Weekend tornado outbreak: 1 EF-4, 2 EF-3s, 6 dead, damage near $300 million
Damage surveys continue in the Plains in the wake of Saturday's major tornado outbreak. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center logged 110 preliminary tornado reports, with an additional 10 reports from Sunday. At least one tornado was a violent EF-4, which hit mostly unpopulated areas in Ellsworth County, Kansas. The only fatalities from the outbreak occurred in Woodward, Oklahoma, where an EF-3 tornado hit at night after lightning knocked out the town's tornado sirens. Six people were killed, three of them children. A preliminary rating of EF-3 has also been given to a tornado that hit the south and southeast portions of Wichita, Kansas near 10:30 pm CDT Saturday night. The tornado did significant damage to McConnell AFB and to a nearby trailer park. All of the residents of the trailer park were in the trail park's tornado shelter, which undoubtedly saved many lives. Two residents required hospitalization. Damage from the Wichita tornado has been estimated at $283 million.
Figure 1. Radar reflectivity image of the EF-3 tornado that hit the south side of Wichita, Kansas, causing damage estimated at $283 million.
Video 1. Storm chaser video of one of Saturday's impressive tornadoes near Salina, Kansas. At about the 3 minute mark, you'll see what appear to be cows moving very fast in a mighty tail wind.
Video 2. Storm chaser video of the nighttime Wichita, Kansas tornado of April 14, 2012.
New dire language in tornado warnings
National Weather Service offices in several states in the Plains are experimenting this year with new wording in public advisories when a particularly dangerous tornado has touched down. If spotters confirm that a large and damaging tornado is on the ground, the NWS has the option of including some rather dire wording to get the public to take action. About 3/4 of all tornado warnings are false alarms. This primarily occurs because the NWS will issue a warning for a rotating thunderstorm spotted on radar, and these thunderstorms don't always have funnel clouds that reach to the ground. But when spotters actually verify that a tornado is on the ground, and that tornado has a long history of causing damage, issuance of one the new direly-worded advisories may help give the public the message that this tornado is not going to be a false alarm and they better take it seriously. Such an advisory was issued for Saturday's Wichita, Kansas tornado, which turned out to be an EF-3 that caused major but not catastrophic damage. The dire wording of the advisory predicted the type of damage associated with a violent EF-4 or EF-5 tornado, "with complete devastation likely." The damage from this tornado fell short of that mark, but I believe it was a reasonable usage of the new type of advisory:
SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WICHITA KS
1033 PM CDT SAT APR 14 2012
...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR WEST CENTRAL BUTLER AND EASTERN SEDGWICK COUNTIES UNTIL 1100 PM CDT...
...TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR EAST WICHITA...
AT 1031 PM CDT...A CONFIRMED LARGE...VIOLENT AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE...AND MOVING NORTHEAST AT 35 MPH.
THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION.
HAZARD...DEADLY TORNADO.
SOURCE...SPOTTER CONFIRMED TORNADO.
IMPACT...THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. YOU COULD BE KILLED IF NOT UNDERGROUND OR IN A TORNADO SHELTER. COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOODS IS LIKELY. MANY WELL
BUILT HOMES AND BUSINESSES WILL BE COMPLETELY SWEPT FROM THEIR FOUNDATIONS. DEBRIS WILL BLOCK MOST ROADWAYS. MASS DEVASTATION IS HIGHLY LIKELY MAKING THE AREA UNRECOGNIZABLE
TO SURVIVORS.
LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE...PARK CITY...NORTHEAST WICHITA...ANDOVER...BEL AIRE...KECHI...JABARA AIRPORT AND BENTON.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO WITH COMPLETE DEVASTATION LIKELY. YOU COULD BE KILLED IF NOT UNDERGROUND OR IN A TORNADO SHELTER. DO NOT DELAY...SEEK SHELTER NOW! IF NO UNDERGROUND SHELTER IS AVAILABLE SEEK SHELTER IN AN INTERIOR ROOM OF THE LOWEST LEVEL OF A STRUCTURE...OR IF TIME ALLOWS...CONSIDER MOVING TO AN UNDERGROUND SHELTER ELSEWHERE. MOBILE HOMES AND OUTBUILDINGS WILL OFFER NO SHELTER FROM THIS TORNADO.
TORNADOES ARE DIFFICULT TO SEE AND CONFIRM AT NIGHT. TAKE COVER NOW.
Jeff Masters
Night tornado in Manchester,OK
A thunderstorm passes through Houston early Monday morning with lots of amazing lightning. I'm probably going to regret getting up to take this photo later today. :).
For my live webcam view approxiamtely where this was taken (you can see the webcam in the photo),
Click here.
For more of my photography, visit my
Flickr page.
Damage from the storm that came through Thurman, Iowa last night. TV says 70% to 90% of the town is destroyed.
Reader Comments
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http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/new s/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2012/4/17 /discovery_departs
nrtiwlnvragn,do you have the link to the GFS Parallel site? Thanks in advance.
DAY 4-8 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0330 AM CDT TUE APR 17 2012
VALID 201200Z - 251200Z
...DISCUSSION...
MEDIUM RANGE MODEL GUIDANCE IS AGAIN SLOWER AND A BIT FARTHER WEST
AND SOUTH WITH ITS EVOLUTION OF AN UPPER LOW THIS WEEKEND ALONG THE
GULF COAST. AS THE UPPER TROUGH DEEPENS AND DIGS SOUTH INTO TX
DURING THE DAY4 PERIOD IT WOULD SEEM LIKELY THAT THUNDERSTORMS WILL
DEVELOP ACROSS MUCH OF CNTRL/ERN TX WITHIN GREATEST ZONE OF WARM
SECTOR INSTABILITY. IF CURRENT MODEL TRENDS HOLD THERE MAY BE
ENOUGH DEEP LAYER SHEAR/INSTABILITY TO WARRANT A RISK OF SEVERE
THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS TX FRIDAY WHICH COULD EVOLVE INTO A LARGER
COMPLEX OF CONVECTION THAT COULD DRIVE INTO THE NWRN GULF BASIN OVER
THE WEEKEND. GIVEN THAT THE MODELS HAVE YET TO SETTLE ON A
CONSISTENT SOLUTION WILL NOT INTRODUCE AN ORGANIZED RISK OF SEVERE
THUNDERSTORMS THIS PERIOD
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSONVILLE FL
342 AM EDT TUE APR 17 2012
WEATHER PATTERN CHANGES WILL OCCUR THIS WEEKEND. HIGHLY AMPLIFIED
UPPER TROUGH WILL DIG ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST AND DRIVE A COLD FRONT
THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY. ECMWF CONTINUES FASTER WITH THE
SYSTEM WHILE THE GFS HAS SLOWED. AS DEEP AS THE TROUGH IS EXPECTED
TO BE...WILL TREND TOWARD THE FASTER ECMWF BUT KEEP LOW CHANCE
POPS THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING. THIS SYSTEM WILL TAP INTO SUFFICIENT
MOISTURE ALONG WITH STRONG DYNAMICS ALONG AND AHEAD OF THE COLD
FRONT TO PRODUCE SCTD TO NUMEROUS SHOWERS/STORMS. MOS GUIDANCE IS
CONSIDERABLY WARMER SUNDAY/MONDAY THAN PREVIOUSLY. WILL BUMP TEMPS
UP A BIT BUT CONTINUE TO BE COOLER THAN LATEST GUIDANCE SINCE
EXPECTING FRONT TO MOVE FASTER THAN GFS. AFTER THE REGION DRIES
OUT EARLY NEXT WEEK...TEMPS WILL BE MUCH COOLER WITH LOWS DOWN
INTO THE 40S SUNDAY NIGHT.
Bring.. it.. ON!
Who's attacking you personally? I'm talking about your observation with sample size one with one link to file hosting site.
Given the chaotic nature of weather, you can come up with just about any kind of random "pattern" you want and still get something that looks like it lines up every once in a while. This holds true for any chaotic data, including stock "prediction" algorithms. Hind-casting is easy, prediction is the difficult part.
The point is, it takes a lot more research (including reviews for other experts in the field) and definitely a lot more observations to back up any scientific claims. These correlation grids based on geometry are a far cry from that.
Thank you! I think this is going to pan out and if it does many in FL will be thankfull as this could be a significant rain maker.
I would say it is out of time if it ever had a chance at all... It looks exactly the same as yesterday... SST's are way to cool and it just can't get itself off that front.
Somebody in Texas, please kick it over to Florida. I'm tired of mowing weeds in the dry lake bottom and hearing the raspy crunch of the crispy grass on my lawn.
Hi Levi.You think something may form in the area by early May?
Rain's a coming but so is also the severe wx potential. Lots of shear across FL on Sunday.
"a monkey with an etch-a-sketch" is not an ad hominem attack?
No, it is a Hominidae attack. Easy mistake.
Sorry, don't have any good ones. Since they decomissioned the old NCEP Analysis Page I have not seen a page where they replacate the standard GFS graphics with the parallel run. The data in grib format is available at:
www.ftp.ncep.noaa.gov/data/nccf/com/gfs/para
One would need to create their own forecast graphics from that data, way above my paygrade.
After my time by the hands of your clocks, I was on a roof, fixing it when that happened but this outbreak of "quakeisums" is a bit unusual, they are scattered all over the pacific ring and we have had a few in the Med. area as well, thought less intense.
The "quarter," from Mexico to the Aleutians is sort of left out of this at the moment, I hope it stays that way for you's.
Sun streaming down here in Southern Europe and we also had tornado's in Jaen north of Granada and Tarragona south of Barcelona on Saturday, not to be left out of the action. Nothing remotely like what the central states had though.
Oh! Happy Tuesday for some reason!
Ok,thanks again.
I saw a thunderstorm like that once and I don't want to see another!Black, almost like night, lightning every few seconds, incredible noise and worst of all the roar of the rivers with boulders in them.
14 inches of rain in 5 hours, everything except big rocks washed away, devastation that can't be imagined unless you lived through it! 1999 I think.
I wish I could have stood in the floodwater's but they were 14 feet deep and moving at about 40 miles an hour.
April 16th, 2012. (SST)
April 17th, 2012. (SST)
April 16th, 2012 (TCHP)
April 17th, 2012 (TCHP)
MUCH warmer than in 2009 and for that matter, 2006. GOMEX is warmer than any year too, which leads me to believe that we're going to see a few more named storms than what we saw in 2009. Don't be surprised though if most of the 10 or 11 named this year happens before the peak of hurricane season.
The "quarter," from Mexico to the Aleutians is sort of left out of this at the moment, I hope it stays that way for you's.
I am about 20-25 miles from the San Andreas fault. The San Bernardino part of it. (Southern Calif) I always cringe when people mention that we haven't had one lately. Thank you for saying the opposite (wishing nothing). So ya doing well there? Have you got your web pages behaving?
I think this has been a good start. We've watched him come up with other shapes on maps, for other events. I've watched this evolve, it's getting more detailed. The way that was done with the tornado out break was interesting cause I could scroll through & see it move & plumes explode within boundaries already outlined by rectangles. It's natural math & physics in shapes. It's partly what I've always imagined when forecasting...things tend toward patterns, like three cyclones in a row. Some people can see & do math on a way higher level with shapes & colors. I glimpse it, but far from fully grasp it. But what if one of these geniuses that fully gets it taught it to computers to use the big picture shapes & colors to simplify the runs so they could run that much more info for each model run? Even the text of the tutorial ends with questions. This is in no way trying to even sound like a peer reviewed idea. In the past here we've come up with ideas that have gone on to be others thesis or peer reviewed papers. It could be the next great thing in models or not.. I'd like to see it run it's course, he's not making any claims, not really trolling, they have all been done on maps where the lat/log are curved & I'm partial to the rainbow maps. There's getting to be a trend toward bashing people seeing things in clouds..shapes, demons, numbers..some of us will never be convinced that just because you don't see them that Sky ponies don't exist:)
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