Devastating tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri

[SluggerWx]

Dont mean to get off topic but if a mile-wide EF5 tornado is referred to as a monster then what would you consider a rope EF5 tornado?

Since intensity isn't the comparison (the 'EF' scale is the same in both cases), I'd call it an equally monsterish but more visibile tornado. They're ALL the same at the core with windspeeds, for instance if say Jarrell were to have precipitation and hit Northern Alabama or Central MS, it would be a much different looking tornado. Alabama is relatively flatter than Georgia and relatively even with forest density. Add trees and clay based soil...you get opacity. Light can't get through because clay and trees are being engulfed by the twister.

In Jarrell the tornado ravaged a harder and less damp soil base - observed since light was easier to travel through the debris field and we saw a more 'visibile' tornado.

Assuming both have the same precipitation.... My hypothesis is that and EF-5 tornado in parts of MO, AR, MS, AL, GA, TN, LA with equal windspeeds and equal precipitation would cause far more damage in those states than if the same exact tornado were to hit OK, KS, IA, TX, IN, IL.

You have a higher potential for kinetic energy (KE) in a cubed foot of an AL tornado's debris field since there a higher potential for more debris to occupy that cubed foot. I would actually argue it's EXPONENTIALLY higher.

When the cubed foot of KE hits a building in AL versus OK, the building in AL is sustaining a more significant impact by that cubed foot of KE.

You can observe this with your blender. If you put strawberries and milk into a blender and blend them - you get a smoothie. If you put strawberries into a blender with five pieces of ice, you get a smootie - AND you observe LOUD cracking/smashing/tearing/destroying of the ice.

That destruction of the ice you hear is the combined impact of each piece of ice's KE colliding with one another. Same speed, but the smoothie has a more dense debris field when you add the ice (my analogy for 'trees') with higher kinetic energy and more destructive force in a relative area.

[Hoosier]

Assuming both have the same precipitation.... My hypothesis is that and EF-5 tornado in parts of MO, AR, MS, AL, GA, TN, LA with equal windspeeds and equal precipitation would cause far more damage in those states than if the same exact tornado were to hit OK, KS, IA, TX, IN, IL.

That might be true in general but I think it really depends on where it hits. The next violent wedge around Dallas, Indianapolis, Chicago, etc. is gonna put anything we've seen this year to the test.

[thewxmann]

Since intensity isn't the comparison (the 'EF' scale is the same in both cases), I'd call it an equally monsterish but more visibile tornado. They're ALL the same at the core with windspeeds, for instance if say Jarrell were to have precipitation and hit Northern Alabama or Central MS, it would be a much different looking tornado. Alabama is relatively flatter than Georgia and relatively even with forest density. Add trees and clay based soil...you get opacity. Light can't get through because clay and trees are being engulfed by the twister.

In Jarrell the tornado ravaged a harder and less damp soil base - observed since light was easier to travel through the debris field and we saw a more 'visibile' tornado.

Assuming both have the same precipitation.... My hypothesis is that and EF-5 tornado in parts of MO, AR, MS, AL, GA, TN, LA with equal windspeeds and equal precipitation would cause far more damage in those states than if the same exact tornado were to hit OK, KS, IA, TX, IN, IL.

You have a higher potential for kinetic energy (KE) in a cubed foot of an AL tornado's debris field since there a higher potential for more debris to occupy that cubed foot. I would actually argue it's EXPONENTIALLY higher.

When the cubed foot of KE hits a building in AL versus OK, the building in AL is sustaining a more significant impact by that cubed foot of KE.

You can observe this with your blender. If you put strawberries and milk into a blender and blend them - you get a smoothie. If you put strawberries into a blender with five pieces of ice, you get a smootie - AND you observe LOUD cracking/smashing/tearing/destroying of the ice.

That destruction of the ice you hear is the combined impact of each piece of ice's KE colliding with one another. Same speed, but the smoothie has a more dense debris field when you add the ice (my analogy for 'trees') with higher kinetic energy and more destructive force in a relative area.

I'm going to play anal devil's advocate here, just for the sake of discussion.

First off, an EF5 is an EF5 is an EF5... an EF5 in the SE does, by definition, the same damage an EF5 does in OK.

I would agree that for two equal-strength tornadoes (i.e. equal 10m wind speeds), the SE one would do more damage because of its debris. Nevertheless it wouldn't do exponentially more, because impact energy per unit volume goes linearly with the density (KE = .5mv^2). And the difference isn't really that significant - even the strongest tornadoes can't carry heavy trees around for too long in its vortex. So lets say there's a 20% increase in the density of whatever stuff hits you, due to debris. That's like going from 190 mph damage to 230 mph damage in a maxi-tornado... you're f'ed either way, and it doesn't make that much of a difference.

What will have a significant impact of kinetic energy is the velocity of the winds, since the former goes by the latter squared. And I argue that the more debris in the tornado, the slower the winds inside rotate, due to frictional effects and energy transfer to whatever it picks up. (The blades turn noticeably slower when you have ice.) Furthermore, in a hard soil, foresty environment, you're going to have significant slowing of ground-level winds due to frictional effects with terrain - think about how a hurricane's wind speed decreases over land due to frictional effects. Put the Moore tornado in, let's say, Bibb Co, AL, and assume the windspeeds decrease by 20%. That's a 32% reduction in energies, and given an equal density of material, that's going from 210 mph damage to 135 mph damage... EF5 to EF2.

So in fact, I'd argue that SE tornadoes are, on average, weaker than Plains tornadoes in the damage sense, even if their vortices are of the same intensity, in the above-ground level rotational speed sense.

(Edited extensively for math, wording, etc, sorry about that)

[Dark Energy]

I was not picturing the fast development of this tornado until I saw this video these chasers shot of the funnel dropping then developing into a monster so very quickly.

Jesus, if that vid was in real time, it looked like it went from a dev tor to a wedge in no time flat! amazing.

[OSUmetstud]

his post was at 5:27 that the couplet was nearly on top of him, so looks like some stretch of time between that and their current damage path at least, if he was being literal.

There was a debris ball on a radar scan at 538...when the tornado looked very near him. I'm wondering if the NWS preliminary storm survey might be off by a few minutes.

[The Dude]

There was a debris ball on a radar scan at 538...when the tornado looked very near him. I'm wondering if the NWS preliminary storm survey might be off by a few minutes.

I thought it indicated they were going to be looking closer at both the start and end points, and that the path distance was likely to increase.

[SmokeEater]

There was a debris ball on a radar scan at 538...when the tornado looked very near him. I'm wondering if the NWS preliminary storm survey might be off by a few minutes.

I went back and checked all my saved images from AE, first scan the debris ball shows up is at that time, and it's SW of the dot for Joplin, just east of Iron Gates. And the next scan, 71 dbz shows up in the debris ball, which is something I've never seen before, that high dbz at least. I really think it's down to yards, maybe even feet, of whether this thing missed him or not.

[mappy]

I'm sure some people read this but others may have not - Beau was able to get some information on JoMo's location over in the Central subforum.

Go this message from someone online

[/url] May 23 at 10:05pm Beau, I saw your question but was unable to respond, so decided to do it this way. Schifferdecker was NOT wiped out - the tornado touched down right past there and it was farther south than 23rd. So, I'm sure that whoever you have living there is okay - maybe without electricity, but that's minor compared to other options. Hope this helped!

And then there was this

Best news I've read all night just posted below...

Brenda Seidel I have a friend who lives about 1/2 up from Shifferdecker on 23 st terrace - she is on the south side and doesnt' have power, but the other side of the street does. She has no damage to her house, but some have minor damage.3 minutes ago

Let's hope that is great news regarding JoMo and the neighborhood.

[CapeFearWX]

I would honestly rather them say <font size="7">"OMG - WORST TORNADO EVERR RECORDED ON EARTH</font>" and have that be the entire article with any of the devastating pictures from Joplin. Seriously.If that were the headline in the paper or on news websites for a week, maybe people would FINALLY start paying attention! We can't make most Americans like us, so maybe we should just translate into phrases and sentences they understand?

Well, first of all I should give the disclaimer than I'm a big history buff, so any time I see some major tragedy such as the Tri-State tornado mentioned in a news article with the caveat "oh, but this was on unofficial records", it sort of ticks me off. It's like saying that they somehow don't matter as much because they happened before 1950. But maybe that's just my weird thing I'm overly pedantic about :-D

Second, I think in this case some historical perspective is definitely warranted. What I haven't seen many in the mass media bring up is that this is the first U.S. tornado to kill over 100 people since 1953, the year that public tornado forecasts began. If the death toll passes Waco/Flint, it will be on the list right below the Woodward tornado which was in the era before tornado forecasts. This is not a small thing that we have had death tolls like this in our time, with media saturation and longer leads times on warnings than there has ever been. It's similar to how Katrina's death toll was significant because there hadn't been a hurricane in the U.S. like that since 1928. Why was the death toll in Joplin (and, for that matter, the death tolls in Alabama) so high when there were warnings issued, and how can they be prevented in the future?

[HurricaneJosh]

Well, first of all I should give the disclaimer than I'm a big history buff, so any time I see some major tragedy such as the Tri-State tornado mentioned in a news article with the caveat "oh, but this was on unofficial records", it sort of ticks me off. It's like saying that they somehow don't matter as much because they happened before 1950. But maybe that's just my weird thing I'm overly pedantic about :-D

Second, I think in this case some historical perspective is definitely warranted. What I haven't seen many in the mass media bring up is that this is the first U.S. tornado to kill over 100 people since 1953, the year that public tornado forecasts began. If the death toll passes Waco/Flint, it will be on the list right below the Woodward tornado which was in the era before tornado forecasts. This is not a small thing that we have had death tolls like this in our time, with media saturation and longer leads times on warnings than there has ever been. It's similar to how Katrina's death toll was significant because there hadn't been a hurricane in the U.S. like that since 1928. Why was the death toll in Joplin (and, for that matter, the death tolls in Alabama) so high when there were warnings issued, and how can they be prevented in the future?

This post is almost a word-for-word repeat of exactly what we were discussing yesterday (a couple of pages back). I don't mean this as criticism-- I don't read all of every thread I respond to, either. I guess the same topics come up repeatedly because they're relevant.

[North Balti Zen]

Jesus, if that vid was in real time, it looked like it went from a dev tor to a wedge in no time flat! amazing.

yeah. Just amazing. And a nice reminder for non-mets and non-weather geeks that a storm with a funnel cloud properly warned has to be taken seriously. Not sure from some of the discussion in this thread what more people want. This was a warned storm, and while there wasn't time to add "large and dangerous tornado on ground" to the warning, there was still a warning that a cell capable of producing a tornado was on the way. That's enough, if people were near a TV or radio to hear that bit of information, to seek some sort of shelter. If folks wait to hear "tornado emergency" before acting, that is too late (and always has been) in my opinion. I grew up in Ohio in the 70s not far from Xenia, and was always pretty clear that if a storm was bearing down on your area that was funnel cloud warned, you took shelter, whether a tornado was reported on ground or not.

[CapeFearWX]

<img src='http://208.71.34.143/public/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />This post is almost a word-for-word repeat of exactly what we were discussing yesterday (a couple of pages back).  I don't mean this as criticism-- I don't read all of every thread I respond to, either.  <img src='http://208.71.34.143/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />  I guess the same topics come up repeatedly because they're relevant.

Yeah, I did see that discussion yesterday, actually. :-)

In big events like this, though, one thing I always like to look at is how the media frames weather stories. Most news journalists don't have direct expertise in meteorology (that's how Harold Brooks keeps getting cited in these tornado disaster articles), so how do they present tornado stories as opposed to, say, earthquake or tsunami stories? Do they do their research and compare it to events in the past like we do here? I think all of us here don't have much trouble grasping the magnitude of 100+ people dying in a tornado in 2011, but what about the general public? Are they so numb to disasters by now that they accept this as just another one? Or do they take events like this to heart and try to learn from them? The latter is what I hope to see going forward.

[CapeFearWX]

yeah. Just amazing. And a nice reminder for non-mets and non-weather geeks that a storm with a funnel cloud properly warned has to be taken seriously. Not sure from some of the discussion in this thread what more people want. This was a warned storm, and while there wasn't time to add "large and dangerous tornado on ground" to the warning, there was still a warning that a cell capable of producing a tornado was on the way. That's enough, if people were near a TV or radio to hear that bit of information, to seek some sort of shelter. If folks wait to hear "tornado emergency" before acting, that is too late (and always has been) in my opinion. I grew up in Ohio in the 70s not far from Xenia, and was always pretty clear that if a storm was bearing down on your area that was funnel cloud warned, you took shelter, whether a tornado was reported on ground or not.

For my part I would want people to just be generally more weather-wise in the future. What I mean by that is to not just wait for a warning before taking any sort of action, but paying attention to weather forecasts in advance of any severe weather threat and recognizing how that threat evolves over time. For example, if there's a watch issued (especially if it's a PDS watch), you might not want to plan a whole slew of outdoor activities for that day. If you check the radar and see a huge squall line producing warnings a couple of counties over and heading your way, it's probably not a great idea to go out shopping/dining/to a movie at that time. And naturally, a warning is only effective if people hear it, so make sure that you have a weather alert radio for whatever building or group of people is in your charge, whether it be your home or the office or store that you manage.

You're absolutely right that waiting for a tornado EMERGENCY is not the right thing to do. People need to be aware of EVERY severe weather threat, not just the most dire ones.

[SluggerWx]

Well, first of all I should give the disclaimer than I'm a big history buff, so any time I see some major tragedy such as the Tri-State tornado mentioned in a news article with the caveat "oh, but this was on unofficial records", it sort of ticks me off. It's like saying that they somehow don't matter as much because they happened before 1950. But maybe that's just my weird thing I'm overly pedantic about :-D

Second, I think in this case some historical perspective is definitely warranted. What I haven't seen many in the mass media bring up is that this is the first U.S. tornado to kill over 100 people since 1953, the year that public tornado forecasts began. If the death toll passes Waco/Flint, it will be on the list right below the Woodward tornado which was in the era before tornado forecasts. This is not a small thing that we have had death tolls like this in our time, with media saturation and longer leads times on warnings than there has ever been. It's similar to how Katrina's death toll was significant because there hadn't been a hurricane in the U.S. like that since 1928. Why was the death toll in Joplin (and, for that matter, the death tolls in Alabama) so high when there were warnings issued, and how can they be prevented in the future?

I think you're 100% correct. My point was that in order to really get people thinking, historical references aren't going to hit home close enough for most Americans.

That's why I sarcastically implied we should just go ahead and call it the worst tornado ever (or some super-sensational headline similar).

Luckily, no royal wedding this week and TV programs are done with most finales. So, we might see sustained MSM coverage of tornadoes for at least a couple more days than normal.

[SluggerWx]

I'm going to play anal devil's advocate here, just for the sake of discussion.

First off, an EF5 is an EF5 is an EF5... an EF5 in the SE does, by definition, the same damage an EF5 does in OK.

I would agree that for two equal-strength tornadoes (i.e. equal 10m wind speeds), the SE one would do more damage because of its debris. Nevertheless it wouldn't do exponentially more, because impact energy per unit volume goes linearly with the density (KE = .5mv^2). And the difference isn't really that significant - even the strongest tornadoes can't carry heavy trees around for too long in its vortex. So lets say there's a 20% increase in the density of whatever stuff hits you, due to debris. That's like going from 190 mph damage to 230 mph damage in a maxi-tornado... you're f'ed either way, and it doesn't make that much of a difference.

What will have a significant impact of kinetic energy is the velocity of the winds, since the former goes by the latter squared. And I argue that the more debris in the tornado, the slower the winds inside rotate, due to frictional effects and energy transfer to whatever it picks up. (The blades turn noticeably slower when you have ice.) Furthermore, in a hard soil, foresty environment, you're going to have significant slowing of ground-level winds due to frictional effects with terrain - think about how a hurricane's wind speed decreases over land due to frictional effects. Put the Moore tornado in, let's say, Bibb Co, AL, and assume the windspeeds decrease by 20%. That's a 32% reduction in energies, and given an equal density of material, that's going from 210 mph damage to 135 mph damage... EF5 to EF2.

So in fact, I'd argue that SE tornadoes are, on average, weaker than Plains tornadoes in the damage sense, even if their vortices are of the same intensity, in the above-ground level rotational speed sense.

(Edited extensively for math, wording, etc, sorry about that)

TheWXMan... found a great read for you...http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008JAS2686.1

Agrees that windspeeds slow down with debris, but suggests kinetic energy could still be magnified. Can you take a look at that great study and let me know what you think?

I think that the exponentially increasing kinetic energy within a debris field can change drastically with even the slightest uptick in the mass of each item of debris...i.e. going from a cornfield to a forrest.

[Hoosier]

Death toll up to 118

[dan11295]

from KOAM:

Updated at 12:45 pm: The Associated Press is reporting a nursing home owner says Sunday's tornado killed 11 from his property alone.

Sad but not surprising. Nursing home residents are very vulnerable in this kind of event..

[janetjanet998]

Rueters reporting 1500 missing in Joplin ...but thats likely inflated..but still even 5% of that is 75 people

also 6 deaths at the hospital

[dan11295]

Rueters reporting 1500 missing in Joplin ...but thats likely inflated..but still even 5% of that is 75 people

also 6 deaths at the hospital

That happened in Tuscaloosa as well with 400+ initially reported missing, and I believed they accounted for everyone without finding additional loss of life So I am confident almost all of those simply have communication issues. Also, we were talking about the Big Box stores yesterday. The Joplin Globe has a story which has a statement from Wal-Mart indicating lives were lost in that building. Read elsewhere lives were also lost at the Home Depot (numbers unknown at this time).

[sojitodd]

I'm sure some people read this but others may have not - Beau was able to get some information on JoMo's location over in the Central subforum.

And then there was this

Let's hope that is great news regarding JoMo and the neighborhood.

I hope this is the case. But they are reporting significant damage to that school which is maybe a third of a mile directly east of his location. It is on the list of 4 schools with 'significant damage'. It looks like it is going to be very close-I hope he and his are ok.

[North Balti Zen]

That happened in Tuscaloosa as well with 400+ initially reported missing, and I believed they accounted for everyone without finding additional loss of life So I am confident almost all of those simply have communication issues. Also, we were talking about the Big Box stores yesterday. The Joplin Globe has a story which has a statement from Wal-Mart indicating lives were lost in that building. Read elsewhere lives were also lost at the Home Depot (numbers unknown at this time).

Re: big box stores, there were seven bodies found under a cement slab at the Home Depot that was hit. Read that in one of the stories, I think on msnbc, in the same story that noted they managed to find one person alive in that store's rubble.

[CapeFearWX]

According to this article on TWC's website:

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/joplin-search-survivors2_2011-05-24

Seven deaths so far at the Home Depot store that was destroyed, with search and rescue (but moreso recovery as time goes on) still underway.

[CapeFearWX]

The Joplin Globe has a story which has a statement from Wal-Mart indicating lives were lost in that building.

I saw that report, too. It mentioned that there had been deaths but that all of their employees had been accounted for, so I'm assuming there were fatalities among the customers.

Also, my mom tells me that on this morning's news they mentioned that the deaths at the hospital were in the parking lot?

[sojitodd]

What is so shocking about this is that so many deaths happened over a relatively short path-I would imagine that most or all of the deaths reported were in the city limits of Joplin or at least in it's urban/suburban area. The Woodward tornado in 47 only took just over a hundred in and around Woodward itself-other towns like Glazier and Higgins had many fatalities. This may be the worst single town death toll since the Tupelo and Gainesville tornadoes in the thirties.

[CapeFearWX]

What is so shocking about this is that so many deaths happened over a relatively short path-I would imagine that most or all of the deaths reported were in the city limits of Joplin or at least in it's urban/suburban area. The Woodward tornado in 47 only took just over a hundred in and around Woodward itself-other towns like Glazier and Higgins had many fatalities. This may be the worst single town death toll since the Tupelo and Gainesville tornadoes in the thirties.

Unfortunately, the Joplin tornado may have been one of those storms that caused multiple fatalities in large buildings. In such cases you can get horrific death tolls on a relatively short path. That was one reason for the high death toll in the Gainesville tornado in particular - there were 70 deaths in one factory, another 20 in a department store, etc.

[yoda]

TWC sas Joplin tor is now EF-5... 123 dead

[Amped]

TWC reporting a NWS upgrade to EF5.

[jrips27]

From Alabama meteorologist James Spann a few minutes ago on Facebook.

"Joplin, Mo tornado upgraded to EF-5 within the hour after a new damage survey..."

We got us an EF-5...

[battlebrick]

EF5 according to TWC.

[k***]

That makes it Missouri's 2nd ever F/EF5