Nine Year Anniversary of the Veterans Day Weekend Tornado Outbreak

[OHweather]

Per Wikipedia, 83 total tornadoes confirmed between November 9th and 11th, 2002, including 8 F3's and 1 F4.

Here is the NWS service assessment for this event:

Click here for PDF

Here are some interesting images included in the assessment:

While impressive, and a classic example of a "second season" outbreak, this outbreak holds a special place in my heart because this tornado essentially tracked through my back yard. It destroyed a couple of houses the next city over, and was likely an F1 as it tracked through Solon, with mainly cosmetic damage to most structures affected (siding ripped off, gutters torn off, shingles gone) with some roof damage to a school and with a few houses having attached garages detached and subsequently destroyed. My yard lost some limbs, and we had pieces of siding from other houses in our yard.

This was an EAS fail for Solon, on every possible level...

1. Outdoor siren system was awaiting a replacement part, and did not activate.

2. Cable providers's EAS never activated.

3. Solon's local radio station, meant for emergencies, was down.

I got my first alert of a tornado warning off of a weather radio that is now about 15 years old, and the local news channels, which had wall to wall coverage, did relay the message shortly thereafter to those watching.

As an aside, in the afternoon before the tornado my mother had me change the garbage bag in the garbage can we use to store dog poop we have scooped up from the yard. The can was therefor free of poop when the tornado occurred. This is significant, because the winds ripped the can away from its spot up against the house and sucked the bag out. The bag ended up about 60 feet high in a neighbor's tree. Me, being the 10 year old weather geek I was, just had to explain to the people who moved into that house shortly after the tornado exactly what that bag was and how it ended up in their tree. It took 3 years for the bag to finally blow down.

[Hoosier]

Pretty significant outbreak. I remember being at the mall and coming home to find out what was happening. Here are a few more maps.

18z

21z

Special 18z RAOB from ILN showing adequate instability with some directional shear and strong speed shear.

SPC wasn't really bullish on the threat farther north. They did finally extend the high risk into Ohio on the 01z update.

[andyhb]

This was an extremely impressive outbreak for November.

That simultaneous meso pic is crazy.

[Hoosier]

IWX page on this outbreak:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/program_areas/events/2002/11_10_02_tornadoes/index.php

couple pics of the Van Wert F4

[Thundersnow12]

[Tim from Springfield (IL)]

Do you have access to all the watch information issued that tragic day?

[Hoosier]

Do you have access to all the watch information issued that tragic day?

SPC maintains an archive of a ton of severe wx events.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/archive/events/021110/index.html

[Chinook]

I went to church, came home, took a look at the radar and I saw the squall line forming in Indiana, and took a nap. I woke up to find out that Van Wert was under a tornado warning, and in fact I might have woken up about the time of the start of that tornado. I was slightly scared, as this storm was tracking toward me, continuing a tornado. So I was following the whole thing on my computer as it was going on. (I wish I had GRLevel3 or GRLevel2 at that time.) The tornado in Van Wert didn't track far enough to get to Toledo. They had the tornado sirens going off in my county and it was loud!!!! I think there was a little F0 tornado not too far away from me, but I didn't realize it until the day after. I went to help the cleanup in Port Clinton on the Wednesday afterward. I talked to one old guy who had the roof ripped off his house by the Port Clinton tornado.

In the end, this day was the #1 day in my mind that helped convince me that I wanted to be a meteorologist. It took years to finally make the decision to go to grad school in meteorology, though. I made it. I graduated and got a job having to do with meteorology (sort of...)

[andyhb]

The size and geographical scope of the trough that created this was

[Jim Martin]

SPC maintains an archive of a ton of severe wx events.

http://www.spc.noaa....1110/index.html

Excellent website. Very interesting to look back on severe weather events since 2000.