Northern Ohio Obs/Discussion

[Trent]

Burke Lakefront Airport had a peak dewpoint of 77 yesterday. Absolutely miserable out there.

[NEOH]

Burke Lakefront Airport had a peak dewpoint of 77 yesterday. Absolutely miserable out there.

 

It's about as swampy as it can get out there... at least by northeast ohio standards. Clouds from the lake breeze storms are keeping temps in check right now. Looks like full sun to the north with dark skies to the south.

[Trent]

It's about as swampy as it can get out there... at least by northeast ohio standards. Clouds from the lake breeze storms are keeping temps in check right now. Looks like full sun to the north with dark skies to the south.

 

And BKL up to a 79 dewpoint today with a light breeze off the water.

 

Clouds, storms, and lake breeze are keeping temperatures from getting out of hand today. Still, it's a swamp outside.

[OHweather]

CLE only hit 89 before it clouded up...CAK 91. Saw a good storm in northern Summit County, good lightning around noon.

[Trent]

CLE only hit 89 before it clouded up...CAK 91. Saw a good storm in northern Summit County, good lightning around noon.

 

It's slowly been rising again after the clouds and storms cleared. Up to 89 with calm winds at 4:51pm. So there's still a chance it get up to 90 - 91 within the hour.

[Speedskater]

Cleveland Water Crib Data

The 5 mile water crib date page is working again.  But I have no idea what any of the values refer to.  Don't even know if they have anything to do with weather.

 

http://livedata.clevelandcrib.org/

[Trent]

CLE has had 5 straight days with lows above 75. I browsed all the airport records and I could only find a string of two consecutive days in the past with overnight lows this warm. Perhaps there are some turn of the century downtown records that match this, but it's noteworthy there's been nothing close to this kind of humidity and warm nights in at least 70 years.

[Trent]

Northeast Ohio just barely escaped what could have been a damaging flash flood event similar to what happened in Toronto last week.

 

Here are the radar estimated overnight precip totals.

 

 

Note that a tiny portion of radar estimated 3-4" fell in Lake County in Mentor. But, checking the wunderground obs, the radar estimates are considerably underdone. One station near the lake had almost 7" of rain. Many others near Mentor had 4-5.5" of rain (where radar indicated only 2-2.5")

 

That's a HUGE swath of 4" rains indicated on radar. And considering the radar is underestimating that by almost half, had that moved just slightly south overnight, you would have had a huge swath of 8" rains over almost all of Cuyahoga, Lake, and Geauga Counties. 

[NEOH]

Crazy night of storms... Picked up 3 inches. The radar estimates are definitely under done. Trees and limbs are down all over the northern section of pepper pike. Right around Ursuline college looked like the worst of it. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a brief spin up in that area. Just a half mile southeast of my house.

[dta1984]

Very heavy rains and a lot of lightening last night!  I bet the light show looking out over the lake as the storms were coming in was pretty amazing.  

[OHweather]

Yeah, I've seen a couple pictures of what is being described as "possible tornado damage" in Pepper Pike. All of the storms last night were spitting out outflow well before coming onshore but anything is possible.

[OHweather]

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CLEVELAND OH
540 PM EDT SAT JUL 20 2013

...TORNADO CONFIRMED IN CUYAHOGA COUNTY IN PEPPER PIKE...
ON JULY 20TH AROUND 3:35 AM IN THE MORNING...

LOCATION...PEPPER PIKE...CUYAHOGA COUNTY...OHIO
DATE...JULY 20 2013
ESTIMATED TIME...AROUND 3:35 AM EDT
MAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING...HIGH END EF1
ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED...110 MPH
MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...100 TO 200 YARDS
PATH LENGTH...1.3 MILES
BEGINNING LAT/LON...41.5005N / -81.4685W
ENDING LAT/LON......41.4825N / -81.4590W

*THE INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TO
CHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENTS AND PUBLICATION IN NWS
STORM DATA.

.SUMMARY...
A STORM SURVEY WAS CONDUCTED IN PEPPER PIKE OHIO IN CUYAHOGA
COUNTY.

THE PATH BEGAN JUST NORTHWEST OF URSULINE COLLEGE AND CONTINUED
ACROSS PART OF THE CAMPUS WHERE EVIDENCE OF A HIGH END EF1 TORNADO
WITH ABOUT 110 MPH WINDS WAS FOUND. SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE WAS DONE TO
THE GYMNASIUM AT URSULINE COLLEGE. OTHERWISE ROOF AND TREE DAMAGE
WAS FOUND. THE TORNADO WAS ASSOCIATED WITH SOME DOWNBURST/STRAIGHT
LINE WIND DAMAGE IN THE AREA. THE TORNADO MOVED SOUTH-SOUTHEAST
CAUSING DAMAGE NEAR THE ROUND-ABOUT AND THEN NEAR THE COUNTRY CLUB.
THE DOWN BURST WINDS ALSO CAUSED SOME TREE DAMAGE IN THE AREA.

[Trent]

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CLEVELAND OH

540 PM EDT SAT JUL 20 2013

...TORNADO CONFIRMED IN CUYAHOGA COUNTY IN PEPPER PIKE...

ON JULY 20TH AROUND 3:35 AM IN THE MORNING...

LOCATION...PEPPER PIKE...CUYAHOGA COUNTY...OHIO

DATE...JULY 20 2013

ESTIMATED TIME...AROUND 3:35 AM EDT

MAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING...HIGH END EF1

ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED...110 MPH

MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...100 TO 200 YARDS

PATH LENGTH...1.3 MILES

BEGINNING LAT/LON...41.5005N / -81.4685W

ENDING LAT/LON......41.4825N / -81.4590W

*THE INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TO

CHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENTS AND PUBLICATION IN NWS

STORM DATA.

.SUMMARY...

A STORM SURVEY WAS CONDUCTED IN PEPPER PIKE OHIO IN CUYAHOGA

COUNTY.

THE PATH BEGAN JUST NORTHWEST OF URSULINE COLLEGE AND CONTINUED

ACROSS PART OF THE CAMPUS WHERE EVIDENCE OF A HIGH END EF1 TORNADO

WITH ABOUT 110 MPH WINDS WAS FOUND. SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE WAS DONE TO

THE GYMNASIUM AT URSULINE COLLEGE. OTHERWISE ROOF AND TREE DAMAGE

WAS FOUND. THE TORNADO WAS ASSOCIATED WITH SOME DOWNBURST/STRAIGHT

LINE WIND DAMAGE IN THE AREA. THE TORNADO MOVED SOUTH-SOUTHEAST

CAUSING DAMAGE NEAR THE ROUND-ABOUT AND THEN NEAR THE COUNTRY CLUB.

THE DOWN BURST WINDS ALSO CAUSED SOME TREE DAMAGE IN THE AREA.

 

It just seems odd. They mention associated with straightline winds and downbursts. I wonder if this really was a legitimate tornado given the conditions or just inconclusive to determine either way, so they just classified it as a tornado?

 

Nonetheless, It's amazing that there wasn't a warning of some kind out for this. CLE is always so trigger happy when it comes to SVR and TOR warnings. This one just slipped by and in a county of over a million people. 

[OHweather]

It just seems odd. They mention associated with straightline winds and downbursts. I wonder if this really was a legitimate tornado given the conditions or just inconclusive to determine either way, so they just classified it as a tornado?

 

Nonetheless, It's amazing that there wasn't a warning of some kind out for this. CLE is always so trigger happy when it comes to SVR and TOR warnings. This one just slipped by and in a county of over a million people. 

I drove around that area after work last night since it was so close. It was dark and Lander road is closed near Ursaline due to construction so I couldn't see as much as I wanted...but tornado damage seemed to get just south of Shaker Blvd...but there were limbs down here and there almost all the way down to Miles Road which I want to say is about two miles south of Shaker Blvd. In addition, there were limbs down on Shaker Blvd as far east as SOM...so there was a fairly large area of what was likely 50-60MPH straight line winds surrounding the "tornado."

As for the tornado damage itself...from what I could see, the damage drastically increased over the course of no distance from just some limbs down to widespread and fairly impressive tree damage. So, it doesn't seem like this was a downburst in which the winds slowly fan out...there was a shark and significant increase in wind damage. It was dark so I couldn't tell, but I'd imagine CLE would have had to have found evidence of the damage/winds being convergent in this path for them to call it a tornado.

As to what caused this...I haven't looked at much radar yet and I haven't looked at the meso-analyis data much yet either, and will later...but this was probably a QLCS type spin-up. Based on the rather large area of strong straight line winds surrounding the tornado they probably could have easily severe warned the storm given where it was and how trigger happy they are with storms in and around Cuyahoga County. There's a chance this was a gustnado or something...however it was pretty strong and there is no way to know for sure like you said.

[Hoosier]

I drove around that area after work last night since it was so close. It was dark and Lander road is closed near Ursaline due to construction so I couldn't see as much as I wanted...but tornado damage seemed to get just south of Shaker Blvd...but there were limbs down here and there almost all the way down to Miles Road which I want to say is about two miles south of Shaker Blvd. In addition, there were limbs down on Shaker Blvd as far east as SOM...so there was a fairly large area of what was likely 50-60MPH straight line winds surrounding the "tornado."

As for the tornado damage itself...from what I could see, the damage drastically increased over the course of no distance from just some limbs down to widespread and fairly impressive tree damage. So, it doesn't seem like this was a downburst in which the winds slowly fan out...there was a shark and significant increase in wind damage. It was dark so I couldn't tell, but I'd imagine CLE would have had to have found evidence of the damage/winds being convergent in this path for them to call it a tornado.

As to what caused this...I haven't looked at much radar yet and I haven't looked at the meso-analyis data much yet either, and will later...but this was probably a QLCS type spin-up. Based on the rather large area of strong straight line winds surrounding the tornado they probably could have easily severe warned the storm given where it was and how trigger happy they are with storms in and around Cuyahoga County. There's a chance this was a gustnado or something...however it was pretty strong and there is no way to know for sure like you said.

Gustnado would explain some things. I wonder if there were any eyewitnesses. Of course I wouldn't put a ton of faith in Joe Public trying to differentiate between gustnado and true tornado and darkness wouldn't have helped.

[NEOH]

I drove around that area after work last night since it was so close. It was dark and Lander road is closed near Ursaline due to construction so I couldn't see as much as I wanted...but tornado damage seemed to get just south of Shaker Blvd...but there were limbs down here and there almost all the way down to Miles Road which I want to say is about two miles south of Shaker Blvd. In addition, there were limbs down on Shaker Blvd as far east as SOM...so there was a fairly large area of what was likely 50-60MPH straight line winds surrounding the "tornado."

As for the tornado damage itself...from what I could see, the damage drastically increased over the course of no distance from just some limbs down to widespread and fairly impressive tree damage. So, it doesn't seem like this was a downburst in which the winds slowly fan out...there was a shark and significant increase in wind damage. It was dark so I couldn't tell, but I'd imagine CLE would have had to have found evidence of the damage/winds being convergent in this path for them to call it a tornado.

As to what caused this...I haven't looked at much radar yet and I haven't looked at the meso-analyis data much yet either, and will later...but this was probably a QLCS type spin-up. Based on the rather large area of strong straight line winds surrounding the tornado they probably could have easily severe warned the storm given where it was and how trigger happy they are with storms in and around Cuyahoga County. There's a chance this was a gustnado or something...however it was pretty strong and there is no way to know for sure like you said.

I'm definitely not a severe weather expert... But since this was so close to my home I've noticed there is a distinct damage path. It basically starts near hawken school on Richmond, then heads southeast from there across 271 down to the country club. Must have been a tree topper tornado as there are quite a few large trees sheered at the top... While others are toppled in all different directions. The only structural damage was at Ursuline. Whats odd is that street to the west of the property had virtually no damage. Trees were destroyed at fairmount circle.

Just a few branches down Imby thankfully.

[OHweather]

Gustnado would explain some things. I wonder if there were any eyewitnesses. Of course I wouldn't put a ton of faith in Joe Public trying to differentiate between gustnado and true tornado and darkness wouldn't have helped.

I've finally pulled up some radar data on the storm...a couple of things that stand out...

 

The earlier storms that moved into Cleveland's east side had outflow running 10-20 miles south of the storms. This storm did not. Some of the storms over the lake Friday night occasionally showed rotation but in all cases went outflow dominant and weakened to below severe limits well before coming inland on the east side, unlike this one.

 

The reflectivity images from 3:30 and 3:35AM with the location of the "tornado" damage marked:

 

 

The base velocity images from the same time above...with the same markings as the reflectivity image:

 

Looking at all of this, there appeared to be a hook in the general vicinity of the tornado...and a couplette as well. If not a true couplette, the radar was picking up on 40+ knot westerly winds to the south of easterly winds right as it produced the possible tornado. So, I think this may have been a QLCS type tornado. Looking at radar the tornado may have occurred a few minutes before 3:35AM...maybe 3:30-3:32AM.

The VIL with the storm dropped drastically between 3:20 and 3:30AM...from near 50 to around 30, which also supports the downburst winds that occurred to the south and east of the tornado. To play devil's advocate here, the 3:26AM radar imagery also had a hook and developing couplette with the storm, so perhaps CLE could have been a bit more aware here:

 

[OHweather]

I'm definitely not a severe weather expert... But since this was so close to my home I've noticed there is a distinct damage path. It basically starts near hawken school on Richmond, then heads southeast from there across 271 down to the country club. Must have been a tree topper tornado as there are quite a few large trees sheered at the top... While others are toppled in all different directions. The only structural damage was at Ursuline. Whats odd is that street to the west of the property had virtually no damage. Trees were destroyed at fairmount circle.

Just a few branches down Imby thankfully.

I could kind of see that on Cedar...there was evidence of some tree damage just east of 271...but nothing extreme. Then just a few hundred yards SE Ursaline got smacked. Certainly a fun happening, glad you didn't have any property damage!

[Chinook]

 

The earlier storms that moved into Cleveland's east side had outflow running 10-20 miles south of the storms. This storm did not. Some of the storms over the lake Friday night occasionally showed rotation but in all cases went outflow dominant and weakened to below severe limits

 

Is it me or does the CLE office have very few verified tornado warnings? That is, many tornado warnings, relatively few tornadoes in the warning box?  I think so. I used to live in Toledo and I have followed things over the years, and GRLevel3 makes it easy to see the warning boxes and the doppler velocity. I frequently find that the SRV doesn't look impressive on tornado warned storms in the CLE warning area.  Is it just that hard to differentiate, given the fact that non-standard supercells, non-supercells, or very small storms produce tornadoes in the eastern states? I admit that the non-standard situations, with squall lines, line-end vortices, actually do produce tornadoes.

[OHweather]

I'm strongly considering waking up early and going waterspout hunting up along the Lake Erie shoreline tomorrow morning if conditions permit...models trying to pick up on a lake effect band over the near shore waters in that timeframe and perhaps moving inland at times over the eastern lakeshore...with plenty of instability for waterspouts and favorably low wind shear.

 

Is it me or does the CLE office have very few verified tornado warnings? That is, many tornado warnings, relatively few tornadoes in the warning box?  I think so. I used to live in Toledo and I have followed things over the years, and GRLevel3 makes it easy to see the warning boxes and the doppler velocity. I frequently find that the SRV doesn't look impressive on tornado warned storms in the CLE warning area.  Is it just that hard to differentiate, given the fact that non-standard supercells, non-supercells, or very small storms produce tornadoes in the eastern states? I admit that the non-standard situations, with squall lines, line-end vortices, actually do produce tornadoes.

Sorry for not seeing this sooner. Doing a quick search using Iowa State's IEM Cow page...since June 9, 2008 there have been 125 tornado warnings issued by CLE, with only 14 of those warnings producing a tornado. There's a chance a couple of tornadoes maybe have been missed (including a couple from July 10th of this year) by the search, but that's a verification of 11.2%, certainly no more than 14-15% if you add a couple of tornadoes that the search didn't find. There were 7 unwarned tornadoes in that timeframe.

So over the course of about 5 years, there have been 21 tornadoes in CLE's CWA per the search with a third of those going unwarned...and with 111 tornado warnings that did not produce per the search...but like I said I think a couple recent ones may be missing. So you are correct, quite a few warnings that bust from CLE.

http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cow/?syear=2008&smonth=6&sday=9&shour=12&eyear=2013&emonth=7&eday=28&ehour=12&wfo=CLE&wtype[]=TO&hail=1.00&lsrbuffer=15&ltype[]=T&wind=58

[dta1984]

We are definitely getting spoiled with some nice weather lately.  I saw Trent posted in the July forum that CLE was actually around normal.  It seems that we have been quite cool.  Is it just that the past few summers have been so hot, that a normal month feels cool?    

[Trent]

We are definitely getting spoiled with some nice weather lately.  I saw Trent posted in the July forum that CLE was actually around normal.  It seems that we have been quite cool.  Is it just that the past few summers have been so hot, that a normal month feels cool?    

July was basically very hot in the middle and very cool/mild to end. So for the entire month it came out pretty even. We've had an impressive number of above average months the past few years, so that when we do get one that ends up "average" it feels cool.

 

Was quite surprised last night at the thunderstorms that rolled through. Didn't think there was a chance of rain. Of course CLE has missed all the action this month, while I've had almost 1.5" this weekend alone.

[FL510]

CLE has had consistently below normal temps for 11 days in a row now. Looks like it's possible the next 2 weeks will not have a above normal day. This is outrageous. A reason I don't own a boat on Lake Erie...this summer is awful.

[Trent]

This is typically Lake Erie's peak warmth time. The string of below normal temps during peak heating will surely have implications come lake effect/early snow events. If fall doesn't torch, we'll probably extend the below normal lake temps into the winter season.

Today is day 13 of below normal temps. It's actually been great in my opinion. Makes outdoor activities much more enjoyable.

[NEOH]

This is typically Lake Erie's peak warmth time. The string of below normal temps during peak heating will surely have implications come lake effect/early snow events. If fall doesn't torch, we'll probably extend the below normal lake temps into the winter season.

Today is day 13 of below normal temps. It's actually been great in my opinion. Makes outdoor activities much more enjoyable.

 

Down to 54 IMBY last night. No complaints about the cooler weather from me. Its nice not to have to use the AC. This weather is perfect. Now if we could get rid of the mosquito's... they've been awful the past few days.

[Trent]

Look at Lake Erie's temperatures! In early July we went from the warmest lake temperature recorded the last 6 summers to now the coldest (by far) Lake Erie has been in August the past 6 summers.

 

Lakeshore beach surface temps are a mild 70-71 degrees, these can easily be 83-85 during this time of year.

 

[Trent]

CLE just barely squeaked out an 82 for a high today. That makes today the first day with an above normal high temperature since it was last 86 degrees on July 23rd. That was 18 straight days of below normal high temperatures. Looking at the week ahead, there are no above normal high temperatures forecasted. Pretty impressive anomaly we've got going for the last half of summer.

[NEOH]

Strange start to August. Feels very September-like out there. Hopefully we see some warmer weather before Summer ends. My yard is lush green right now... but the burning bushes are already starting to turn. Also, very few acorns so far after bumper crops the past 3 years.

[dta1984]

Wow it is hot out there.  My car said 98 on the way home.  I bet this is the hottest day of the summer.  Seems like the few 90s we have had, have been in the lower 90s.  .

[OHweather]

Wow it is hot out there.  My car said 98 on the way home.  I bet this is the hottest day of the summer.  Seems like the few 90s we have had, have been in the lower 90s.  .

CLE is going to hit at least 96 if not 97 today pending any intra-hour bumps. The previous hottest day of the summer was 94 on July 19th.