3cm hail watching the storm wrap and the hail splash into the water - it was AWESOME! Suddenly...BANG...BANG...the bigger stuff started. In amongst the 2-3cm stones was now the odd golf ball - and they were SOLID! The splashes in the water were now BIG and the stones were bouncing easily 8ft in the air. We finally had to move as we heard a report of the tennis ball hail and we didn't want to lose our windscreen! Inflow was the strongest it had been too at this time with gusts easily over 60mph!
As we dropped south for a little bit of safety, we saw a snapped power pole which had broken as a result of the inflow and we heard reports over the NOAA weather radio that more poles had been snapped and houses unroofed from the inflow winds! Over the next hour in the now fading light we watched this HP beast slide past us to the north as we dropped south and east and the warnings on this storm were downgraded to severe thunderstorm warnings. During these moves, we crossed over several of the tornado tracks from May 4th and 5th from 2007 which were still clearly visible. Another cell which had been tracking behind this one had now developed further to the SW and a line of storms had fired along the cold front west of these storms. We had made it nearly to Pratt when we decided to wait for this next line of storms which were looking intense on radar. This was confirmed when a nice area of rotation developed about 5mi to our west which we could only see in the 1-2 flashes/sec lightning. Shear markers popped up on the Threatnet of 115mph but we didn't see anything resembling a tornado. Again the hail started ahead of the main core (1-2cm) and we decided to head east into Pratt to watch as these storms as they moved into town - we had a 10mi eastward movement to make to do this. Well...lets just say the first 8 miles was pure excitement as hail pounded down heavier than it had all day :) !!! It was only small(ish) 2-3cm but the entire road was covered making for interesting driving and the noise was deafening.
We made it to Pratt but the storm lost its grunt as it came in to Pratt and the hail had backed off to just heavy rain. We got ourselves a room and called it a day...but what a day! What a storm. The inflow into that storm was incredible - something I have never seen before. I mentioned in an earlier post that the inflow winds caused damage - these winds have been estimated by experienced chasers at 70-90mph!!
Anyway - I think I've gone on long enough.
-
Hi All,
The May 8th western Kansas storm was certainly a treat. I havn't experienced inflow into a storm like that before. We could hardly stand in it!!! Observed 2 inch hail. Looking forward to todays chase, will be target NE Texas into Arksanas. We don't know this chase country at all though.
Regards
-
Hi all,
Just a quick post. In Little Rock, Arkansas atm. Latest RUC showes 6500j/kg of CAPE forecast to our SW in about 4 hours. Currently 85/73 down there!!! We are waiting for the warm front to lift northwards (it is about 30mi to our S atm). Helicity values are up into the 400's so we should be in for a show this afternoon.
Macca & Crew
-
USA Tornadoes 10/5/2008
There have been 34 tornado reports at the time of looking at the SPC, some of these are significant in Eastern Oklahoma / Missouri and Arkansas including fatalities. From the SPC (Via the National Weather Service), the most significant are:-
1 - At 5.42 pm (Central USA time) in Ottawa County (Far NE Oklahoma) a major tornado resulted in 5 fatalities and heavily damaged houses in towns in this county. This one is featuring on news storeys.
2 - At 6 pm (Central USA Time), a tornado has hit Seneca and later Neosho in Missouri. These towns are in far SW Missouri in Newton County south of the city of Joplin. There are numerous injuries and US Route 60 has been closed for a while. At the time of reading through the SPC, there have been 10 fatalities in Newton County.
Given the proximity of these places, it appears that this was 1 storm system including a significant tornado.
Also NE of Purdy in Missouri (Same general locality) but in adjoining Barry County further east, a tornado caused 1 fatality. Four homes damaged plus 1 church.
These tornadoes are making news storeys.
Looking at reports, it appears that other tornadoes have had much less impact.
At the time of reading the SPC, there were 154 reports of hail throughout with the largest being:-
1 - Elk Falls in Elk County SE Kansas - Tennis ball size hail (7.5 cm occurs).
Sycamore (Montgomery County in SE Kansas) hail the size of tennis balls (7.5 cm occurs).
Joplin in Jasper County in Missouri, larger baseball size hail falls on 22 nd Street and Windfield Street.
Monet SE of Joplin in Barry County - Sheet metal was observed and reported falling from the sky by an observer.
A major thunderstorm, Obviously a supercell passed across this region.
Smaller hail fell from thunderstorms elsewhere across the region from pea size through to golf ball size.
Harley Pearman
-
Hi all,
I wrote this last night at about 11pm with intermittent power outages.
This day was always going to be potent. 500mb flow of 60-70knts from the west and 40-50knt 850mb winds from the S combined with CAPE in excess of 4000j/kg and a stalled warm front over central Arkansas. It doesn't get much more potent. SPC had issued a moderate risk for many of the gulf coast states including eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, all of Arkansas, most of Loisianna and Missouri, and parts of Kentucky, Tennesee, Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama with a risk for significant tornadoes over quite a few of those states too. Arkansas seemed to be in the greatest risk area with the best combination of shear and instability. We targeted Little Rock without knowing much about the terrain apart from the fact that east of Little Rock was fine and west of Little Rock left a lot to be desired.
After driving from Tulsa in the morning, we checked data in Little Rock around mid-afternoon and decided to drop a little S as the warm front was sitting just to our S. We found some WIFI in Sheridan and we waited here until nearly 5pm before the cap broke about 120km to our west. This was ok given the storm motion was forecast to be 45-50knts (given the strong shear) as it meant it wouldn't be hours until we got some action. We headed west to I-30 to intercept but the whole area S and W of Little Rock is trees and hills and views are few and far between. We eventually got off I-30 at exit 114 where we found a hill with some sort of a view (not great). A cell passed to our N but our main focus was on the one on the western edge of the cluster which had developed. As it approached, it got darker and darker and the inflow winds picked up from near calm to 20+knts. Thunder was rumbling constantly above our heads and finally we were able to see the base. It was RACING along at breakneck speed and appeared to have some rotation (which was soon evidenced by a 92mph shear marker showing up on the Threatnet about 2-3mi N of our location). We got blasted by the RFD as it passed overhead and we waited here for about 10-15mins (timely...you'll see) before we tried to chase.
It was headed right for Little Rock, however, the storm intensified rapidly and moved ESE and (kinda) spared the city. This wasn't great for us with the poor road network (and only 2 river crossings for 60km) but we persisted and tried to get ahead of the storm again. We traversed across the southern part of Little Rock before heading south east to England and then east along US-165 towards Stuttgart. We were coming in behind the storm and were planning on punching through to the front side but it was difficult given the storm speed. We drove along east of England noticing large hail to at least golf ball sized lying on the grass on the sides of the road. The southern edge of the storm was no more than 5mi to our SE, and as we drove through Humnoke a shear marker showed up on the Threatnet
with 92mph where the main updraft would be just to our SE. We couldn't see anything due to the rain but we continued east hoping that with the storm's ENE movement, we would pop out next to the base/wall cloud. As we neared Stuttgart the winds increased rapidly from the N. We had one east road option on the south side of Stuttgart which went for 20mi and that was it - that was our last chance with this storm before we had no road options left - at the time we were coming in to the north side of town. About 1 minute before we made the turn to head S through town, the shear marker updated to show 126mph entering the south side of town from the west (noting that there was a 2 minute delay). I jokingly said to the guys, "if there really is a tornado we'll know about it when we get to the south side of town". After heading S for about 1/2mi we had to turn east again before heading S again to the south eastern side of Stuttart where the east road was but we were stopped by traffic lights. There was no traffic...but our light stayed red for what seemed like an eternity. We were going CRAZY...there was potentially a tornado on the ground just to our S and we were stuck at a stop light. We think it was about 1-1.5mins past before we finally just busted through the light anyway (it was still red) and we headed east and then south. We got 2 blocks south (about 1/3 of the way through Stuttgart) when the first signs of damage started. First it was a piece of tin around a pole, then it was a BIG sign blown down, then it got worse as we headed south. Power poles snapped off at the base, trees snapped off, houses damaged with walls missing. We turned east onto our east road not entirely sure of what to do, driving across fallen powerlines and around snapped power poles lying all over the road. We saw a young woman who had just gotten out of her car - she had been in her car on the road when the tornado passed over her. Her car was surrounded by downed power lines. We stopped not more than 250m down the road when we realised there were some badly damaged houses and we started to check to make sure people were ok. People were just emerging from shelters, basements and damaged houses. I went up a side street (I think it was S Oak St) and knocked on a few doors calling out to check if anyone needed help. I then came across a family who had just come out of what was left of their fibro house. There wasn't much left...no roof, no walls, just debris. They had been in the bathroom when it hit and had all made it out unscathed - amazing. Over the next hour, we directed traffic around downed powerlines and eventually made a make-shift road block to stop cars/trucks from hitting the low-hanging wired (which would've brought down more lines/poles and caused more damage). We were going to head out of town but realised that the motels in town were relatively quiet (since it was so soon after) so we are currently holed up in a room on the north side of Stuttgart. There is no TV, no internet but we have power (although every 15-20mins the power goes off either because they are trying to fix the downed wires or because more things keep falling down).
Given what we saw tonight, this appears to have been a large tornado. From memory, damage started somewhere up near east 10th St and was still going south of US-130. This would make the tornado nearly one mile wide. We will wait to see what the result is but we know of nothing else of this tornado or any others which may've occurred today apart from a wedge in Oklahoma which may've caused several fatalities. I guess we'll find out in the morning.
We had missed being in town with the tornado by no more than 2 minutes. We think back to the 10-15mins we waited for the storm to pass before chasing it through southern Little Rock, we think about the delay at the traffic lights on the northern side of town. I think we are all in general agreement that it was a good thing we weren't 2 minutes earlier - who knows what would've happened. We have since found out from the DOW team that they got chased out of town by the tornado. They stopped a few miles east of town and looked back to see a large multi-vortex tornado just east of town and off to their north. Our rough calculations show this tornado to have been at least 1/2 mile wide.
Were we lucky - yes. Were we unlucky - yes. But if I had to choose between the two, i'd rather be lucky.
It was a little ironic that we had spent 5 or 6 hours in Greensburg, Kansas the on Friday meeting some friends who live there only to be back in a similar situation a little over 24 hours later that we were in just over 12 months ago. I guess we are starting to realise that this is part of chasing over here. There will be times when we are on the scene early.
More later on our visit to Greensburg - some amazing stories.
Macca & Crew
Posted on: 12 May 2008, 01:51:57 AM
We managed to get around much of Stuttgart this morning even though there were road blocks in many areas. We walked through some parts of town before we were turned around by the police (and they actually threatended to lock us up as we were taking too long to head back - we were taking pics...hehe). It was interesting thou as the residential area was not blocked off at all so we drove around, parked and walked around, etc. We went back to the place we stopped at last night and I think the house I found destroyed was potentially the worst in all of Stuttgart (thou most other houses were well constructed compared to this). I read somewhere today that this tornado has been preliminarily rated EF3! We got plenty of photos and video of the damage around town. I'll try and get to these tomorrow morning.
In the mean time, I have uploaded a few more photos from 5th and 6th May to my gallery.
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/
Macca & Crew (currently in Sallisaw, Oklahoma)
-
Macca and crew,
Full credit to you guys for stopping and trying to assist people. It was obvious that it was dangerous on a day like this to attempt to get ahead of a fast moving tornadic storm anyway - saving lives certainly is the cause as to what we are on about. It disturbs me that this year 2008 after all the work and education of the public and people are getting killed in the worst year for deaths in recent times.
The pictures of the carnage will follow I guess.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Tornado reports Oklahoma and Missouri
An excellent website to peruse for film, photos and detailed storeys being NewsOK.com
It has been suggested that the tornado of Saturday is the worst since May 3 1999 given that fatalities have exceeded 20.
The town of Picher in Ottawa County has suffered badly. There is one town in this county (This might be it) in which 20 blocks of residential dwellings were heavily damaged.
The National Weather Service tracked 5 tornadic supercells across Oklahoma but the biggest twister (Mentioned in my previous post) appears to have sustained winds of 175 miles an hour (Roughly 280 km / H) and was 1 mile wide (1.6 km wide at times). It was a long track twister and I read one report on NewsOK.com suggesting it tracked some 63 miles (Around 100 km).
Several counties have been declared disaster areas such as Crawford in Kansas and Ottawa in NE Oklahoma.
Also CNN.com is covering this storey well with numerous links to various local TV stations, newspapers and I reports.
Also, there is a link to a separate video on CNN in which a resident was filming a hail storm (Location not known) and a bolt of lightling hits a shrub on a driveway some 15 metres away, captured on camera.
Harley Pearman
-
I saw on the Weather Channel that it was the worst season for a long time. That footage with the cars is breathtaking as well.
-
This has been a busy season for all Tornado chasers and storm chasers over there wish I was there to witness allthe spectacular weather
Posted on: 12 May 2008, 09:20:04 PM
Macca you have some nice photos in the link you provided some very nice shots indeed
-
Brilliant reports Macca. You've captured the feeling of being there without being there....fantastic read. An intense time and stay safe. Wonderful to read that you're helping out where you can, as Jimmy said, it's the most important thing to help the victims of such destructive storms. Cudo's to you all there.
-
Hi all,
As promised, I have put up some images from our visit to Greensburg on Friday last week. Hopefully (or not) I'll get some time later this week or into the weekend to put down on keyboard (as opposed to paper) some of my thoughts and also some of the stories we were told during our visit.
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/090508/
Warning: Some of these images (and my captions) may not be "easy" for people to read, however, I felt it necessary to properly capture the feeling of what we saw and felt.
Macca
-
Nice cell south of Wichita Falls at the moment and heading towards Graham Tx. (~7:30CDT). Currently severe warned but watch out.
(Edit: ouch - all dead by 8:12pm).
-
Yes, a big Bust here yesterday. The cap was well breached in the evening over OK south of OKC but storms failed to advance past the pulse/weak multicell stage. I can't quite put my finger on were it all went wrong but deep level shear looked terrible and forcing along the cold front south of OKC always looked like it was struggling. We are a bit annoyed we didn't go for the easy dryline bet and were lured to the bust by an SPC moderate risk. All part of the severe weather experience over here. ;D
-
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=299_1210375488
Posting this video from chaser Jim Reed photographing a close, photogenic tornado.
Now, the worrying thing is what he does once the tornado is stationary. I do think that this is extremely irresponsible to leave his passenger in the car filming while he goes and gets his 'perfect shot' You'll see it and you'll hear the passengers voice becoming quite unsettled at times knowing this thing is so close. What if the tornado decided to track again?
I'm probably being a bit harsh and he obviously got away safely...
Great footage all the same but jeepers !
-
Beautiful contrast on that. It appears to be a landspout tornado with relatively light wind speeds so probably not as risky at it may first appear.
MB
-
Looks landspout as Michael suggested. These are the lesser intensity of the tornado families though some have known to reach F2 on the damage intensity Fujita scale. Nice to know there are no trees and some reasonable road to get to the tornado.
These type of tornadoes track along boundaries and this is likely why the tornado became stationary.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
had problems trying to play the video. Does anyone else have a solution?
Big Pete
-
Hi Pete - try the source website directly (join these two lines together to make the URL):
http://www.liveleak.com/
view?i=299_1210375488
-
GFS (this version: http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/12/index_500_mu_loop.shtml, other is here
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwpara/analysis/namer/gfs/12/model_mu.shtml ) and EC (http://meteocentre.com/models/ecmwf_amer_00/cep00_9panel.gif) both in agreement now on a major trough impacting the plains ~ next week (ie ~ May 21-May25). There will be some high risk outlooks if this pans out let me tell you!
[High risk = "The HIGH risk implies that a major severe weather outbreak is expected, with great coverage of severe weather and enhanced likelihood of extreme severe (i.e., violent tornadoes or very damaging convective wind events). Within a high risk area, expect at least 20 tornadoes, with at least 2 of them rated EF3+, or an extreme derecho causing widespread wind damage, with numerous higher end wind events (80+ mph) and structural damage reports."]
-
Greetings,
Next week is certainly looking interesting. I see though that SPC are using the term 'omega block' in their 4 to 8 day outlook this morning. There looks to be a risk the upper trough over western USA may be prevented from progressing sufficiently eastward onto the plains. Just a fear of mine with this forthcoming set up.
-
Yes, the latest EC and GFS (operational) in particular do not want to break down the large trough over the eastern states; even the ensembles not looking so great now.
-
Number of USA Tornadoes January 1 2008 to May 18 2008
I have been looking at the Storm Prediction Centre Tornado statistics for 2008.
It is clear that the number of reported tornadoes is well above average to date being.
January
136 Preliminary, 84 Actual
February
232 Preliminary, 148 Actual
March
151 Preliminary (Actual not calibrated)
April
192 Preliminary (Actual not calibrated)
May
294 Preliminary (Still counting).
This totals 1005 reported tornadoes.
The count also reveals that 99 fatalities have occurred which is well above the current average of 62. The worst was May 10 in Ottawa County (Oklahoma) and Newton County (Missouri). That tornado was rated EF4 by the National Weather Service.
Majority of tornado reports seem to be in the order of EF0 and EF1 which is consistent with past trends.
Harley Pearman
-
Hi all,
We've been quiet for a few days - not through exhaustion but moreso through being busy doing non-storm stuff. We are currently in New Orleans, Louisianna and have done some sight-seeing around here and also in Houston in Texas (a few days ago now).
Just to keep you enthused, I have uploaded some weather pics from our last two chasing days being 13th and 14th May on my gallery.
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/
Chase reports for these days to come (as is something about our visit to Greensburg and damage photos from Stuttgart).
The next system is looking pretty nice at this stage and *could* start as early as Wednesday so tomorrow and Tuesday we will be driving pretty much all day. We have to get from far south eastern Lousianna up towards north central Kansas by the end of the day on Tuesday - looking at about 1200-1300 miles (about 1750-1900km). Hopefully during this time I'll be able to catch up on some chase reports, etc.
Macca
-
Hi Macca et al,
Nice lightning anf structure shots! Seems to be some interesting lowerings / wall clouds as well as clear slot in one picture? Not sure.
I take it if I am looking at this correctly, it looks to me like inflow streamers yes?
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/140508/140508am29.JPG.html
Good stuff! No shortage of pictures from this trip. Let's hope this next system livens up as David was suggesting it was looking potent at one stage!
Just spotted this one:
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/140508/140508am27.JPG.html
Tornado - yes?
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Hey Jimmy,
Not sure about inflow stingers. We were east of Austin and the storm was west of Austin. We were concentrating more on getting lightning photos by this stage of the night (midnight) after chasing storms from 2pm that afternoon near San Angelo all the way to Austin (400km+!!!). Lightning was quite nice with a CG every few seconds...hehe.
Tornado....possible. I've posted the image on stormtrack as well. It was quite short-lived at least the nearly fully condensation part but the 2 images either side of this one that I have show a funnel. There was also a fairly nasty hook on radar back in there with 115mph shear marker showing up on the Threatnet. Don't think it has made the SPC tornado reports though (yet).
Macca
-
Macca,
So you don't think inflow stinger - inflow streamers - is it along some shelf? Yes I know you were east of the storm but if the storm was oriented northeast southwest it is quite possible and if it was a right mover. That would put the interesting features on the northern northeastern end? Not sure - hard to tell if I don't know the orientation.
Nice structure and nice major funnel - to me I think possible tornado. I will post elsewhere as well. I would require exact time date etc and location Macca thanks.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Re Thursday:
You would remember Sidney Nebraska Jimmy -- as we got petrol there on May 10, 2004. The winds were howling out of the south east, could barely get the car door open at the Shell servo there :) There was a large tornado in Colorado (as per Bobby Edins video)
Anyway, I'm thinking that region is the place to be with those incredible backed 850 winds strong upslope and SRH values through the roof. It should be howling by late afternoon and look as as though quite rich moisture in place so low bases over the high terrain. Currently, looks like strong tornadoes will occur under the progged scenario. As opposed to what was possible 4 days ago, it's not worth the 'flight risk' now, but I'd be pretty happy with what I am seeing if I was there!
-
Hi all,
Chase reports from our last two chase days in Texas (Tues/Wed last week):
13th May 2008
We started the day in Oklahoma City knowing that we wanted to head S. Our target from the nightly check of the models was southern Oklahoma near Waurika - the cap was strong but was expected to break down the dryline from OKC to the red river (Tx/Ok border). However, a check of the models in the morning revealed precip breaking out down towards Abilene in northern Texas where the low level winds backed to the ESE in response to an approaching upper level feature. This had our interest so we headed S to Wichita Falls (S of Waurika) and decided to re-check data from here to ensure we didn't blow off our initial target too early. The day was to hold quite some promise with CAPE approaching 4000j/kg in the forecasts and relatively strong mid-level shear (50-60knts). Big hailers were on the cards but tornado potential was low-ish due to sluggish (slack) low level winds of only about 10knts.
We got to Wichita Falls and crossed to the western side of the dryline in the process. We sat in Wichita Falls for a few hours watching and waiting. There was some cirrus aloft which was preventing significant heating at this stage and the dryline had stalled about 10 miles to our east. As the cirrus cleared, strong heating and increasing low level winds saw convergence along the dryline improve and TCu started to bubble nicely along the dryline just east of Wichita Falls. We headed east about 20 miles to sit just near this TCu but after about half an hour, it didn't get any better (it actually got worse). We noticed that some weak cells had popped up along the dryline further S where the models were indicating backed surface flow N of Abilene. We packed our things and booked it south.
We headed S to Graham and then west to intercept the southern portion of the now line of storms which had developed in this region (WRF model nailed it perfectly - it could've been GFS but I can't remember). As we neared, it looked nice with an inflow band but we could tell without even getting out of the car that the inflow was not great at the surface (less than 10 knts).
We found a good vantage point on the side of the road and stopped to watch as this cell produced an OK wall cloud to our SW and moved slowly towards us. There must've been a decent updraft going up to our near west under a half-decent looking base as it soon unloaded and pushed out a strong burst of outflow. There was some intense motion above us as the outflow pushed overhead and CG's started pounding down around us. We moved east to stay ahead of it and pulled over just near some high tension power lines. We were here for about 15 minutes watching the nice gust front push out with nice whale-jaw look to it. More CG's rained down around us then suddenly....SNAPCRACKBOOOM!!!!!!!! WHOA!!!! I asked Andrej is he was OK as I swear it had hit the fence he was standing/leaning on but he was fine - it had hit the high tension lines just 50m from us. Both Brad and I had our video camera's running at the time but neither of us caught the actual bolt but we have the flash, the snap and the crack - its quite nice :). I think the Sheriff who was parked up the road from us was somewhat amused (as he cleaned his own underwear) as we all grabbed our cameras and tripods and bolted (pun intended) back to the car.
We headed east again as the precip reached us with more CG's hammering down around us. We made it back to Graham and headed SE but then decided to head NE as the storm was seemingly going ENE and a SE road option wasn't going to suit. After 10 minutes, we decided the storm looked like crap so we dumped it for some new development to the far SW (just N of Abilene) in the hope it would provide a nice lightning show just after sunset. UNfortunately this didn't quite come off and the storm decayed quite quickly after sunset.
We ended up staying the night in Breckenridge (no...not the Colorado version) which was a good thing as we got up the next morning and discovered a flat tyre (tire as they spell it here).
14th May 2008.
So we checked the models for this day during our stay in Breckenridge and decided we had two options to play. The area around Abilene (just to our S) was looking OK in terms of shear (30knts from SE at 850 and 50-60knts from the W at 500) but instability was somewhat in question as a result of an overnight MCS which grazed the area. The question was whether the atmosphere would recover enough in time to get instability sufficient for supercells (this did eventually occur thanks to the strong upper trough coming into the region and rapidly dragging moisture and thus instability back north during the day). The other option was to boot south to near San Angelo into the untapped air which hadn't been overturned by the overnight MCS and play with the dryline bulge and east-west aligned boundary which was drapped across this area in conjunction with the strong instability developing (CAPE of around 3500-4000 and LI's of around -10 to -11). This sounded too good to refuse for us so after we had our tyre fixed we bootd south. A third (early) target was over far eastern New Mexico in the upslope easterly flow which saw DP's of 55-60f heading up the hills into eastern New Mexico into the region where the upper trough was having an early influence. Storms went up in this area by lunchtime and were severe warned. I know a few chasers targeted this area but it failed to produce even with the strongly backed surface flow. THe cap was a little weak in this area which saw quite a lot of convection firing and probably spoiling the party.
When we were about 50mi N of San Angelo the first storm of the day (in our target area) popped up and within half an hour it was severe warned as it headed towards the southern part of San Angelo. We dropped south on the western side of San Angleo and we got a nice view of the base here. It looked very nice (see pics). As we dropped further S and the storm neared, we placed ourselves just east of the base. What a sight!! We were sitting in the vault and the view was incredible (see pics). The only problem we had with this cell was that it looked like it was weakening a little and this may've been due to the new cell which developed to the S of this one. All we could see was the precip on the northern side but it was looking nice on radar. We decided to blow off the first storm (which was still looking nice) and head for the southern most storm but our road options were limited. THis meant we had to drive either a long way south and then east or head south east on an unsealed road. We took the unsealed option to keep us relatively close to the cell. What an option this turned out to be. As the storm pulled away to the east and we headed south east, we got an AWESOME view of the back end of this storm. It looked like a bomb had gone off with the updraft EXPLODING in the highly unstable air. It made for some awesome photos (see pics). We couldn't stop for timelapse video given the relatively fast motion of the storms (35-40mph). We eventually made it back onto the sealed road as this storm went tornado warned and was also warned for hail larger than baseballs - she was a BEAST! The Threatnet was indicating storm tops of 55-60,000ft and from what we saw, this was looking pretty much on the money! We were now gaining on the cell but the downwind precip filled with golfball and larger hail was moving ESE with the main updraft moving SE towards Eden. We were hoping to head N from Menard to Eden but we weren't going to make it in time without risking getting pounded by some massive hail.
We kept heading E (and then ENE) towards Brady whilst watching this beast just a few miles off to our north. It was very photogenic but was definitely a HP monster. As we neared Brady, we realised we needed fuel. FOrtunately the gas station was on the south western edge of town right near our next south east road option. We raced into the gas station, fueled up and as we were doing so, took turns in racing back out to the main road on foot to take photos of the FAST approaching, green, hail-filled monster! It was spectacular but the locals didn't seem to realise the impending doom their town was about to face. THey just casually filled up their gas tanks and wandered around as if it was any other day. I'm not sure why the sirens never went off in Brady - perhaps it was because the large hook was going just north of town. Anyway - as we pulled out of the gas station the outflow blasted us and a few drops of precip started to fall. A wall of white and green was JUST there! We scooted south east JUST ahead of it only to hear on the weather radio minutes later than baseball hail was reported on the northern side of Brady with winds in excess of 70mph!! I'm sure the locals weren't so complacent by this stage.
Just taking a step back, as we drove towards Brady from Menard, we watched as another cell exploded to our SSE (about 40mi away). This thing was incredible to watch and kept my attention whilst the others had the view out the other side of the car of the massive HP beast to the north. The southern cell split and we then watched the left split move almost due N towards Brady but then fizzle out and die as it got close (we were a little concerned it may kill the storm we were chasing).
After we left Brady to be smashed by the HP, we headed south east to get ahead of the storm to get photos of this fairly awesome gust front. We stopped about 20mi down the road and got some nice pics but the radar was indicating this storm was looking fairly outflow dominated (even thou it was still tornado warned, a lot of these warnings appeared to be mostly from either rain-wrapped wall clouds or from significant outflow). A decision was reached to keep heading SE to Llano to intercept the southern storm which was still looking fairly impressive. No more than a few minutes after this decision, the storm was tornado warned with spotters reporting funnel clouds. We had to go about 35mi to Llano and the storm had about 20mi to get to Llano - we beat it but we took the core punch route (a very well calculated, relatively risk-free one). We encountered some torrential rain and small (2-3cm) hail but popped out of the precip about 4mi N of Llano (heading S) and the view to our west was incredible!! The base was HUGE and there was great separation between the precip and the updraft. We managed to get to the southern side of Llano and set up for about 15 minutes as we watched two areas of strong rotation approach Llano (not sure why the sirens didn't go off here either). Inflow into this storm was WARM and very moist and was much better than the previous day - it looked to be about 25-30knts. CG's were raining out of the vault and the structure was quite amazing. Eventually we were forced to move as precip hit our location. Unfortunately the storm was moving into an area with some terrible road options and terrible terrain (the hill country) but we had to make do.
We had to push a long way SE before we got another decent view but with the storm speed it was oK as it gave us plenty of time to watch as the storm approached out location. We were now well S of LLano and the storm was still going strong - not quite HP yet. It had an awesome wall cloud as we stopped and a nice inflow band extending off to the ESE (which actually marked the E-W aligned boundary that we found out the storm was riding along. SPC had mtioned in a mesoscale discussion that this storm (and another up near Abilene) had the most potential to produce tornadoes given their proximity to east-west aligned boundaries. Several other chasers were on this storm also and passed us at this location. We watched from this hilltop for quite a while as the storm passed across our path to the north. As it did this, a second wall cloud developed and the wall cloud in the notch of the developing HP was really cranking with rotation. We had to move from here as the storm moved behind a hill so we dropped south again but with still very few road options and darkness approaching we headed well south and east to Marble Falls.
We somehow found the lookout of the year in Marble Falls on the southern side of town - it was deserted when we arrived (ti was a church carpark). It was an elevated position looking N towards the storm! A long inflow band extended off to the east (still) and had a heavy core. As it moved ESE, we noticed a low bowl-shaped wall cloud partially rain wrapped. As the storm continued ESE towards our location the light faded but we could still make out the wall cloud. Through the poor contrast we noticed a small funnel as the wall cloud wrapped more tightly. For about 10 seconds, this funnel appeared to condense most of the way to the ground (refer pics on my gallery). Shortly after, it lifed back up btu maintained a funnel shape for another minute or so before we lost it in the rain and poor contrast. A nice hook was showing up on radar in this location and the shear marker on the Threatnet indicated 115mBy this time, loads of other chasers had turned up at this location and the carpark was now packed with chase vehicles and tour groups. The storm moved over Marble Falls in the valley below us and soon smashed into our location and the chasers disperesed rapidly. The outflow from this monster was STRONG with gusts easily over 50mph (80km/h). As we raced south, the car was pushed around a bit but suddenly FWHOOOSHH...debris, gravel and other sh!t smashed into the side of the car as a gustnado slammed into us from the side and the car lurched off into the left lane. It only lasted about 1 second but it was STRONG. We estimate the winds were probably around 80mph (130km/h). We sustained a few minor scratches on the side of the car but otherwise escaped unscathed.
We again had very few decent road options and we decided to head into Austin and through to the eastern side of Austin to wait for the storm there. We didn't fancy trying to find somewhere IN Austin traffic to view the storm from. This gave us time to traverse Austin and get some food (quickly) and set up for the storm. It was still tornado warned (and had been for a long time now) yet apart from the possible tornado we had seen, no other tornado reports had been made. As the storm passed accross the northern part of Austin with a very nice hook echo, there were reports of brief touchdowns however I don't think any of these have yet been confirmed. It was now 10pm or so and this storm had been going since about 6pm and had ben tornado warned for the last 3 hours! We waited on the eastern side of Austin and positioned ourseleves just south of its path to get some lightning photos and keep an eye out for any base features. To keep it short, we didn't see much. THere were a few OK CG's but nothing special.
We let the storm slide off to the east but we had another line of storms in our sights to the west whih was about 50mi west of Austin. We cruised around, set up at a little clearing we found about 25mi NE of Austin and waited. We copped a glancing blow from another storm which developed ahead of the other line but this soon cleared off. The best area of this line of storms looked to pass a bit to our south so we dropped back south to near where we had had some dinner earlier in the evening (it was now well after 11pm). We set up near a carwash off the main road looking west towards Austin and it started. A barrage of CG's which lasted probably all of an hour (maybe more). One cell west of Austin was going nuts but was a little far away for photos but another cell along the line closer to us (just NE of Austin) was putting out some infrequent but very nice CG's. As this weakened and moved away to our NE the stuff west of Austin was starting to come into range. Two, three and at times four and even five CG's filled our frames (and we also missed countless bolts either watched through the viewfinder trying to re-focus on a different area or bolts hitting just off the side of the frame). Great hilarity was involved in this as we each called out as we viewed our photos with CG's off the side or watched them through the viewfinder. This went on for AGES as the storm got closer and closer. Eventually a HUGE duwnburst unloaded over Austin (and produced softball sized hail at 1am!!!) and another storm went up close to our location dropping CG"s no more than 2-5km away. THis made for even more great photos, again with 2 or more CG's filling our frames. This whole time we had remained precipitaiton free but finally it was upon us and we were forced to pack up and move. We headed east about 25 miles to get ahead of it in case it wanted to keep going. We set up again in a clearing and although the storm had weakened signifintly, it managed to punch out 2 more CG's for us. We eventually called it a night just after 2am and headed to Elgin (just east of Austin) for the night. We had been chasing storms from just north of San Angelo to east of Austin and had covered 480km in doing so and had been viewing the storms for just under 12 hours (both new records for me!). It was an amazing day with a bit of everything. Hail, base structure, updraft structure, wall clouds, possible tornadoes and finished off with some AWESOME lightning.
It was the last chase for a while as a ridge moved in and we did some touristy stuff. More on those things in a later post.
Macca & Crew.
(Oh - as noted, the pics from these two days are up on my gallery here... http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/ ).
-
Wow, incredible supercell produced a large tornado in Weld County Co.
http://www.9news.com/9slideshows/Weld%20County%20Tornado%205-22-08/Default.aspx?N=7
Storms are moving NNW from the Palmer Divide initiation hotspot, rapidly developing into supercells, enjoying the incredible SRH in the vicinity of the warm front, before hitting the cooler surface airmass north of the warm front.
-
Just received a phone call from Macca bunked up in Salina at the moment. Seems there day was pretty damn good ... 4 to possibly 6 tornadoes including a multi vortex literally right in front of them that lasted a good 10 - 15 minutes.
One pic so far. Macca has promised a crap load more in the next day or two!
(http://www.downunderchase.com/friends/macca/maccatornado.jpg)
-
California and Colorado Tornadoes / Hail reports 22/5/2008
A hard to believe report but authenticated, two tornadoes were observed in Riverside County 55 miles (About 90 km) east of Los Angeles in the Moreno Valley district (California). One twister toppled a semi trailer and a train was derailed.
Another twister occurred near the March Air Force Base situated on the western side of Moreno Valley City.
This event has received fair coverage on local television stations and photos are available at CNN. Also Storm Prediction Centre has done an article on this.
In Colorado, Windsor NNE of Denver, a large tornado has ripped through the south eastern side of this city of 19,000 resulting in one fatality. Reports suggest it was one quarter mile wide (About 400 metres wide). This storm was accompanied with hail from golf ball size to tennis ball size.
Funnel clouds were observed at Loveland (in the same general area as Windsor).
Even in NW Kansas, smaller tornadoes were observed in Sheridan and Decatur Counties.
Another tornado occurred at Laramie (Albany County NW of Cheyenne), Wyoming damaging a high school, a Wal Mart store and several houses.
Looking at the Storm Prediction Centre site, there were 46 reports of tornadoes with the biggest by far in and around Windsor and Greeley. Many still need to be confirmed.
Incredibly there were 130 hail reports from various thunderstorms as well. Mostly small hail but a few decent ones include:-
1 - Sheridan County at 22.20 PM (3.5 inch size hail) NW of Grinnell.
2 - Kingfisher in Kingfisher County (NW Oklahoma City) Baseball size hail observed by a KOCO television crew at 4.04 pm.
3 - Lincoln in Oklahoma where a large quantity of golf ball size hail fell at 6.57 pm.
Harley Pearman
-
Wow at those pics -- awesome tornado!
It was a big day today: 46 tornadoes in all. Haven't looked at tomorrow myself, but SPC is suggesting another busy day in the same region.
-
Hi Macca et al,
Well done! That tops off what I call a hard effort this season. When Tornado Alley fires, it does so in a big way! And that is one large, high contrast tornado too! Ummm spot the trees - how flat are those plains.
Will wait for further updates as the things quiet down. I know just how you guys will be feeling right now - a feeling of accomplishment and shock. Today it was your turn. I note in the archives with other chasers, quite a few chasers missed the tornadoes.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
9 News showed the Colorado tornado tonight. It certainly looked pretty wide. They also had footage of the derailed train (but failed to mention it was in a different state!).
-
Imagine the following for a Public Weather Outlook:
From Storm Prediction Center
A LARGE UPPER LEVEL LOW PRESSURE AREA WILL REMAIN OVER THE WESTERN
UNITED STATES THROUGH TONIGHT. A SHORTWAVE TROUGH ROTATING ABOUT
THIS SYSTEM WILL TRAVEL FROM NEW MEXICO NWD INTO THE CENTRAL HIGH
PLAINS LATER THIS AFTERNOON. THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP
WITHIN AN UNSTABLE AIR MASS FROM SOUTHEAST WYOMING INTO WEST CENTRAL
KANSAS AND WESTERN OKLAHOMA BY MID-LATE AFTERNOON ALONG A DRYLINE
AND TRACK NORTH-NORTHEASTWARD ACROSS THE RISK AREA. VEERING AND
INCREASING WINDS ALOFT COUPLED WITH MAGNITUDE OF INSTABILITY AND
MOISTURE WILL POSE A RISK OF A FEW STRONG TORNADOES...AS WELL AS
GIANT DAMAGING HAIL AND LOCALLY DAMAGING WINDS.
I also like the Giant Damaging Hail bit. Strong tornadoes are also likely.
Good luck to those that are out there.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
Posted on: 24 May 2008, 08:08:40 AM
Hi guys,
Some amazing tornadoes observed today with a wedge developing from rapidly rotating mesocyclone. The development was also rapid - behaviour very rarely observed except with extreme wind shear as it was today and low bases!
We will await the verdict from the guys to see how they went as they were to be in the area at that time. Some busted windshields today I would imagine!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Hi all,
Just a quick post. Saw another 5 or 6 tornadoes yesterday :). Missed the Quinter wedge but saw soem other nice ones. Don't know how Dighton managed to survive but they were on the doorstep of a multi-vortex beast yesterday - we viewed this tornado from about 1mi NE of it with 3-4cm hail falling sporadically at the time :). Also saw a nice stovepipe, several other small tornadoes and a brief spin up less than a mile away from a rapidly developing meso which passed over us. Good times.
Currently in Belleville, Kansas (between Concordia, Kansas and Hebron, Nebraska). Trying for 3 days in a row today although not sure how we'll go.
Macca & Brad (Andrej and Marko got the tornadoes y'day too but had to head back to Dallas last night)
-
Just happened to check the SPC and NOAA National Weather Service, whoever is on the northern Oklahoma supercell would have enjoyed themselves. There was rapid rotation and also 8 to 9 tornadoes confirmed. Now it seems the tornadic circulation was rainwrapped. Slow moving storm as well!
Cells developing along the dryline in southern Nebraska. the guys well let us know in due course what happens there.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
More twisters hit Kansas and Oklahoma 24/5/2008
Unbelievable but news reports filtering through:-
CTV.ca
KMBC-TV 9 News - Kansas City
KMBC.com
Tornadoes rampaged through western and central Kansas for the second night in a row destroying numerous homes and causing widespread damage. Fortunately, most tornadoes occurred in rural areas.
One tornado in Gove County lifted a vehicle and tossed it across Interstate 70 and a local disaster was declared in this county.
In Comanche County, the town of Protection took a direct hit from another tornado. Damage occurred on the east side of town with numerous trees and powerlines down.
Greensburg:
Another tornado passed through town. Incredible, the twister approached from the west, lifted and dropped back down on the east side of the town that is currently being rebuilt from last years tornado devastation. Damage was minor. The funnel cloud passed right over the top of town.
Other tornadoes occurred in Ellis County, Pratt County and Trego county.
Currently breaking news on KWTV/News 9 as this is being written, a tornado in Kansas has caused two fatalities in a vehicle that was found in a field, 160 km west of Wichita.
Up to 17 tornadoes rake Kansas Friday as well.
A spectacular tornado is captured by KWTV/News crew from a helicopter, flying beside it over Oklahoma Saturday May 24 2008. Go to CTV.ca with image.
More details on the Windsor Tornado (Colorado).
The twister damaged or destroyed 600 homes in the small city. Winds have been estimated at between 111 to 165 miles per hour (180 to 267 km / hour). It's path was 35 miles (56 km) long through northern Colorado.
Going onto the Storm Prediction Centre, 23/5/2008 was an exceptionally busy day.
There were 63 tornado reports and 102 hail reports and 44 wind reports. The most significant were:-
2238 10 miles SSE Gove (Gove County - Kansas) Multiple reports of funnels / tornadoes from a spotter network over a 5 minute period.
2314 10 miles SSW Quinter (Gove County Kansas). A large wedge tornado reported.
2352 8 Miles south of Studley (Sheridan County Kansas). Report from a spotter network reported a wedge tornado at 6.52 pm CDT and a stovepipe tornado by 6.59 pm CDT.
0112 9 miles SW Greensburg (Kiowa County Kansas). KAKE Storm Chaser sees a large tornado on the ground.
0132 Ellis (Ellis County Kansas) Two damaging tornadoes reported with lots of power flashes observed.
Also storm moving near Greensburg with large wall cloud and producing occasional tornadoes.
0135 Greensburg (Kiowa County Kansas). Tornado on the ground.
0140 1 Mile west of Greensburg. Tornado observed on the ground at 183 and 54 Junction.
0148 3 Miles west of Haviland (Kiowa County Kansas). A large tornado observed on the ground.
0217 1 Mile north of Ellis (Ellis County Kansas). 2 tornadoes reported. One large and one small. The larger one was just north of I-70 at the Ellis Interchange.
4 Miles south of Trousdale (Edwards County Kansas). Two tornadoes on the ground at the same time located between 240 and 250 Roads and V and W Roads.
These represent the most significant of the ones reported.
These are all detailed at the Storm Prediction Centre Storm Report web page.
Some impressive hail reports too. While the majority relate to small hail, the most significant are:-
2115 2 Miles west of Cozad (Dawson County Nebraska). Golf ball size hail fell with winds gusting to 100 km / hour. Hail covered the ground.
2158 7 Miles east of Wheatland (Platte County Wyoming). Pea to quarter size hail completely covered the ground turning the ground white.
2250 1 Miles west of Knowles (Beaver County Oklahoma) Baseball size hail reported.
2259 8 Miles SW of Meade (Meade County Kansas). Quarter to golf ball size hail. Some hail jagged.
2353 6 miles NNW Inglewood (Clarke County Kansas). Wall cloud with rotation and hail the size of tennis balls occur.
0255 10 Miles west of Slapout (Beaver County Oklahoma). Quarter size to golf ball size hail.
0403 Higgins (Lipscombe County Texas). Baseball size hail.
There were also reports of golf ball size hail near Sylvia and Abbeyville (Reno County Kansas) and hail to the size of lemons 5 Miles east of Wheeler in Wheeler County Texas.
Wind reports
The most significant two that captured my attention are:-
A semi trailer being blown into a house (2155 report at Eaten Weld County Colorado).
Hutchinson Airport - Hutchinson (A gust measured at 84 miles or 136 KM / H) Reno County Kansas.
With so many storm reports, tornadoes and hail, it certainly was an active day across parts of the midwest.
Harley Pearman
-
Hi all,
We busted royally in south eastern Nebraska today. We got onto the southern-most convection along the dryline in south eastern Nebraska and it bubbled away nicely between 5pm and 6:30pm with some LP'ish structure but the shear was just too strong and the instability just wasn't there to keep the updraft sustained before it would get ripped apart by the 70knt mid-level jet. Not to worry. The Oklahoma storm would've been nice but we are happy enough with our 12 or so tornadoes in the 2 days prior (though slightly spewing we missed the Quinter wedge!).
Anyway - we reside in York, Nebraska tonight but it looks like we'll be heading back west tomorrow for another shot over north western Kansas/north central Kansas (both tomorrow and Monday). Target to be refined in the morning.
In the mean time, I have finally been able to catch up on some photos.
This was the day before the first of the two big days when we chased up in Colorado and got some nice LP storms, a few funnels and some nice structure at the end of the day... http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/210508/
And this is what has been termed Day 1 of Tornadofest 2008....
There are 4 different tornadoes in this gallery (the first one is near on impossible to see but after that it gets much easier...trust me). I'm about to watch the video back for the first time (yes...i know...its nearly 3 days later!) but from what I've seen so far, it is quite nice .
Enough rambling...here is the link...
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/220508/
Enjoy! Day 2 of Tornadofest 2008 to come in the next few days (which hopefully have a little more sucess than today...hehe).
Macca
-
Hennessey, Oklahoma Tornado Footage May 24 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_INhNhuEQ4Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeYrFZk67No&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbcm6TZNxcA
Wow! Incredible scenes and I guess a different perspective.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
TV news tonight had a few of those aerial shots. Amazing stuff! Glad I wasn't under it!!!
Would still like to be there chasing it though. One of these years.
-
It would have been a great year to be chasing - and the season isnt near 1/2 way in, and it's already setting records with the most deaths in a tornado season in 10 years, and still more are occurring.
Big Pete
-
Thanks for showing all those shots Macca - enjoying the show remotely !! Awesome to see the life cycle of the tornado N of Hoxie.
MB
-
Hi guys,
WOW they are definitely having a great storm/tornado season in the states! (I wish our last season was as substantial? Here's hoping this year will turn into something decent or I think I'll quit lol!)
Reading the reports and seeing the photos first hand from Macca (and co.) is really handy and it is great to have a man on the ground!
Great job Macca, take care over there! Cant wait to see what eventuates over the next couple days! Watch out for those F5's! ;)
I'm also keeping my eye on Mike Hollingshead's site as he just purchased a new Canon HV20 (from what I've read in his updates) so I cant wait to see what sort of footage he gets and how well he uses it in this current fluctuation of severe storms? (that I very much wish I could witness first hand from a chasers perspective)
Cheers,
Shauno
-
Hi guys,
Macca I must apologise I somehow did not see the post because I just went straight to posting myself or you were doing it at the same time? Not sure.
I just saw the sequence of the tornado! Yes nice stovepipe You get the impression it was a very strong or even violent tornado in steady state! Nice flat country and also fantastic contrast. I bet you found it hard to remain upright with the inflow on this particular day!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Hey Jimmy,
No worries - I think we posted at the same time :).
The wall cloud was rotating violently and it was clear that it was going to produce a BIG tornado...sure enough, a few minutes later we saw the vorticies start to dance around underneath. We then watched it for I guess over 10 mins (possibly 15) as it churned pretty hard just off to our west. Motion was definitely indicative of a very strong (possibly violent) tornado. It even developed a horizontal vortex (may've been two of them actually) which persisted for several minutes as well around the back of the tornado. I've seen these as common features in strong tornadoes.
This was the second tornado this storm had produced and it went on to drop at least 2 more that we saw - one of which became quite large as well.
I'll get around to writing a full report in the next few days (as well as doing my photos from the following day when we saw more tornadoes...hehe).
Didn't have the greatest chase day yesterday with lots of storms going up simultaneously and becoming rapidly outflow dominant - we had some frustrating moment but had some fun with some outflow dust later in the day. There were a few tornado reports in Kansas but apart from one or two, I fear the rest may've been crapnadoes (ie sheriffnadoes, scudnadoes, dustnadoes, gustnadoes).
Today we are sitting in Bucklin, Kansas (about 15mi west of Greensburg) near the triple point hoping that storms fire up in a most isolated fashion today - entirely possible given the stout cap in place at the moment (although with 4000 CAPE and -10 to -12 LI's, once it breaks, it should be explosive).
Macca & Brad
-
Well Macca and Brad have nailed today in terms of positioning. An awesome looking supercell has formed right near them and heading just east of Greensburg as I type. Im sure there will be some more amazing pictures to come.
Classic example of a outflow boundary on today's vis sat pic. The loop really showed it up well. You could literally see the cu increasing in size as the boundary hit before the smaller cu died off after it passed. Fascinating to watch
(http://sydneystormchasers.com/files/images/OutflowboundaryKS26may08.jpg)
-
Beautiful sat pic that one. The various outflow boundaries around the place are very clearly visible. That's the one thing that I remember very clearly from my time chasing over there back in 2004...how the OFBs were still so obvious well into the next morning, and needed to be taken into account when planning chase targets. It's just not something you tend to think of too much back here.
-
Tornadoes - Iowa 25/5/2008
Impressive photos and observations.
Certainly an impressive tornado season. Looking at the Storm Prediction Centre site, there have been 1,191 tornado reports and a preliminary count of 931 twisters from 1 January 2008 until 23 May 2008 and the number is well above average to date.
However, it was Iowa's turn 25/5/2008 and some significant tornadoes include:-
2147 - 2 miles south of Aplington (Butler County) Iowa. A large tornado resulted in 6 fatalities and 70 injuries. The tornado tracked through Parkersburg. This one has featured on CNN. This tornado causes major damage on the south and east side of town.
2205 - Hugo (Washington County Minnesota) which is part of an outer NE suburb of St Paul. A tornado results in one fatality.
2209 - 1 Mile north of New Hartford in Butler County Iowa, a tornado leaves 2 fatalities. A later report 2211 makes mention of a rain wrapped tornado with a satellite tornado.
2213 - 3 miles north east of Stout in Grundy County Iowa, a spotter confirms another large tornado 2 miles SW of New Hartford.
2228 - Blackhawk County (Iowa) Large tornado observed over county near Waterloo and the airport.
2301 1 Mile west of Fairbank (Buchanan County). An 800 metre wide tornado was observed moving east towards the town of Fairbank.
2307 (This would have been incredible). As baseball size hail falls over town of Fairbank, one tornado is confirmed NE of town but a second tornado approaches town from the west.
These represent the most significant of the 50 reports. Full details can be found on the Storm Prediction Centre web page. It seems a very powerful storm system occurred near the city of Waterloo. Many of these places are close to this city central north east Iowa.
Hail storms
In addition, some major hail events also occurred. Of the 291 hail reports, the best ones are:-
1919 - 13 Miles east of Leoli in Wichita County Kansas, 3.5 inch size hail falls.
2022 - St Germain in Vilas County Wisconsin, vehicles observed with smashed windows following a hail storm.
2050 - 4 Miles SSE of Silver Creek Wright County Minnesota, 3.5 inch size hail falls over a housing estate.
2215 - Softball size hail occurs in Finchford in Blackhawk County Iowa.
There were other reports of golf ball to softball size hail from various thunderstorms included in these but the majority of these observations relate to small hail falling.
Harley Pearman
-
Hi all,
We've been a bit quiet over thelast few days - mainly because our chase has come to an end. I am typing this from Los Angeles airport with only a few hours until my return flight home. I am totally storm exhausted and don't want to look at another weather chart for months.
I still have to write up a report for Thursday, Friday and probably Monday (the bigger days) and also need to put up pics from Friday and Monday.
In short, we busted Saturday, didn't see much Sunday (as in we picked the wrong storms but got some interesting lightning after dark and some very very fun outflow jets - more on that later), and on Monday...well...Greensburg was under the pump again. The short version of Monday is that we were on the Greensburg supercell, got absolutely PUMMELLED by BIG hail, smashed the windscreen and peppered the car with dents (funnily enough unintentionally) and had a great day...hehe. Again - more on that later.
Thanks for all the comments, forecasts, etc over the last month. It was great to be able to share our experiences with members of the forum. If anyone wants any information or has any questions, please feel free to ask (in this thread as it will allow others to see the questions and responses).
I think we clocked up 11,000 miles in the 4 weeks we chased. Surprisingly, we spent the majority of our time in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas with only 1 brief chase into Arkansas, 1 into Nebraska (bust) and one in Colorado.
Tornado count for the trip in the end was 14 (i think) and we had two days with hail of 2 inches (5cm) or larger fall on us. It was my best chase season in the US to date (out of a total of 3).
Cheers,
Macca (& Brad, Andrej, & Marko)
EDIT: Not sure if this is some kind of sick joke but they have "Old McDonald" playing here in the Qantas Club.
-
Great reports Macca, has been great fun enviously reading them.
The BBC currently has a reporter over there storm chasing for a week and blogging his experiences. Up to Day 2 so far.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7421072.stm
-
Macca, Brad, Marko and Andrej,
That is an awesome number of tornadoes to get in one season particularly during the limited time frame of opportunities. Well done! And most of all they were photogenic and awesome! Some strong tornadoes were had in those 3 days in particular!
Have a safe flight home guys and we'll see you here in Australia!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Iowa Tornado Rated EF - 5, Storey from KWWL 7 News 28/5/2008
To those chasing the storms, it has been great reading of the experiences. Excellent storeys.
I found a local newspaper article from KWWL 7 News - Iowa City and Cedar Falls labelled:-
Tornado labelled EF-5 as death toll rises
The Parkersburg Tornado has been rated EF-5 based on damage assessment and the most powerful tornado this season. It is to date, the only tornado to be labelled EF-5 for this season. Sections of the storey from article below.
"The National Weather Service has rated a deadly tornado that levelled half a town in north east Iowa an EF5. That makes it the states strongest tornado for 32 years.
The twister tore through Parkersburg and nearby towns on Sunday killing 7 people and destroying neighbourhoods with winds up to 205 miles per hour. The tornado was the strongest in the United States since May 4th 2007 when an EF5 twister flattened Greensburg, Kansas killing 11 people. Iowa's last EF5 tornado was in June 1976 in the central town of Jordan. No one was killed.
President Bush declared Butler County a national disaster area making federal money and resources available to help with the clean up. Mid American Energy says it expects to get power back on in Parkersburg by Wednesday and gas back up by Friday. 160 National Guard troops are in the Parkersburg area to help with clean up and security."
The storey concludes by listing those deceased but I will not state this paragraph on this thread.
Also a related storey to this from KWWL 7 News is one in which possessions and photographs and personal belongings to those impacted being found up to 90 miles away.
Another - Raw Video near Fairbank and Tornado update.
The storeys of this major tornado can be accessed via the KWWL 7 News website or type this station into Google.
Today 29/5/2008 - Kearney Sees Tornado Damage
A few of us at work was tracking the thunderstorm from 8.20 am using the National Weather Service network and it was certainly closing in on Kearney - Nebraska. We identified that the storm could produce a tornado and decided to follow it for a while.
The article produced afterwards from KETV Newswatch 7 on KETV.com outlines.
"Buffalo County's manager reports a tornado swept through Kearney Thursday evening causing extensive damage to trees and homes. A power line forced the closure of I 80 between Aurora and York just before 8 pm. Photos from newswatch 7 storm chasers show roofs removed from buildings and cars stacked on top of one another. The large canopy roof of a gas station was ripped of its supports and tossed into a parking lot".
"The storm front has downed several NPPD transmission sub transmission and distribution lines in the Kearney area and left 12,000 customers without power in the community".
Further, the twister destroyed the Buffalo County Fairgrounds and damaged the campus housing at the University of Nebraska around 5.30 pm. The twister ripped 40 rail cars of the tracks in Kearney.
The tornado tracked south west to the north east across the city.
This one appears to have been the most significant tornado of several across Nebraska for 29/5/2008. The short article that I refer to was prepared just 32 minutes after the tornado swept through the city.
This is also mentioned in CSV reports 2220, 2225, 2235 2236 in the SPC Storm Reports for the day.
And around 8.30 AM (Australian time) besides this storm in the Kearney area, there were three other storms across Nebraska that were severe warned and Tornado Watch Box 384 and 386 were also in effect at the time across the region. Watch Box 386 had a "Public Severe Weather Outlook" warning and there was a forecast of severe thunderstorms including the development of a few strong tornadoes over parts of the Central Plains including Western Iowa, eastern half of Nebraska and far South east Dakota.
Further details on this major tornado can be found at KETV.com
Harley Pearman
-
Hi all,
If you take a look closely at this footage, you will realise why the storm in Iowa that devastated Parkersburg was so violent! Incredible large supercell!
"youtube.com/watch?v=5mp8MxAwawI" copy and paste into a browser window
This footage shows the complete devastation - you could hear the leaking gas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLx7Xe6_cxo&feature=related
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Damn, the hook wrapped around very quickly in the first video - monster storm. At what stage was this video shot -- any idea? The tornado seemed very large so perhaps an occlusion was imminent with that wet RFD. From the survey I saw a few days back the tornado damage was EF2 when it maxed out, while earlier on, when 1/2-mile wide or less, it was at maximum intensity EF4 EF5.
btw, the account containing the first video has disabled video embedding so you need to paste the link in manually and you will see it.
-
Hi all,
Just a quick one with pics from Day 2 of tornadofest 2008:
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/230508/
We saw 6 or 7 tornadoes this day - none quite as picturesque as the day before but nice nonetheless (haha - yep - i'm a picky bastard...I'd be happy with just one of these back here in Australia!).
Macca
-
Kearney Tornado - Nebraska 29/5/2008
I have taken an interest in this tornado simply because I was on the National Weather Service website and watching this thunderstorm at the same time the events were unfolding in the locality.
Had a look at a local newspaper - North platte Bulletin 29/5/2008 and 30/5/2008 and it appears much of the city has come out relatively lightly. However the north east quadrant of the city has been hit hard. It is thought that 6 tornadoes (Estimate only) may have occurred.
Additionally, a Union Pacific Train was wrecked near Odessa around 5.30 pm. It had 93 carriages (All derailed). Damage in the city is concentrated around mobile home parks and apartments.
I also found a report in a local newspaper of a tornado in the Grand Island area as well.
A small town called Wellfleet in Lincoln County suffered damage from a barrage of baseball size hail as well.
Auroa and York were also affected by the thunderstorm.
Incredible - A KETV Newswatch 7 (From Omaha) news team has reported on a $13 million private company jet wrecked inside a hanger at the airport following its collapse during the tornado.
Amazingly, there were no injuries despite the severe weather event.
North Platte Bulletin (A Local Newspaper) has done a good article on this event with various video clips and photos.
Tornado Indianapolis - Indiana News 31/5/08
Amazing scenes of a night time tornado leaving 18 injured in the city of Indianapolis. A narrow tornado on the east side of the city was 50 metres wide (reported at 150 feet) leaving a path of damage 2.5 miles long (4 km). It heavily damaged apartments off 38 Street.
The tornado is rated EF2 packing winds of 125 miles (Around 203 KM / H). The touch down was around 10.30 pm at night near the intersection of 42 Street and Post Road. It travelled SE to 38 Street near Germon Church Road before lifting.
It was on the ground for 3 minutes. The storm left 65,000 customers without power.
This is another classic case where tornadoes do not discriminate between rural areas and built up areas.
At the same time, thunderstorms in the area produced straight line damaging winds of up to 80 miles (130 km / h). Two homes were hit by lightning in Waverton Way in Fisher and a third in Carmel.
Hancock, Mario, Montgomery and Tippecanoe Counties suffered from various damage from trees being blown down, powerlines damaged and some wind damage to buildings.
This article and associated news items can be found on CNN.com which has links to The Indy Channel.com and local footage.
Harley Pearman
Posted on: 01 June 2008, 07:04:59 PM
Active day in Tornado Alley 5/6/2008 / Tornado Watch Box 462
The tornado statistics for 2008 are remarkable and 5/6/2008 was another active day.
In particular - 35 tornado reports and 144 hail reports (From the Storm Prediction Centre web site).
Today I watched a strong line of thunderstorms march across the American mid west on the National Weather Service web site. I shared the weather Warning that came with it to several at work being Tornado Watch Box 462. This was the strongest tornado warning that I have seen this season to date.
Tornado Watch Box 462
The warning was issued as computer models suggested an outbreak as bad as June 8 1974 but it later turned out not to be as severe as predicted.
- Warnings were issued for Winds to 80 miles per hour (132 km/h).
- Hail to 3 inches.
- Long track tornadoes.
This was an urgent message from the National Weather Service and in force from 11.50 am to 8 pm CDT.
"This is a particularly dangerous situation".
"Destructive tornadoes, large hail to 3 inches in diameter, thunderstorm wind gusts to 80 MPH and dangerous lightning are possible in these areas".
"The tornado watch area is approximately along and 60 statute miles east and west of a line from 30 miles north of Concordia Kansas to 70 miles southwest of Enid Oklahoma. For a depiction of the watch, see the associated watch outline update (WOUS64 KWNS WOU2)".
"DISCUSSION--- Thunderstorms will rapidly develop along surface cold front / dryline over Central KS and Northwest OK during the next few hours. These storms will interact with extreme instability and very favourable low level and deep layer vertical shear profiles for supercells and tornadoes. If storms can maintain more discrete structures through the afternoon, strong and long track tornadoes will be possible. Otherwise, widespread damaging wind and large hail are expected".
"Aviation--- Tornadoes and a few severe thunderstorms with hail surface and aloft to 3 inches. Extreme turbulence and surface wind gusts to 70 knots. A few cumulonimbi with maximum tops to 500. Mean storm motion vector 24040".
The line of thunderstorms did move across the region through Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. There were 35 tornado reports. The ones I noted were:-
Report 2040 Voda in Trego County - Two tornadoes reported by 1 spotter.
Report 0053 Corning in Holt County Missouri - A large tornado was observed crossing the Missouri River near the county line of Holt and Atchison.
Most tornadoes were in the EF0 to EF1 range with a few stronger ones but mostly in rural areas. Damage seems to be relatively light compared to what was expected. There are a few exceptions to this.
Hail - Two hail reports stand out.
Report 1302 - 2 miles south of Wallace in Lincoln County (SW of North Platte) Nebraska, baseball size hail observed.
Report 2039 (I find this one hard to fathom) - Golf ball size hail and winds blowing at 100 miles per hour (162 km / h) same time 6 miles south of Cunningham in Kingman County, Kansas (ESE of Pratt). This occurred in a rural area.
While another storm did produce golf ball size hail (Based on reports and observations that I found), the majority of the 144 hail reports was for smaller hail.
The discrete storms eventually merged to form a narrow squall line that produced allot of damaging winds throughout with wind gusts between 60 and 80 miles per hour. There is much wind damage throughout the region with trees blow down, damaged electricity networks and some damage to buildings.
A look at the radar network at 9 pm (Eastern Australian time) showed that the storm front had weakened somewhat.
I have also looked at the 2008 tornado statistics to early June. There are now 1,330 reports and 350 now confirmed and the reporting is well above average for 2008.
Harley Pearman
-
Harley,
It seems even from the warning there was uncertainty based on the cap as well as the extreme instability that the storms could develop into a squall line or discrete cells. What happened is the former. Strong squall lines can and do produce tornadoes.
Regards,
June 7 2008 US Time - Chicago tornadoes
Jimmy Deguara
Posted on: 06 June 2008, 10:34:49 PM
Chicago's turn to cop tornadoes - apparently a few violent tornadoes - a couple on the ground simultaneously during the hand-off stage - major damage and destroyed homes have been reported. Someone may wish to post some more information and permanent video links when they come to hand.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
Posted on: 08 June 2008, 11:12:45 AM
Hi guys,
Nice structure on the tornadoes across northeastern Illinois (Chicago).
http://davidmayhewphotography.com/galleries/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=23892
Don't get dead-sick with this following video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZWRuwFSnXJ8
Great footage of the Chicago wedge tornado! Definitely a violent tornado!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j2mRjGQZW3I
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
Posted on: 08 June 2008, 01:50:49 PM
Hi guys,
This is the footage of Daniel Shaw's encounter with Cloud Nine's tornado tours:
http://www.livenews.com.au/articles/2008/05/25/TERRIFYING_FOOTAGE_Aussie_storm_chasers_become_chased
Very large tornado and then truck gets overturned.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
Posted on: 09 June 2008, 09:00:55 AM
Here is a break down of his activities whilst over in the United States Tornado Alley
http://www.scenicphotography.com.au/severestorms/
-
Really enjoyed your US galleries Daniel - the comments and people shots certainly add a lot of enjoyment to the photos.
Michael
-
Hi guys,
Now this is an interesting feature to see from behind a supercell - a split occuring:
(http://www.scenicphotography.com.au/severestorms/2008/20080501/0006_img_1748_thumb.jpg)
(http://www.scenicphotography.com.au/severestorms/2008/20080501/0007_img_1762_thumb.jpg)
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Midwestern storms bring flooding and tornadoes 9/6/2008
Further to the posts on the tornadoes hitting Chicago suburbs and surrounds CNN has been covering the storey and related storeys in significant detail - CNN.com/US
A summary of the article shows:-
Severe storms and flooding affects central Indiana with as much as 10 inches (250 mm of rain) that spawned tornadoes that ripped up roofs and even flipped semi trailers in suburban Chicago.
Tornadoes touched down in north west Chicago.
An emergency is declared in 10 counties as the Coast Guard is called in from the Great Lakes to help with flooding.
Up to 90% of the town of Paragon SW of Indianapolis was underwater.
A dam near Gold Point was close to collapse
Interstate 70 is closed in Clay County in NW Indiana as well as Interstate 65. US 31 is closed near Franklin.
Up to 30,000 customers are without power.
Near Chicago in Will County located south west of the city, a tornado from the same storm system damaged several homes in the Wilmington area that toppled trees and powerlines. Trucks were overturned on Interstate 57 in the city's southern suburbs.
Tornadoes occurred in Lake County north of the city (well within the city limits) and in Livingstone County to the south west.
Baseball size hail occurred in central and south east Wisconsin.
A police car was spun around in a tornado near the village of Randolph.
Flooding occurred around Milwaukee. Two vacant buildings partially collapsed due to heavy rains.
There are videos and photos at iReport.com through CNN covering this weather event.
I note from the National Weather Service site that 7/6/08 was a busy day with 58 tornado reports, some significant, 102 hail reports including two reports for hail the size of baseballs and 112 wind reports.
Further 8/6/2008, there were 10 further tornado reports, 107 hail reports (3 for hail up to golf ball size) and 276 wind reports. It appears that wind damage was more common.
Much of these have occurred in the states of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.
As I write this post, I have noted "Severe Thunderstorm Warning 495" across NE Texas and Western Oklahoma in which storms are warned for hail to 2.5 inches and damaging winds to 70 miles (116 km / h). This is interesting because a line of storms stretch all the way across Oklahoma and NE into the affected regions of Illinois and Iowa. They seem to have a train echo effect where storm after storm pass across the same region over an extended period of time.
I read another report suggesting that another 75 mm may occur in the affected regions as well causing further flooding. There are also flood alerts in effect for large areas of the state of Indiana and surrounds as well.
Harley Pearman
-
Harley,
You are correct about the train effect of the cells. Supercells and storms develop along a frontal boundary and drift through the same area for an extended period of time. This happened near Dallas I think last year in late April from memory and it caused at that time up to 270mm of rain to fall on suburbs in north western Dallas. It is so amazing to see what goes on in the US particularly given the rich Gulf moisture that can stream so deep into the continent!
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Hi all,
I've managed to get some more pics up from our trip to the US including the windscreen smashing hail day in Kansas and some pretty nice lightning in Oklahoma.
New pages are here...
http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/v/USA2008/?g2_page=2
Macca
-
Nice one Macca! Everyone always comments on just how big I am! Just you wait...
(http://macca.bsch.au.com/gallery2/d/5213-2/nonchase19.JPG)
Love the isolated base balls and the hardness they represent on your windshield:)
Haha cheers.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
Hey Jimmy, Michael & All.
Just a quick update.
I've been in the US for well over 2 months now, with another 2 weeks to go.
The chasing this year has been incredible to say the least.
Thank you Jimmy for keeping everyone updated. I tend to concentrate my efforts on the website.
The Chasing is over for me this year, but I'm still doing the rounds on the East Coast..
2008 is going to go down in history as a great year for storms, as well as the unfortunate tragedies..
Looking forward to a better summer in Sydney with the storms… all motivated again to get some good Australian content now..
Except the fuel prices are a real worry.
Dan.
http://www.dsconsultancy.com - 2008 Trip Photos
http://www.severestorms.com.au - 2008 Tornado Chase Photos.
-
USA Tornado numbers for 2008 - Update
This is worth a post here. The Storm Prediction Centre website has been updated and the tornado numbers for 2008 are remarkable. The numbers occurring is well above average:-
1577 tornado reports till June 10 2008.
350 confirmed till June 10 2008.
The 10 year average trend is 1,270 tornadoes.
This year there have been 118 tornado fatalities from 32 tornadoes which is almost double the 10 year average of 62 broken down as:-
1 X EF5
7 X EF4
11 X EF3
9 X EF2
4 X EF1
For a total of 32.
As I write this, there has just been another weak tornado reported in central Iowa from a thunderstorm that is warned for possible tornadoes. This occurred at 1.46 am CDT.
The year 2008 is going down as a year that is certainly breaking the averages.
Harley Pearman
-
Hi guys,
I have seen a shot taken in Iowa by Lori Mehmen (not a chaser but a novice photographer from what I have read) on the 10th of June. I cant believe a non chaser got so lucky with such an great capture! I only wish we could've seen the meso/wallcloud base a little better? What a monster structure!
Here's the link to the article in the New York Times: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/a-remarkable-photo-from-tornado-country/
Kindest regards,
Shauno
-
Hi guys,
Here you will see some impressive footage of probe being place in the path of a tornado by Roger Hill May 19 2008
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=jyKB_LjdHlg&feature=related
There are a few probes being placed out there hmmm.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
The cow in the hail at the end is a nice touch , though would have been better if it took off :)
-
Michael,
You must be a fan of BBQ steak - well done style!
Seriously the footage is impressive and it is interesting to what level storm chasing has escalated in the United States during 2008 during a pretty active period late May into June!
Anyway, I will try sussing out some more clips from this season.
Regards,
Jimmy Deguara
-
I agree with Jimmy's remarks about the evolution of storm chasing in the USA. Even in the 4 years ive been over, it is remarkeable to see the changes. It is now more common to see or hear about probes, live streaming chase video is the 'in thing', online chaser-tracking networks are growing and crazy (risky) up close chasing videos (and one-upmanship) are seen by some as 'the prize'. Some of these changes have certainly added to the experience and the science but the worst thing i've experienced is some of the driving (and parking) of chasers and tour groups alike - especially this year. We had some experiences that were truly attrocious and in my opinion there will no doubt be a fatality directly attributable to poor driving (or parking) during a chase.
-
Brad et al...do you think the chase craze has gotten out of hand with some of the more redneck element seeping in cashing in on all this? I've seen videos of idiotic behavior by guys who say they are experienced and bag the hell out of Josh's DOW and the TIV without any clue of how important their work is, yet they follow them in some beat up sedan with a home made probe with a camera mounted inside and putting themselves in danger without doing all the sensible things to avoid such a thing?
The data that's collected by the pro guys takes years to decipher and put together as a model for specific elements of tornado and supercell formation, does anyone think the same as me or am i just being pedantic!
-
Mike there is no doubt that poor behaviour is occuring more prevalently over there now than a few years ago. However it is not rampant, nor did we see it on every chase. The location and timing of a chase can be a contributing factor. For instance, chasing the southern plains on or near the long weekend (like this year) can lead to a massive convergence and some really poor and risky behaviour which we saw. But of course you dont have to have a large convergence for someone to do something risky. And then there's the flip side - if you dont take some element of risk then you possibly wont be in any position to view a tornado if it occurs. The key is to chase with responsible, experienced and level-headed people that share the same expectations and realistic goals, and to ensure that the group you are in considers other people out there. Then we can all chase happily ever after ;)
-
Thanks for the reply, Brad. It just seems that every time you look at the footage on the tube or on the net that there's some idiot doing stupid things chasing a tornado without the commonsense aspect to which we are all trying to encourage. That special capture is always ever present when chasing and I agree that some risks need to be taken to get them, but thankfully there are still professionals who like to take the risk and get the footage but with safety in mind first up. I was just sick and tired of seeing reckless behavior overpowering the needs of one's personal safety!
It's something we'll continue to see simply because dramatic footage pays good money by the media - a bit like vultures at an accident scene. All we can do is encourage people to chase with someone with experience and do it the right way - for science and one's own pleasure.
-
If anyone is heading over to the States in 2009, may be worth looking to book some airfares shortly. Although Air NZ has always been the cheapest to fly SYD/LAX it's a bit of a pain in the butt having to go via Auckland both ways. V Australia have another special out at the of $1185 (including tax!) which is pretty impressive for a Non Stop service.
If I was heading over I would seriously be booking this special ... You wont get much cheaper to the States esp compared to a standard fare of $1899! (I think the sale ends Dec 29, 2008).
With Delta about to fly the route from July onwards fares like this could become more common.
-
To get to LA from Auckland we have to pay $1800 incl tax and that's a cheapie. So the $1200 looks incredible. You need to have flexibility with the ticket in case you want to change the date. I like Qantas as they are always very accommodating with changes.
Setup over there today looks very interesting. Not sure what to make of it for tornadoes. It would be a better set up for tornadoes if the low level shear was more directional. The SPC are calling it a 10% prob.
-
Those winter set ups in the US are very similar to the winter/spring set ups here in NZ. Big dynamics, high shear, low CAPE. No good for storm chasing. Western Australia gets a similar thing in winter.