what were the worst outbreaks you had to cover as a paid professional met?

[Jim Marusak]

I know this seems like a wierd topic for the early part of tornado season. But I am sure there are some outbreaks you remember compared to others. But the times when you can really They become a bit of a hallmark for your career up to that moment of time. but also a time when you wonder and hope that all your training actually works as it should.

 

as for me, I have to admit there are a couple of outbreaks and storms I remember well.

 

the tornado that wiped out a campground near Red Deer Alberta back in the early 2000's

 

July 11, 2004 for the west edmonton/northern alberta outbreak. what I remember from that outbreak was not only the fact that it was one of those systems that Ripped open and caused major problems, It was a system that I knew would cause a problem (a big ball of cold air aloft moving out from the BC Peace heading towards them making things real unstable real quick, put out the advisory for about 1-2 hours before it started (couldn't earlier because of the time constraints at that time, then once it ripped open, it just became a butt-ugly situation real quick, with damage to the west edmonton mall, several areas near stony plain and west edmonton getting 6-8" of rain, and even calgary that day I think got some 30-50mm hail.

 

the 2009 murfreesboro multi-tornado outbreak, just because it was my first time being the meteorologist that covered the big event, as it was unfolding (and also  getting major kudos for the coverage the next day).

 

the 2010 wadena outbreak.

 

and the day of the Joplin f-5. not only because of what happened to Joplin MO that evening, but the same system also caused a tornado on the west side of minneapolis.

 

the week of may 23, 2011, just because it was not only several days of storms, but because I was able to get some memorable photos from the last day or two of that outbreak.

 

there's been more than a few others I covered over the years. but those are the ones that stick out in my mind.

 

what are your more memorable summer outbreaks where you had to go on the air or brief clients of the incoming mess they had coming in?

[CandymanColumbusGA]

The entire month of April in 2011. I never thought it would end. It was made worse by the fact we only had two staff meteorologists and so many different events that went into the overnight hours, or off my shift.

 

First we had the nasty squall line on 4th that damaged quite a few buildings and downed a number of trees.

 

Then we had the outbreak of April 15th. That caused me to be at work 28 straight hours, with wall-to-wall coverage for a good 8-10 hours. We had a few confirmed tornadoes in the area, including the EF-1 on Fort Benning which damaged a building and quite a few cars. Fortunately, that tornado was away from the residential part of the base.

 

Then we had the Outbreak of April 27th. A number of tornadoes ripped through the northern part of my DMA, including Pine Mountain Valley near Pine Mountain, GA. The thing I remember most about that day was that EVERYTHING was spinning. If an echo was detected on radar, it would blow up and start rotating within 10 minutes. It was exciting to watch from a meteorological perspective, but stressful to cover on TV and make sure we didn't forget about any one in a warning and cover all the different storms.

 

We then had an EF-2, though most of it was EF-0/1, tornado on the ground for almost 60 miles on November 16, 2011. It started in Auburn, AL and tracked in to Harris County, GA where it hit the high school. Fortunately, there were no fatalities and no major injuries as the tornado hit while school was in session. That thing was on the ground over an hour. One of the most surreal experiences I've had as we kept thinking it would dissipate, but it never did.  Alabama's take: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=event_111611auburn  Georgia's take: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/?n=20111116_svrwx

 

Last year was rather quiet and no major events stick out in my mind.

 

The first time I ever had to cut in to programming was March 26, 2011 (what a ridiculous year to start the TV business, huh?) for a tornado in a rural part of my DMA during the Elite 8 while Florida played! That was a struggle to cover by myself and determine when I had to cut-in, sometimes as quick as 30 seconds, for the warning. I got lambasted for cutting in during the game for a tornado in the middle of nowhere. A trailer park was hit during that tornado, so I was justified for cutting in and made sure we covered the story. I then posted the story to all the "hate" posts and emails saying, "This is why I cut-in during the bball game. If this was your house, you'd want the same kind of coverage, if not more. Thankfully, there were no major injuries or fatalities because we relayed the warnings in a timely manner."

[andyhb]

the tornado that wiped out a campground near Red Deer Alberta back in the early 2000's

 

Ah yes, the Pine Lake tornado on July 14th, 2000.

 

 

 

[Bryan Wood]

April thru early June of 2011 was unlike anything I've seen in my few years in the insurance industry. If there wasn't a massive tornado outbreak, there were numerous "black triangle" hail events in big cities or crazy squall line damage. The accumulation of all those events turned every major insurance company into a madhouse. At the pace we were going, I figured there was going to be a major early-season hurricane and a big earthquake because that was all we were missing. We were lucky there wasn't either of those events right after that Spring. I'm honestly surprised there wasn't a bunch of small, regional insurance companies going belly-up (there were a few).

[Teru Teru Bozu]

The first time I ever had to cut in to programming was March 26, 2011 (what a ridiculous year to start the TV business, huh?) for a tornado in a rural part of my DMA during the Elite 8 while Florida played! That was a struggle to cover by myself and determine when I had to cut-in, sometimes as quick as 30 seconds, for the warning. I got lambasted for cutting in during the game for a tornado in the middle of nowhere. A trailer park was hit during that tornado, so I was justified for cutting in and made sure we covered the story. I then posted the story to all the "hate" posts and emails saying, "This is why I cut-in during the bball game. If this was your house, you'd want the same kind of coverage, if not more. Thankfully, there were no major injuries or fatalities because we relayed the warnings in a timely manner."

Oh yeah, people in NC would LOSE THEIR FREAKING MINDS when we'd have a severe weather cut-in during basketball in March (not as much now that most tourney games are streamed online, and some of them are on cable). One met around here once told me that after one of the cut-in events, he had a few viewers who called the station wanting to know why they should have to see a cut-in for a warning across the viewing area from them. Apparently some people think that every county or town should get their own customized broadcast signal.

What's that? Tornado Warning in Johnston County? To hell with Johnston County, this is BASKETBALL.

[isohume]

I was an overpaid and unprofessional met at the time, but back about 20 years ago, I had a whole series of epic and highly damaging outbreaks to cover. I recall joking to my colleagues that I was gonna go through a whole box of Clearasil that Spring. 

[U_Thant]

No brainer...2/22-23 1998, and 2/2 2007.

[Stebo]

No brainer...2/22-23 1998, and 2/2 2007.

That event back in 1998 really was an incredibly tragic event occurring at night. One of the deadliest tornado events in Florida's history.

[andyhb]

That event back in 1998 really was an incredibly tragic event occurring at night. One of the deadliest tornado events in Florida's history.

 

1998 was the deadliest in FL history, and the 2007 event is the second deadliest (ahead of the Galloway, FL F4 on 4/4/66).

 

The 2007 and 1998 events were both quite similar actually (both in the early morning), although I believe the 1998 event consisted of three main supercells and the 2007 event was a single supercell. That said, the synoptic setups aloft were quite different.

 

 

[U_Thant]

1998 was the deadliest in FL history, and the 2007 event is the second deadliest (ahead of the Galloway, FL F4 on 4/4/66).

 

The 2007 and 1998 events were both quite similar actually (both in the early morning), although I believe the 1998 event consisted of three main supercells and the 2007 event was a single supercell. That said, the synoptic setups aloft were quite different.

 

 

I worked that entire event on a non-integrated type workstation (the old WSR-88D "PUP" display plus SR-WARN running on an old P3-ish generation type PC) and remember it quite well, even 15 years after the fact. There were indeed 3 tornadic supercells that produced the 7 tornadoes in our CWA. However, for each of the three tornadic supecells there were "interim" supercells - or "tweeners" for lack of a better description - that formed, but for whatever reason (not quite enough SR inflow?), just didn't take advantage of the very high SREH and spin up as tight and produce tornadoes. They seemed to be evenly spaced to where it went TOR-tweener-TOR-tweener-TOR...

 

I think this animation will show what I'm talking about...from 2:00 to 2:40 shows the BREF structure of the cells best, while from 7:05 onward, you get the best view of almost all the SRM couplets.

 

 

It helps to have a TOR track map in front of you for reference...

 

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/media/mlb/pdfs/EastCentralFloridaTornadoOutbreakof22-23February1998.pdf  (see map on page 1)

[Clyde]

The Winter Garden/Sanford supercell tracked about 3 miles north of where I lived at the time (I lived in the gap between the two tornado touchdowns). The lightning from that cell was like nothing I had seen before or since living in Florida. I remember waking up and thinking someone was flashing a strobe light at my window.

 

The Kissimmee tornado claimed 25 lives and is by far the most deadly in Florida history, but IIRC all of the fatalities were in an RV park that it struck part of. It continued on a long track south and east of Orlando in an area that has since had many communities built. A track like that today would produce significant damage.

 

In fact, eventually we are going to have another long-tracked I-4 corridor major tornado event here that will have serious consequences based on the population boom.

[U_Thant]

The Winter Garden/Sanford supercell tracked about 3 miles north of where I lived at the time (I lived in the gap between the two tornado touchdowns). The lightning from that cell was like nothing I had seen before or since living in Florida. I remember waking up and thinking someone was flashing a strobe light at my window.

 

The Kissimmee tornado claimed 25 lives and is by far the most deadly in Florida history, but IIRC all of the fatalities were in an RV park that it struck part of. It continued on a long track south and east of Orlando in an area that has since had many communities built. A track like that today would produce significant damage.

 

In fact, eventually we are going to have another long-tracked I-4 corridor major tornado event here that will have serious consequences based on the population boom.

 

ser·en·dip·i·ty /ˌserənˈdipitē/

Noun: The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way: "a fortunate stroke of serendipity"

 

I surveyed the eastern track of two of the three main supercells, including the one that produced the Kissimmee Tornado. I Identified a separate tornado which occurred a little farther east, just E of I-95, that deroofed a really nice, well-built house, depositing the roof and the four pillars holding it, into a swamp behind the house before the tornado lifted.

 

Note the small skip between the Kissimmee TOR (F3) and the short-lived F1 to its east.

 

 

Now as I zoom in closer on Google Earth, you'll see that the TOR passed uncomfortably close, but just south of the ironically named "Wedgefield" subdivision and crossed the Beachline/FL 528 very near the intersection of SR 520. It continued ENE and then proceded to chew up a large swath of large, old growth trees as it passed trough the Tosohatchee State Forest ("TSF" on the map) and Wildlife Management Area. http://www.outintheboonies.com/Tosohatchee/

 

 

The ranger was nice enough to take me on a tour of the entire swath of downed trees. Now my track, or damage swath (yellow) is inaccurately drawn, as the TOR actually lifted just before an access road ("Power line Road" - red dashsed line) that runs along an E-W row of very large power poles carrying high voltage lines (the ones that look like giant metal robots). I could see the point at where the swath of trees were snapped got progressively higher as we neared the northern edge of that section of forest. The TOR lifted near that northern edge and *did not* damage the wires or power lines. Note that the point at where it touched down again east of I-95 is drawn correctly.

 

Also note that there appears to be "something" that lies within that small skip. Let's take a closer look...

 

 

Again, that yellow line extends farther ENE than the actual track, which ends just before the red dashed line. Obviously, there is some sort of subdivision in the gap. Let's zoom in some more...

 

 

The long-tracked TOR lifted up about two miles WSW of the south part of the Great Outdoors RV Park, a 2800 acre "55+" retirement community filled with over 1,000 large (bus type) RVs. At the time, it was one of the largest of its kind in the U.S. http://www.tgoresort.com/about/index.asp

 

Just think about the carnage there would have been had it not lifted...

 

 

The roofed structures are manufactured homes attached to carports. One of the homes on the image above can be seen here...  http://www.tgoresort.com/properties/propertyDetails.asp?propertyId=638

[andyhb]

That tornado was already very deadly...hitting a huge RV Park like that in the middle of the night, I feel the death toll would have been...well...let's just say the Oak Grove/Pleasant Grove, AL F5 on April 8th probably wouldn't have been the deadliest tornado of the year by a significant margin.

[Cory]

Not an outbreak, but my first experience with working during a tornado was the North Platte, NE tornado of March 2012, which occurred a few miles from the office and destroyed some houses and flipped a train off the tracks at the railyard. That was an exhausting adrenaline rush, and is luckily the only tornado event I've worked. I can't imagine how other NWS folks feel during/after a big outbreak.