April 14th, 2012 Plains High Risk

[JoMo]

I think this hits all points with the media:

http://montgomery.raycomweather.com/2012/04/a-plea-to-the-national-media.html

[Ginx snewx]

From April 1974 Super Outbreak:

"Yet another factor which set the Super Outbreak apart was the well-defined gravity wave or bore which provided a “bonus” third source of organized uplift. This feature helped initiate deep convection in areas that may otherwise have remained capped to development. The bore, in conjunction with daytime heating, also helped rejuvenate existing storms in Georgia and the Carolinas."

From May 14-15 2011 Outbreak (source http://wxbrad.com/ca...utbreak-4162011):

Why are these gravity waves important? Meteorologist Dr. Tim Coleman from the University of Alabama at Huntsville found that they compress the storms causing them to spin faster due to conservation of angular momentum. Think figure skater pulling their arms in and spinning faster. Or playing tether ball as the rope gets smaller the ball spins faster around the pole. Coleman also notes, “There is also wind shear in a gravity wave, and the storm can take that wind shear and tilt it and make even more spin. All of these factors may increase storm rotation, making it more powerful and more likely to produce a tornado.” Dr. Coleman has a model that shows how a gravity wave interacts with a tornado. Notice the increase in vorticity as the gravity wave interacts with the storm.

Finally, the satellite image I was looking for with well-defined gravity waves over Oklahoma (originally posted by Ginx):

EDIT: thanks Srain!

Quite interesting and something to watch for. Great vids, pics by all thank you.

[Chumpson]

One thing that has been largely overlooked in the tiered warning experiment is the *forecast* aspect of the warnings. I know the "catastrophic" wording was modeled after the Joplin event,

but why was the rest of the Joplin event evolution apparently overlooked? I can't imagine anyone would have issued a lead-time warning talking about catastrophic damage in that case, which is

ironic when it's the model for the system! Perhaps a follow-up SVS as the tornado is already moving into town, and the intense velocity couplet became obvious. The same forecast problem

reared its ugly head in the ICT warnings - you must accurately forecast tornado intensity and path *if* you are to provide an accurate estimate of the threat to life and property. Unfortunately,

forecasting tornado intensity at the lead times of many warnings will prove quite difficult, leading to many unexpected outcomes (i.e., much weaker or stronger tornadoes than expected).

I do think we're to the point where we can provide reasonable estimates of tornado intensity based on radar signatures (properly interpreted!) and storm environment, provided the environment

is well-observed and the storm is not too far from a radar site. That's important nowcast information, but that says little about tornado intensity 20-30 minutes from now. As long as the NWS pushes

for both increasing lead time *and* delineating threat magnitudes, this will be a difficult problem to solve. My personal opinion is to quit worrying about the excessive lead times (shoot for a consistent 10-20 minutes at every location in a warning, updating warnings more frequently) and focus more on the time scale where extrapolation has a reasonable chance of working out (no more than 15-30 minutes).

[OceanStWx]

Quite interesting and something to watch for. Great vids, pics by all thank you.

This was also a factor in the Parkersburg supercell in 2008.

Research done by DMX www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/dmx/NWAParkersburg.ppt

[JoMo]

One thing that has been largely overlooked in the tiered warning experiment is the *forecast* aspect of the warnings. I know the "catastrophic" wording was modeled after the Joplin event,

but why was the rest of the Joplin event evolution apparently overlooked? I can't imagine anyone would have issued a lead-time warning talking about catastrophic damage in that case, which is

ironic when it's the model for the system! Perhaps a follow-up SVS as the tornado is already moving into town, and the intense velocity couplet became obvious. The same forecast problem

reared its ugly head in the ICT warnings - you must accurately forecast tornado intensity and path *if* you are to provide an accurate estimate of the threat to life and property. Unfortunately,

forecasting tornado intensity at the lead times of many warnings will prove quite difficult, leading to many unexpected outcomes (i.e., much weaker or stronger tornadoes than expected).

I do think we're to the point where we can provide reasonable estimates of tornado intensity based on radar signatures (properly interpreted!) and storm environment, provided the environment

is well-observed and the storm is not too far from a radar site. That's important nowcast information, but that says little about tornado intensity 20-30 minutes from now. As long as the NWS pushes

for both increasing lead time *and* delineating threat magnitudes, this will be a difficult problem to solve. My personal opinion is to quit worrying about the excessive lead times (shoot for a consistent 10-20 minutes at every location in a warning, updating warnings more frequently) and focus more on the time scale where extrapolation has a reasonable chance of working out (no more than 15-30 minutes).

I think people generally agree that there should have been a "Tornado Emergency" for Joplin. The tornado just developed so close to the city and became a monster fairly quickly, but follow-up SVS's should have had the stronger wording or even the TORE. (one of the follow-up SVS's had the tornado in the wrong location)

It may depend on the spotters in the field and what they perceive to be the threat. I know the Wichita tornado was 'large' looking based on pics and considering the environmental conditions in that area at the time, it was probably the proper call to issue the "Tornado Emergency" tiered warning considering it could have strengthened.

I found the different warnings to be confusing as some of the tornadoes had the "Tornado...Observed" tag yet others had the "Tornado...Significant" even though the observed tornadoes were probably significant. How do you decide which tag to use and what happens if a tornado suddenly strengthens?

[RCNYILWX]

It will be interesting to evaluate the tiered warning system as time goes by. I think there are some potential drawbacks but maybe not enough to outweigh the benefits. We're still going to be vulnerable in situations where a tornado rapidly strengthens in populated areas (a la Joplin) but hopefully those don't come around very often.

We had a seminar with the Chicago area TV mets today and the MIC gave a presentation introducing the tiered warning system to them. They loved it and said it would be a help in a widespread severe event to see that wording and be able to discern the likely worst impact storm and really capture for their viewers the magnitude and the potential impact of what's heading their way. In the Chicago metro, since it's only a matter of time until a major tornado strikes the city, getting hundreds of thousands of people that are unprepared for the hazards of the tornado to respond is a tough task and this might be the best way to do it. I agree though that it's still imperfect. Another thing we found out in a webinar presentation by the Springfield MO MIC is that although the radar signatures suggested that Joplin was likely getting a severe blow from the tornado, all the communications in the city were knocked out so SGF did not know until almost a half hr after the tornado how bad things were there. So hopefully this will be the only case where things are so bad that the catastrophic damage can't even be confirmed to use in statements for areas downstream.

[Big Jims Videos]

I think this hits all points with the media:

http://montgomery.ra...onal-media.html

At my local station where I work at we are all required to go through a rigorous "script approval" before ANY and ALL copy makes the air. If it's weather related and the approver is unfamiliar with the terminology used, one of our on-duty mets is usually summoned over to clarify what's going on the air. Apparently national media outlets don't have a "script approval" process such as ours.

I cringe when I hear blatant errors on national outlets.

[RCNYILWX]

I agree. We were on the side of the road next to an old shack and I remember the Salina radio guy telling us about the storm. A fellow STL Chase Tour group was with us and posted this

.

That's definitely where we were too, funny coincidence.. Except you guys smartly stuck around even after the radio guy tried to scare everyone away. So in retrospect, we should've stayed and we would've seen the wedge, but still a successful trip because we did get to see the tornado rope out when the supercell started to cycle and then the stovepipe near Solomon. Well worth the ~1200 miles of driving in less than 36 hours for mine and my friend's first ever chase trip. And aside from the cheezy promo music, that was a pretty awesome video.

[Chicago Storm]

While I finally have a bit of time...

Saturday's chase log:

Left OKC mid morning and made it up to Hutchinson, KS around the time the first legit supercells of the day were starting to form from DDC on south.

We initially targeted a tor warned supercell that was pushing W/NW of Greensburg. After following this cell, which was outflow-ish and was showing signs of weakening, we decided to drop back down SW to a second tor warned supercell that was moving near Greensburg, KS. This cell also had the same outflow-ish and weakening issues, so we decided to drop off of it and head south to the next tor warned supercell. eventually these cells would merge into what would become the Langly/Salina/Soloman tor supercell.

As mentioend above, we then dropped down to the next tor warned supercell, which was headed towards the west side of Hutchinson, KS. This cell also turned out to be outfow-ish and quickly weakened and never did come back.

We then dropped down our 4th tor warned supercell on the day. This cell was headed towards the west side of Kingman, KS. We arrived in the vicinity of Penalosa, KS in time to see what appeared to be a funnel cloud from our view, but was later said to be a brief tornado touchdown. We continued to follow the cell NE and saw a 2nd brief touchdown while on Route 17, looking west towards Pretty Prairie. Continuing NE with the cell, we caught two more brief touchdowns SW of Haven, KS. The best production from this cell did not occur until dusk and after. We ended up with two cone/trunk tornadoes near Moundridge, KS. There was also a trunk-ish tornado that moved up through Lost Springs, KS that we might have seen, but given some tree/hill issues i'll stick with it being a low hanging and well defined wall cloud.

I was only able to get an "ok" pic of the first Moundridge tor, but given dark had set in and we had to constantly be on the move, I was unable to ge a great pic.

[nwburbschaser]

Chicago, I was on that same storm near Halstead, Ks. I kept dropping south and waited about 30 minutes for this one to pass in front of me and it started to get going right when it got dark. I got stopped when some chasers, or chaser went off a dirt road into the ditch and it blocked the road.

[nwburbschaser]

Same storm, right before dark.

[knuckle66]

On another note, that tornado was strikingly similar in appearance to the Tuscaloosa tornado.

http://vimeo.com/40475739

[jdrenken]

That's definitely where we were too, funny coincidence.. Except you guys smartly stuck around even after the radio guy tried to scare everyone away. So in retrospect, we should've stayed and we would've seen the wedge, but still a successful trip because we did get to see the tornado rope out when the supercell started to cycle and then the stovepipe near Solomon. Well worth the ~1200 miles of driving in less than 36 hours for mine and my friend's first ever chase trip. And aside from the cheezy promo music, that was a pretty awesome video.

We had GRX running and I was watching it like a hawk. In fact, we were thinking about pushing West a between Marquette and Lindsborg for a brief moment but decided not to thinking it might pull more East. It's amazing because that spot was roughly between 15-20 miles away, per google maps directions, from the wedge and we could see it thru the trees.

My group wasn't too happy about this video because you can see us driving away from the vacant lot and the reporter never asked us about our credentials...just immediately lumped us into the ignorant chaser mentality. Needless to say, we had multiple first responders in our group and would've been able to help if needed.

[gkrangers]

http://vimeo.com/40475739

Incredible. As good as it gets.

[jdrenken]

http://vimeo.com/40475739

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ict/?n=april14th_ricetor

[Ellinwood]

I don't know if we'll end up adding any more videos, but Ian and I compiled 45 videos of the outbreak, 35 of which are from the 14th. There are obviously many more videos than that.

The page will take a bit to load because of all of the video preview frames it has to grab: http://www.ustornadoes.com/2012/04/14/videos-from-the-april-13-april-14-and-april-15-2012-tornado-outbreak-sequence/

[on_wx]

Another hang up of mine that I saw a lot of discussion about is outdoor warning sirens. I say outdoor warning sirens because they are designed to warn those outdoors of potential danger. The fact that Woodward's were rendered inoperable due to lightning is unfortunate, but only for the relatively few people who may have been outdoors at midnight. If people were planning on being awaken by the sirens that night, then their severe weather preparedness failed before they went to bed. If you are indoors you should have an alternative method for getting your severe weather information (preferably NOAA Weather Radio).

News quotes local officials saying Woodward has 20 tornado sirens. The town is only 13 sq miles and usually it's one siren per 1-2 sq miles. They have serious siren overkill which is pretty common in parts of TX Panhandle/OK/KS. Towns purposely designed their systems that way so people would be able to hear the sirens basically anywhere. It's a different situation.

I found this video from downtown Woodward with the sirens sounding. Definitely more than the average siren medley. With 20 sirens it probably sounds this loud anywhere within the city limits.

[SmokeEater]

Video of live coverage from Wichita while the tornado was moving into the city on KSN.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66zYPvt7RaI

[OceanStWx]

News quotes local officials saying Woodward has 20 tornado sirens. The town is only 13 sq miles and usually it's one siren per 1-2 sq miles. They have serious siren overkill which is pretty common in parts of TX Panhandle/OK/KS. Towns purposely designed their systems that way so people would be able to hear the sirens basically anywhere. It's a different situation.

I found this video from downtown Woodward with the sirens sounding. Definitely more than the average siren medley. With 20 sirens it probably sounds this loud anywhere within the city limits.

Frankly I don't care how many sirens the town has, they aren't meant to be heard indoors or when you're asleep. The best way to receive severe weather information is to own a NOAA weather radio. Irregardless of if they have 1 or 2 sirens per square mile, one lightning strike can obviously take out the whole system. It is not a reliable enough system to used as the primary method for severe weather notification.

[on_wx]

Frankly I don't care how many sirens the town has, they aren't meant to be heard indoors or when you're asleep. The best way to receive severe weather information is to own a NOAA weather radio. Irregardless of if they have 1 or 2 sirens per square mile, one lightning strike can obviously take out the whole system. It is not a reliable enough system to used as the primary method for severe weather notification.

I wasn't implying the sirens should be the primary method for Woodward. Was just saying they have an excellent system and it's too bad they broke down right before their time of dire need. The outcome could have been different, but there is no way to know. Most people probably knew of the warning, but I really don't know. Whoever was blind-sided really have no one to blame but themselves.

[johnc]

I was surprised to see the number of people on the road in Woodward that late at night (midnightish?), though it looked to be a major highway. I think a couple of the people that died were in a vehicle at the time.

[tornadotony]

I was surprised to see the number of people on the road in Woodward that late at night (midnightish?), though it looked to be a major highway. I think a couple of the people that died were in a vehicle at the time.

All the deaths in the Woodward tornado were in mobile homes. Three were SW of town and three were in town. As for the traffic, US 412, US 270, US 183, OK 3, OK 34, and OK 15 all route through town, often making the city rather congested. We experienced that on our chase last year, even when storms were nowhere to be seen.

[futuremet]

My crew with 28storms.com started the day near Oklahoma City. The initial morning target was North-Central Kansas and Southern Nebraska. Supercells were expected to develop earlier in this area have better areal coverage. By late morning storms began rapidly developing in Western Kansas aided by a weak upper level impulse. Overall, the environment was weakly capped so it didn’t take much to trigger storms with a primed atmosphere.

We drove north and intercepted our first tornado warning of the day near Bunker Hill, Kansas. Conditions were very ominous with 40+mph inflow and very low cloud bases. With junk convection all around the storm it quickly became “High Precipitation” making visibility very poor from a chaser standpoint. We quickly aborted this storm and blasted southward in the expectation that developing supercells would be “Classic”.

One particular storm was intensifying just to the Northeast of Dodge City, Kansas. This storm became tornadic as we were approaching and we observed a rope tornado from the initial development. After the initial low-level mesocyclone developed and occluded, subsequent development occurred rapidly. We observed numerous brief tornadoes including the Photogenic Elephant Trunk tornado from this storm. Also, of note this particular storm was not very impressive in radar appearance. Furthermore, it wasn’t even Tornado Warned at one point, despite the fact it was continuously producing brief tornadoes. Eventually this storm moved into more stable air from the earlier morning convection further north and began to weaken.

Then, we decided to drop south on a supercell that was producing tornadoes to the South of Great Bend. This storm rapidly tightened up and began producing a wedge tornado. Due to poor contrast at the time we weren’t 100% certain that we were in fact looking at a wedge tornado. Many times rain shafts get mistaken for tonadoes; in this case we mistook the tornado for a rain shaft. Needless to say, we overshot the storm too far to the South as well due to poor road options. From there we began to play catch up and had to get back ahead of the storm on I-135. Fortunately, storm speeds were manageable and we had great visibility on the storm once again near Assaria. We witnessed the first initial Wedge Tornado become a Stovepipe and rope tornado. The initial tornado occluded but a new low level mesocyclone developed within minutes and began producing a multi-vortex tornado as shown below. This tornado fortunately occluded just before reaching Salina and the new meso didn’t produce until on the outskirts of town. The storm then proceeded to produce two more tornadoes including another photogenic “Stovepipe” Tornado.

As that storm weakened it began to get dark so we decided to start heading south in the direction of home. We had a long drive through the night back towards Mobile ahead of us! On the way back we intercepted another supercell Southwest of Salina that was reported as producing a Large tornado. We did witness numerous power flashes but did not see a tornado and were in fact fairly certain there was NOT a Tornado on the ground. All in all we saw over 9 Tornadoes on a day that we will not soon forget!

[Stebo]

All the deaths in the Woodward tornado were in mobile homes. Three were SW of town and three were in town. As for the traffic, US 412, US 270, US 183, OK 3, OK 34, and OK 15 all route through town, often making the city rather congested. We experienced that on our chase last year, even when storms were nowhere to be seen.

A bypass on the Southern side of town would do wonders there.

[tornadotony]

The tornado count as I can best gather from 12z Sat 14-12z Sun 15:

EF0: 26

EF1: 14

EF2: 3

EF3: 5

EF4: 1

EF?: 10

Total: 59

[on_wx]

Just putting it out there...I really think that when the NWS spells out cities within the warning it should be treated as currency. Loss/gain. If your town isn't mentioned during the warning then great. When the tornado warning went up for Woodward County I put on KFOR live stream. What bothers me and maybe for anyone who saw...the KFOR met kept reiterating that the tornado was going to miss Woodward and they were safe. I put on KWTV after the circulation passed and they were first to report a tornado had hit the city. KWTV was basically airing video of the tornado and talking to Marty by the time KFOR was up to speed. Anyone else see this?

[JoMo]

Just putting it out there...I really think that when the NWS spells out cities within the warning it should be treated as currency. Loss/gain. If your town isn't mentioned during the warning then great. When the tornado warning went up for Woodward County I put on KFOR live stream. What bothers me and maybe for anyone who saw...the KFOR met kept reiterating that the tornado was going to miss Woodward and they were safe. I put on KWTV after the circulation passed and they were first to report a tornado had hit the city. KWTV was basically airing video of the tornado and talking to Marty by the time KFOR was up to speed. Anyone else see this?

yeah I saw, they were talking about it missing to the NW, then when it actually hit, they said it was because it turned right.

[on_wx]

yeah I saw, they were talking about it missing to the NW, then when it actually hit, they said it was because it turned right.

Exactly. From what I remember they didn't even mention the updated statement "large tornado moving into the city of Woodward" warning until it was basically north of town.

[Hoosier]

The tornado count as I can best gather from 12z Sat 14-12z Sun 15:

EF0: 26

EF1: 14

EF2: 3

EF3: 5

EF4: 1

EF?: 10

Total: 59

Solid outbreak. That is approaching the numbers from March 2.

[B-Rent]

The tornado count as I can best gather from 12z Sat 14-12z Sun 15:

EF0: 26

EF1: 14

EF2: 3

EF3: 5

EF4: 1

EF?: 10

Total: 59

Solid outbreak. That is approaching the numbers from March 2.

Completely depressing that a week later, its "the best we can gather."

It has to be frustrating for you who try to tabulate these, trying to tabulate between different offices, and storms.