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Significant Severe Events: June 14th-19th


andyhb

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so who here took a look at the 00Z sounding at aberdeen?

 

http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/upper/abr.gif

 

I just did, and something on there scares me a bit in potential confirmation. take a look at the area between 750hPa and 700hPa. notice how the parcel goes up moist up to this point then the bottom drops out near 725 hPa, dropping 5C in less than 50 hPa before going up in its thunderstorm profile. something similar was projected to happen on the NAM here in the twin cities (never did happen here). but with it happening now, the results seem to be happening a bit further west. just hope we don't see something similar here tomorrow.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a study published a few years back on how faulty equipment can lead to phantom moist superadiabatic layers?

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9yhere9y.jpgm

Quick screen grab

Tapatalk

 

Alt + Prt Sc

 

 

Not just cap in Eastern Nebraska - but shortwave ridging... could see it in the vis satellite with the curvature of the mid level clouds - would make sense with the shortwave trough moving in from the west... believe SD was north of that ridging and under the influence still of the trough to the north

 

Makes sense.  I was sitting in Platte, SD for a while and saw the cu to my south vaporize.  By the time the cu overhead town was starting to dry up, I knew it was time to give up on hoping for a discrete supercell down there and headed north to the complex.  Turns out that ended up being a discrete supercell anyway!  

 

If there was a tornado not rain-wrapped, it was early on during that time while I was still flying north.  I was on it from Kimball all the way to Huron and didn't see any tornadoes, although at times I was struggling to stay close enough getting DeLorme'd more than once, so it's possible I missed something.

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Makes sense. I was sitting in Platte, SD for a while and saw the cu to my south vaporize. By the time the cu overhead town was starting to dry up, I knew it was time to give up on hoping for a discrete supercell down there and headed north to the complex. Turns out that ended up being a discrete supercell anyway!

If there was a tornado not rain-wrapped, it was early on during that time while I was still flying north. I was on it from Kimball all the way to Huron and didn't see any tornadoes, although at times I was struggling to stay close enough getting DeLorme'd more than once, so it's possible I missed something.

It produced near Lane and Alpena. It was definitely not rain wrapped at that point. I got to it just in time to catch the nice cone tornado for about 10 minutes, before roping out on 281. Contrast was poor, so you had to get pretty close.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a study published a few years back on how faulty equipment can lead to phantom moist superadiabatic layers?

it can.

 

but if you've been looking at the model soundings for the last couple of days, you'd have noticed that the models were hinting at such a layer actually occurring (especially the NAM), and if anything the average lapse rates from 400-900 hPa going from ~ 6C/km to over 8C/km within a 2 hour timespan. so unless the NAM actually was forecasting bad equipment, the aberdeen sounding may not have been too far off, unless they specifically noted an equipment malfunction.

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Today's adventure was the Lane, SD tornado and trying to get as close as possible.

 

It started by bailing out from the mess that was sitting over Wessington Station. I did not want to deal with that, so I went off on my own to investigate a weak couplet just to the east. I was convoying with a couple who were storm chasing, but sometimes you have to go with your gut and separate. Within a minute or two there was a rope touching down with another tornado just to the north of it. The two lifted up and down, with the northern one become dominant within a few minutes.This started right around 8:00 p.m. and the time during which both funnels/tornadoes were side by side was maybe a minute, no more than two minutes.

 

I inched north along some muddy roads, slipping and sliding along the way, to get a closer inspection. The tornado was moving slowly over a series of fields, as I saw very minimal structural damage. (just some lines down at one point and a road sign that you'll see later)

 

The spot where I stayed to watch was a road where a few trees had been uprooted and a road sign was twisted. It's almost iconic in a way that the arrow (when lined up just right) pointed right at the tornado. A local stopped by and had me snap a picture of him just a few minutes before the tornado dissipated. The tornado began to rope out and lifted back up at 8:28 p.m.

 

Here are a few images - the first is a screengrab from an HD video that I'm still working on. The last two are iPhone photos:
post-533-0-13586000-1403173442_thumb.jpg

post-533-0-32108200-1403173853_thumb.jpg

post-533-0-19107700-1403173868_thumb.jpg

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A little off topic of the "science" of all thats been happening...

 

Does anyone have an update on Wessington Springs, SD? We watched that storm enter the town in real time on the stream...we saw the initial damage but did not see anything else into the community. 

 

Needless to say, it was rather humbling watching this unfold in real time.

 

Thanks...

Eric

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It produced near Lane and Alpena. It was definitely not rain wrapped at that point. I got to it just in time to catch the nice cone tornado for about 10 minutes, before roping out on 281. Contrast was poor, so you had to get pretty close.

 

Damn.  I was on 281 at the kink about half way between Plankinton and the county line (I think I was pulled over on 243rd street).  I know that outer circulation tightened up somewhere around there but since I couldn't get east until 34 through Woonsocket because of the James River I had to fall behind it.  Ugh.

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If Pilger is upgraded to EF-5, is that supercell the most powerful and intense ever?

Only other I can think of is the 4/27/11 supercell that went through Tuscaloosa.

No.

 

I tweeted about this last night, but it wouldn't even hold the record for consecutive violent tornadoes.  That would go to the DePauw IN-Cincinnati (Sayler Park) OH supercell from 4/3/74, which had 5 consecutive violent tornadoes (F5, F4, F4, F5, F4).

 

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/sp3/plot.php?lat=38.646&lon=85.458&zoom=280&mode=0&bdate=19740403/1200&edate=19740404/1200&torflag=1&windflag=-1&hailflag=-1&t01=4&t02=5&t03=0&t04=9999&t05=0&t06=9999&t07=0&t08=9999&t09=0&t10=9999&h01=0&h02=9999&w01=0&w02=9999&showt=0&legend=1&showh=-1&showw=-1&cntys=1

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A little off topic of the "science" of all thats been happening...

 

Does anyone have an update on Wessington Springs, SD? We watched that storm enter the town in real time on the stream...we saw the initial damage but did not see anything else into the community. 

 

Needless to say, it was rather humbling watching this unfold in real time.

 

Thanks...

Eric

KELO and KSFY should have updates on damage, sounds like everything in town took some damage to varying degrees. No fatalities, 1 injury.

http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/wessington-springs-total-devastation/?id=165976

http://www.ksfy.com/story/25818369/one-injured-after-tornado-strikes-wessington-springs

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They are doing the survey, so far they say it's *at least* EF-2, but media outlets are just saying EF-2.

 

OAX posted this message of clarification on those reports...

 

 

Hi folks. We're seeing some media reports of tornado ratings on the tornado near Coleridge, but to be clear, we have not yet assigned an EF-scale rating to that or any tornadoes on June 17.
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KELO and KSFY should have updates on damage, sounds like everything in town took some damage to varying degrees. No fatalities, 1 injury.

http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/wessington-springs-total-devastation/?id=165976

http://www.ksfy.com/story/25818369/one-injured-after-tornado-strikes-wessington-springs

 

Thanks! Wow, very lucky overall...

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Wessington Springs EF2

 

 

 

NOUS43 KFSD 191643 CCA
PNSFSD
IAZ001-012-020-031-MNZ071-097-098-NEZ013-014-SDZ038>040-050-
052>071-200500-

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...CORRECTED
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SIOUX FALLS SD
1143 AM CDT THU JUN 19 2014

CORRECTED TYPO

...NWS DAMAGE SURVEY FOR 06/18/2014 WESSINGTON SPRINGS TORNADO...

.WESSINGTON SPRINGS IN JERAULD COUNTY...

RATING: EF-2
ESTIMATED PEAK WIND: 127 MPH
PATH LENGTH /STATUTE/: APPROXIMATELY 2 MILES
MILES PATH WIDTH /MAXIMUM/: 30 YARDS
FATALITIES: NONE
INJURIES: NONE

START DATE: JUN 18 2014
START TIME: 735 PM CDT
START LOCATION: NEAR HIGHWAY 34 AND DAKOTA AVENUE IN WESSINGTON SPRINGS

END DATE: JUN 18 2014
END TIME: 811 PM CDT
END LOCATION: NEAR MAIN ST AND DUNHAM AVE IN WESSINGTON SPRINGS


THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE CLASSIFIES TORNADOES INTO THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES.

EF0...WEAK......65 TO 85 MPH
EF1...WEAK......86 TO 110 MPH
EF2...STRONG....111 TO 135 MPH
EF3...STRONG....136 TO 165 MPH
EF4...VIOLENT...166 TO 200 MPH
EF5...VIOLENT...>200 MPH*

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

$
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Does anyone have some good photos of this damage?

 

As of the time of this post, there are 283 of them posted by NEMA (Nebraska Emergency Management Agency).  They are a mixture of helicopter flyover and some on-the-ground shots:

 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.647500728652404.1073741840.152934021442413&type=3

 

Several photos have commentary from people identifying various buildings and landmarks. 

 

The picture that is currently #28 of 283 is a closeup view of the parking lot, church slab, and parsonage.  I'm getting this information from the comments posted to the photos on Facebook, not my personal knowledge.

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Does anyone have some good photos of this damage?

From the Damage Assessment Toolkit:

 

http://services.dat.noaa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/DamageAssessmentToolkit/DamageFlexViewer/MapServer/0/510662/attachments/319583

 

You can access the DAT and get files for Google Earth and GIS here:

http://apps.dat.noaa.gov/StormDamage/DamageViewer/

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Some of those points look either incomplete, undecided and/or in error. I've seen a few labeled EF3 that are given speeds in the EF2 range...and at least one point labeled EF3 that's been given a wind speed of 200 mph. 

 

Yeah, they're very preliminary and will likely continue to be updated. I wouldn't take any of the ratings verbatim until they're finalized.

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