Southeast Tornado Outbreak

[venture]

Another insane outbreak in the Southeast today.



One thing that caught my eye was the tornadic storm that went through Tuscaloosa and north of the town of Brookwood. Here are some radar pics of the storm at that time. The amazing part, at 530PM it actually had an "eye" on velocity of just under 1 mile wide where no wind was being picked up at all by radar. While spotters and surveyors will be able to get into the specifics, this would possibly mean that the tornado was well over 1 mile in width.

Base Velocity from Birmingham radar


GRLevel2 Analyst Edition 3D View of NROT/Rotation

[Uncle Slayton]

Now lighting up Virginia and Pennsylvania. This stuff in Alabama is amazing.

[venture]

Large tornado is heading towards Birmingham. The purple "ball" is the debris ball from the tornado.

Live video: http://www.abc3340.com/ or http://www.cbs42.com/content/video/live.aspx

[ou48A]

These were armageddon like tornados today.
Many lives were lost and there is more to come.

[bluedogok]

A co-worker is from the Rome, Georgia area and said that it hit them pretty hard, most of her family suffered minimal to moderate damage with most of the damage being out buildings and such. Her phone was ringing like crazy today, she was back home just last week and came back to Austin over the weekend.

[Dustin]

So so sad.. Thoughts are with everybody down there..

[venture]

Here is the updated graphic for the outbreak of April 27th.



According to media reports this morning, the death toll has reach 202 with almost 150 of those in Alabama.

http://www.cnn.com/

[BG918]

Death toll now at 247. They expect it to rise even more as they sift through debris.

[Roadhawg]

A co-worker is from the Rome, Georgia area and said that it hit them pretty hard, most of her family suffered minimal to moderate damage with most of the damage being out buildings and such. Her phone was ringing like crazy today, she was back home just last week and came back to Austin over the weekend.

I have some friends in Ringgold and Dalton. I haven't heard from one of them yet and I'm worried.

[OKCisOK4me]

That's just freaking insane! Do they not have the warning systems like we do?? Or were there just waaaaaayy too many to keep track of at the same time? This is terribly sad.

[jn1780]

How does this compare to May 3, 1999? Was this outbreak worse or was it a case of bad luck with the tornadoes hitting more populated areas?

[OKCisOK4me]

I think there were 60 some odd tornadoes in the state of Oklahoma on that day and the death toll was like 43.

[earlywinegareth]

They have storm sirens, but the warnings in the South isn't as good as in Oklahoma. The main problem is no safe hiding places in the South. Few basements/cellars from what I recall. All of the newer constructed houses have crawl spaces, not built on slabs, and much less brick. Everyone just huddles in the smallest room and prays.

[BG918]

How does this compare to May 3, 1999? Was this outbreak worse or was it a case of bad luck with the tornadoes hitting more populated areas?

This is MUCH worse. Doesn't even compare even though the tornado that hit Moore was the strongest ever recorded. I wouldn't be surprised if the Tuscaloosa tornado is not an F4 or F5. This could be the deadliest outbreak ever. Every time I check the news the death toll rises, now at 274..

[OKCisOK4me]

They rated it EF4...with winds 200+. The Moore tornado was 318MPH. Either way, both were beasts.

[jn1780]

Crazy April. At least the first week of May is looking quiet.

[venture]

This will definitely be one of the highest impact severe weather events. It will be hard to really compare this to May 3rd since surveys aren't done yet. Obviously the human toll is already higher and I would expect property impact to be significantly higher. May 3rd was much more localized over Kansas and Oklahoma (which the stats earlier present both states, though OK was more impacted). The April 27th outbreak stretched from New York to Arkansas and will probably be measured along side the Super Outbreak of '74 which killed over 300 people.

[jn1780]

[bluedogok]

I have some friends in Ringgold and Dalton. I haven't heard from one of them yet and I'm worried.

She said today that Riinggold got hit hard, she has some family in that town as well. Power is out all over, her family in Armuchee are without power and are running on generators.

[Snowman]

They have storm sirens, but the warnings in the South isn't as good as in Oklahoma. The main problem is no safe hiding places in the South. Few basements/cellars from what I recall. All of the newer constructed houses have crawl spaces, not built on slabs, and much less brick. Everyone just huddles in the smallest room and prays.

Several places I have been to outside of tornado alley the 'live' weather images they can analyze/broadcast have at least a 7 to 10 minute lag from original capture to arriving at the news station which can be more than half the possible warning time for knowing when a specific tornado will hit a location, instead of each station having their own Doppler radar systems like OKC, plus hiring meteorologists with experience with tornadoes is going to be a low priority.

[earlywinegareth]

^^^Also, they don't mobilize/coordinate like we do with storm chasers, police, helicopters. They rely pretty much solely on NWS radar imagery and yes, the competency of TV "meteorologists" is a hit or miss proposition.

[venture]

I think we take for granted what we have here in Oklahoma and the Plains in general. They have the experience and resources to manage an outbreak. Now one of this scale...I would still see Gary, Rick, and Mike get emotional if that occurred here. I've seen it twice from Gary on May 3rd but also October 98. When the tornadoes just kept coming you could hear the frustration and energy just be sucked out.

As far as resources out of the Plains, most TV stations still have their own radars...but it comes down to having extensive experience with the equipment. Also most of those stations just get radar systems for the marketing, not for actual tracking purposes. To the comment above about the live images and such - I'm going to assume you are talking about the NEXRAD products from NWS. The full sweeps can take 5-10 minutes, but that is at every level the radar scans out. The update speed depends on the mode the radar is in. Severe weather mode (VCP 11) is going to update every 5 minutes with products from 14 different angles. Clear air mode takes 10 minutes but only scans 5 levels.

Product availability also depends on Level 2 or Level 3 data. However, it doesn't trump local radars with the TV station since they can focus it down to a simple base scan or a specific area. They are two different animals that can't be compared and need to be used together. NEXRAD provides much more detail than a TV station can normally give.

[Thunder]

Venture, our time is coming up in May and part of June. Do you think we will be seeing similar outbreaks here? Do you think the recent outbreak is related or just a coincidence with coming out of the La Nina pattern?