Northern Ohio Obs/Discussion Part 2

[dta1984]

The storms this afternoon sure looked nasty and sounds like there may have been a few tornadoes as well.  Mostly just heavy rain and winds here.  

[Floydbuster]

5 hours ago, dta1984 said:

The storms this afternoon sure looked nasty and sounds like there may have been a few tornadoes as well.  Mostly just heavy rain and winds here.  

 

I was terrified of winds and power outages with that line that pushed down across Summit County, but it never really rained here, despite us being underneath a red blob on radar. Very strange. 

[NEOH]

14 hours ago, dta1984 said:

The storms this afternoon sure looked nasty and sounds like there may have been a few tornadoes as well.  Mostly just heavy rain and winds here.  

Best storm of the Summer so far. The winds on the backside were definitely the strongest. Lots of limbs down IMBY. Looks like Chesterland, Munson and Newbury took the worst of it locally. Lakeshore areas near Bratenahl were hard hit. 

[OHweather]

That was certainly the event of the year around here. More than half of Lake and Geauga are still without power, and the outages have barely come down since last evening. 

[LakeEffectOH]

On 8/7/2024 at 8:18 AM, NEOH said:

Best storm of the Summer so far. The winds on the backside were definitely the strongest. Lots of limbs down IMBY. Looks like Chesterland, Munson and Newbury took the worst of it locally. Lakeshore areas near Bratenahl were hard hit. 

I lost eight huge trees on my property.  Power is still out.  I had to move to a hotel near where I work.

When the storms were coming through on Tuesday afternoon, I had my Radar Scope radar app set to Storm Relative Velocity, Tilt 1.  The area east of I-271 was green, however there was a large elliptical red area, in the middle of the green over Kirtland and Chesterland.  When I saw it, I knew it was bad.  The area was too big to be a tornado.  A downburst perhaps?  Anyone have any idea?

[NEOH]

1 hour ago, LakeEffectOH said:

I lost eight huge trees on my property.  Power is still out.  I had to move to a hotel near where I work.

When the storms were coming through on Tuesday afternoon, I had my Radar Scope radar app set to Storm Relative Velocity, Tilt 1.  The area east of I-271 was green, however there was a large elliptical red area, in the middle of the green over Kirtland and Chesterland.  When I saw it, I knew it was bad.  The area was too big to be a tornado.  A downburst perhaps?  Anyone have any idea?

Sorry to hear that. I wonder if it was a large downburst. Many roads were still closed last night. I was detoured to Auburn Rd. and Cedar yesterday...  that area was particularly hard hit. I took Cedar Rd. west to Rockhaven and it looked like a war zone. 

[NEOH]

Nice soaker last night. Picked up just over 2". Much needed. 

[OHweather]

There was a small embedded tornado track from far southern Lake County into the northern portion of Chesterland, but otherwise it seems like most of the damage from the east side into Lake and Geauga was due to a very strong rear inflow jet punching into the bowing line of storms. 

[LakeEffectOH]

2 hours ago, OHweather said:

There was a small embedded tornado track from far southern Lake County into the northern portion of Chesterland, but otherwise it seems like most of the damage from the east side into Lake and Geauga was due to a very strong rear inflow jet punching into the bowing line of storms. 

I was hit by that tornado.  I took out 8 trees on my property...fortunately, none of them fell on my house.  Still without power...ugh!

During the storm, when I was at work in Solon, I saw a red elliptical area, over NW Geauga county in an otherwise sea of green on doppler radar.  My radar was set to storm relative velocity, tilt 1.  It looked so weird.

[Chinook]

storm surveys

[Floydbuster]

Some are still without power! Crazy storm!

Thankfully the humidity is a fraction of what it was two days ago.

[Chinook]

here's the rotation track detected by radar from the longer tornado

[Floydbuster]

I cannot believe this was such a historic event for NE Ohio. Governor DeWine has declared a state of emergency for the affected counties. 

What the heck made this so historically intense as a system? It was literally just a front and thunderstorms. Good grief.

[OHweather]

On 8/9/2024 at 11:20 AM, LakeEffectOH said:

I was hit by that tornado.  I took out 8 trees on my property...fortunately, none of them fell on my house.  Still without power...ugh!

During the storm, when I was at work in Solon, I saw a red elliptical area, over NW Geauga county in an otherwise sea of green on doppler radar.  My radar was set to storm relative velocity, tilt 1.  It looked so weird.

Hopefully your power is back on by now! Sorry to hear about the mess on your property but it's good nothing hit your house. 

That red elliptical area were winds blowing east with the gust front. The storm was pretty complex...there were east-southeast winds ahead of the squall line (which appeared as inbounds on the radar), a small area of west-northwest winds with the gust front (the red outbounds on velocity), and then a strong surge of northerly winds with a rear inflow jet behind the squall line (which showed up as green inbounds on velocity on the CLE radar). There also was a book-end vortex that came onshore just northeast of downtown Cleveland and tracked roughly east into southern Lake/northern Geauga, which augmented that rear inflow jet. The very strong straight line winds that impacted much of NE Cuyahoga, western Lake, and northwestern Geauga happened as the rear inflow jet wrapped in behind the bookend vortex and the tornado in Chesterland happened in association with that mesovortex. 

20 hours ago, Floydbuster said:

I cannot believe this was such a historic event for NE Ohio. Governor DeWine has declared a state of emergency for the affected counties. 

What the heck made this so historically intense as a system? It was literally just a front and thunderstorms. Good grief.

I think what made this one so impactful was the area hit. Out of the 4 tornadoes, two of them had rather long tracks through very populated areas in the heart of suburban Cleveland. Outside of the tornadoes, there were widespread 60-70 MPH winds from Lorain County into the Cleveland area which caused scattered tree/power-line damage outside the tornado tracks. Into the east side gusts increased to 70-90 MPH, locally up to 100 MPH in northeast Cuyahoga, western Lake, and northwestern Geauga. We actually surveyed that extensive area and only found the one tornado track in Chesterland, along with widespread, significant tree damage caused by straight-line winds. That hit a fairly densely populated area in the eastern suburbs. From there, there was scattered tree damage well to the south and southwest of Cleveland including Medina, Youngstown and the Akron/Canton area which added some impact to the power grid...and the rest of northeast Ohio (Ashtabula, Portage, Trumbull and Mahoning) had scattered downed trees with pockets of more intense damage...the bow echo (and associated bookend vortex and rear inflow jet) continued across southern and eastern Geauga, northern and eastern Portage, southern Ashtabula and northern Trumbull and there were more localized pockets of significant tree damage (not quite to the level of the east side of Cleveland but there were probably pockets of 80 MPH wind all the way across to the PA border embedded within widespread 60+ MPH gusts). 

That added up to a relatively localized but significant impact in a very densely populated area surrounded by a large area of less significant damage which added to the power outages. I think last August's derecho and tornadoes (August 24th-25th overnight) would have been more substantial if it hit in the afternoon or evening and not at midnight. The tornadoes with that event were more significant than with this event and the rear inflow jet aloft on radar was larger and stronger. However (and fortunately), the straight-line winds didn't mix down as effectively at midnight when that came through last August...the damage ended up being significant but streaky and relatively scattered with little damage in between. At peak heating, the straight-line gusts with that even would have been much more widespread and perhaps slightly more significant on the top end, so I think the tree damage and power outages would've been more significant that this most recent event. The June 2022 derecho, which crushed portions of north central and east central Ohio, produced a nasty swath of 60-80+ MPH type winds starting in northern IN and northwest OH with pockets of 100-120 MPH in parts of southern Wayne, Holmes, and Tuscarawas Counties. That would have been worse than this if it hit the Cleveland area. Even the November 2017 macroburst (which was associated with a similar bookend vortex and rear inflow jet as this event) across the Cleveland southern suburbs may have rivaled this event's power outage numbers if it occurred more directly over the Cleveland area and happened when leaves were still on the threes. 

So my impression is that I'm relatively impressed by this event and it certainly had a high impact, but we've narrowly avoided worse outcomes in the metro area for one reason or another in recent years. So while it is "historic" by a power outage perspective for the Illuminating Company, I do not think it's anywhere near unprecedented for what storms can do in the northern half of Ohio. 

What allowed this system to produce higher end severe was a combination of a seasonally strong front and wave of low pressure riding along it, which added lift and enhanced low-level shear, a very moist airmass which allowed for good instability to develop, even slightly north of the front in stronger shear, an incoming shortwave which added large-scale lift and supported quick upscale growth of thunderstorms, and fairly strong winds aloft which provided enough shear for organized/rotating updrafts and mesovortex development within squall lines, which supports stronger bow echoes and QLCS (squall line) tornadoes. It was actually quite a favorable set-up for northern Ohio standards. 

[Floydbuster]

1 hour ago, OHweather said:

Hopefully your power is back on by now! Sorry to hear about the mess on your property but it's good nothing hit your house. 

That red elliptical area were winds blowing east with the gust front. The storm was pretty complex...there were east-southeast winds ahead of the squall line (which appeared as inbounds on the radar), a small area of west-northwest winds with the gust front (the red outbounds on velocity), and then a strong surge of northerly winds with a rear inflow jet behind the squall line (which showed up as green inbounds on velocity on the CLE radar). There also was a book-end vortex that came onshore just northeast of downtown Cleveland and tracked roughly east into southern Lake/northern Geauga, which augmented that rear inflow jet. The very strong straight line winds that impacted much of NE Cuyahoga, western Lake, and northwestern Geauga happened as the rear inflow jet wrapped in behind the bookend vortex and the tornado in Chesterland happened in association with that mesovortex. 

I think what made this one so impactful was the area hit. Out of the 4 tornadoes, two of them had rather long tracks through very populated areas in the heart of suburban Cleveland. Outside of the tornadoes, there were widespread 60-70 MPH winds from Lorain County into the Cleveland area which caused scattered tree/power-line damage outside the tornado tracks. Into the east side gusts increased to 70-90 MPH, locally up to 100 MPH in northeast Cuyahoga, western Lake, and northwestern Geauga. We actually surveyed that extensive area and only found the one tornado track in Chesterland, along with widespread, significant tree damage caused by straight-line winds. That hit a fairly densely populated area in the eastern suburbs. From there, there was scattered tree damage well to the south and southwest of Cleveland including Medina, Youngstown and the Akron/Canton area which added some impact to the power grid...and the rest of northeast Ohio (Ashtabula, Portage, Trumbull and Mahoning) had scattered downed trees with pockets of more intense damage...the bow echo (and associated bookend vortex and rear inflow jet) continued across southern and eastern Geauga, northern and eastern Portage, southern Ashtabula and northern Trumbull and there were more localized pockets of significant tree damage (not quite to the level of the east side of Cleveland but there were probably pockets of 80 MPH wind all the way across to the PA border embedded within widespread 60+ MPH gusts). 

That added up to a relatively localized but significant impact in a very densely populated area surrounded by a large area of less significant damage which added to the power outages. I think last August's derecho and tornadoes (August 24th-25th overnight) would have been more substantial if it hit in the afternoon or evening and not at midnight. The tornadoes with that event were more significant than with this event and the rear inflow jet aloft on radar was larger and stronger. However (and fortunately), the straight-line winds didn't mix down as effectively at midnight when that came through last August...the damage ended up being significant but streaky and relatively scattered with little damage in between. At peak heating, the straight-line gusts with that even would have been much more widespread and perhaps slightly more significant on the top end, so I think the tree damage and power outages would've been more significant that this most recent event. The June 2022 derecho, which crushed portions of north central and east central Ohio, produced a nasty swath of 60-80+ MPH type winds starting in northern IN and northwest OH with pockets of 100-120 MPH in parts of southern Wayne, Holmes, and Tuscarawas Counties. That would have been worse than this if it hit the Cleveland area. Even the November 2017 macroburst (which was associated with a similar bookend vortex and rear inflow jet as this event) across the Cleveland southern suburbs may have rivaled this event's power outage numbers if it occurred more directly over the Cleveland area and happened when leaves were still on the threes. 

So my impression is that I'm relatively impressed by this event and it certainly had a high impact, but we've narrowly avoided worse outcomes in the metro area for one reason or another in recent years. So while it is "historic" by a power outage perspective for the Illuminating Company, I do not think it's anywhere near unprecedented for what storms can do in the northern half of Ohio. 

What allowed this system to produce higher end severe was a combination of a seasonally strong front and wave of low pressure riding along it, which added lift and enhanced low-level shear, a very moist airmass which allowed for good instability to develop, even slightly north of the front in stronger shear, an incoming shortwave which added large-scale lift and supported quick upscale growth of thunderstorms, and fairly strong winds aloft which provided enough shear for organized/rotating updrafts and mesovortex development within squall lines, which supports stronger bow echoes and QLCS (squall line) tornadoes. It was actually quite a favorable set-up for northern Ohio standards. 

 

 

Fantastic writeup. 

I should note, I don't remember such awful humidity for such a long period of time prior to last weeks outbreak. No doubt that added fuel to the fire.

[Floydbuster]

Once again, NE Ohio avoids the doom of the future radar.

This was the future radar for Friday evening....

 

This was the actual radar Friday evening...

[NEOH]

Turned out to be a stormy and wet weekend. Picked up 2.10" of rain. Nice to have everything green again. 

[vpbob21]

5 hours ago, NEOH said:

Turned out to be a stormy and wet weekend. Picked up 2.10" of rain. Nice to have everything green again. 

Everything pretty much skipped over this area.  We picked up maybe .05".  Looks like we may have to wait another week to 10 days for the next chance.

 

[NEOH]

What an incredible stretch of weather we've had. Picked up over an 1" of rain back on the 9/7, but not a drop since. Just sunny skies and comfortable temps. Lots of red and purple showing up  in the maples already.