May 15 2018 Severe Threat SNE

[Cold Miser]

3 hours ago, JKEisMan said:

Maybe Ryan or someone else here knows if the NWS actually sent out a survey team to New Fairfield.  The public info statement focused on Brookfield yesterday and today’s final report seems to tack New Fairfield on as an afterthought as part of the macroburst, without any mention of consult/survey with local authorities there.  They confirmed an EF1 right over the border in Patterson/Putnam Lake, NY (maybe 0.5 mile from the border) and the macroburst to the east. I’ve never seen so many big trees uprooted and tossed and this is the scene all over town, see link from twitter at end. I would have thought it warranted more survey given tragic loss of life, injuries, and damage in town. 

**removed link as originally twitter feed said it was fine to use, except for ones with faces, of which there were a few**

I don't understand that line of reasoning.  Once it is out there for people to see in a social media format it is almost impossible for it  not to be shared unless it is via private message, email,etc.

[OceanStWx]

12 hours ago, JKEisMan said:

Thanks, Ryan. Yeah, it seemed as if they added it on after the fact. If they’d sent a survey team to town, I wonder if they would’ve seen evidence of a tornado given that the confirmed EF1 in Putnam Lake/Patterson was probably hundreds of meters from the western edge of town and the Macroburst seemed to cover the town.  Based on the damage I’ve seen in town it definitely looks like it could’ve been a tornado, but I have untrained eyes. Of course, I’m also not versed in the dynamics/transitioning of tornado to macroburst.  So basically wondering if trained eyes were there. In the end of course doesn’t really matter, what matters is the tragic loss of life, injuries and damage.  Luckily family and friends of mine are all safe.

If they thought there was evidence of a tornado, they would've checked it out.

What was likely occurring with these tornadoes was a cycle of RFDs. RFD would would develop, spin up a brief tornado, then the RFD would overwhelm the circulation and create a large swath of straight line wind damage. Then the process would start again.

[CT Rain]

30 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

If they thought there was evidence of a tornado, they would've checked it out.

What was likely occurring with these tornadoes was a cycle of RFDs. RFD would would develop, spin up a brief tornado, then the RFD would overwhelm the circulation and create a large swath of straight line wind damage. Then the process would start again.

And on radar it’s pretty clear that’s what was happening. Hell, OKX was sampling 102 knots of inbound wind over New Fairfield! 

Interestingly, the tornado spun up as the RFD surge reached the Housatonic River. Local backing of the low level wind? 

I think there were a couple tornadic circulations in Oxford and Bethany and they found 2. Could have been more.

[Hoth]

11 minutes ago, CT Rain said:

And on radar it’s pretty clear that’s what was happening. Hell, OKX was sampling 102 knots of inbound wind over New Fairfield! 

Interestingly, the tornado spun up as the RFD surge reached the Housatonic River. Local backing of the low level wind? 

I think there were a couple tornadic circulations in Oxford and Bethany and they found 2. Could have been more.

Your discussion of how storms moving from elevations to valleys often tighten up seemed to bear fruit based on the NWS reports. Interesting small scale stuff. 

[OceanStWx]

1 hour ago, CT Rain said:

And on radar it’s pretty clear that’s what was happening. Hell, OKX was sampling 102 knots of inbound wind over New Fairfield! 

Interestingly, the tornado spun up as the RFD surge reached the Housatonic River. Local backing of the low level wind? 

I think there were a couple tornadic circulations in Oxford and Bethany and they found 2. Could have been more.

The terrain is such a big factor in New England. Most tornadoes in our forecast area end up occurring on or near lakes, in these N/S or NW/SE oriented valleys.

[CT Rain]

1 minute ago, OceanStWx said:

The terrain is such a big factor in New England. Most tornadoes in our forecast area end up occurring on or near lakes, in these N/S or NW/SE oriented valleys.

The supercell in N CT did produce a waterspout on the N-S oriented Barkhamsted Reservoir. 

 

https://twitter.com/JanesWx/status/996481026686881792

[JKEisMan]

20 minutes ago, CT Rain said:

The supercell in N CT did produce a waterspout on the N-S oriented Barkhamsted Reservoir. 

 

https://twitter.com/JanesWx/status/996481026686881792

The EF1 in Patterson, NY ran along the SE edge of a relatively long, flat NW-SE valley (Great Swamp), before lifting off near the label “Putnam Lake” in the attached topo map, and presumably couldn’t progress into the hillier terrain of New Fairfield across the NY-CT border.  

Thanks for the insight/information. Did some searching about RFD and straight line winds, and found the following link useful: http://wx4cast.blogspot.com/2012/08/tornadic-winds-versus-straight-line.html?m=1

[OceanStWx]

32 minutes ago, CT Rain said:

The supercell in N CT did produce a waterspout on the N-S oriented Barkhamsted Reservoir. 

 

https://twitter.com/JanesWx/status/996481026686881792

Legit meso there.

[Damage In Tolland]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

The terrain is such a big factor in New England. Most tornadoes in our forecast area end up occurring on or near lakes, in these N/S or NW/SE oriented valleys.

What about June 2011? What made that one stay OTG from the valley right thru the 1,000+ foot hills of Brimfield, Monson, Charlton, and Sturbridge?

[OceanStWx]

6 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

What about June 2011? What made that one stay OTG from the valley right thru the 1,000+ foot hills of Brimfield, Monson, Charlton, and Sturbridge?

Because conditions were more akin to Plains severe weather than New England? 

But tornadogenesis did occur once that supercell hit the CT River Valley.

A large area of research right now is on what determines whether a supercell can sustain a long tracked tornado like 2011, vs one that doesn't produce or produces brief tornadoes. The prevailing theory is RFD temp, but it's ongoing research at the moment. But basically a colder RFD will tend to rush out and overwhelm any low level tornadic circulation, vs a warmer RFD that can become buoyant again and sustain a tornado.

[CT Rain]

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

Because conditions were more akin to Plains severe weather than New England? 

But tornadogenesis did occur once that supercell hit the CT River Valley.

A large area of research right now is on what determines whether a supercell can sustain a long tracked tornado like 2011, vs one that doesn't produce or produces brief tornadoes. The prevailing theory is RFD temp, but it's ongoing research at the moment. But basically a colder RFD will tend to rush out and overwhelm any low level tornadic circulation, vs a warmer RFD that can become buoyant again and sustain a tornado.

The fact that Hamden, CT managed a tornado and 100 mph microburst on 5/15 with a 55F water temperature just south is nuts. 

EML everytime. 

[CT Rain]

2 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

What about June 2011? What made that one stay OTG from the valley right thru the 1,000+ foot hills of Brimfield, Monson, Charlton, and Sturbridge?

The storm was more discrete and there was more instability - I think better low level shear in general. 

[CT Rain]

I just uploaded our coverage from Tuesday.

Here's when sh*t started getting crazy.

 

[OceanStWx]

15 minutes ago, CT Rain said:

I just uploaded our coverage from Tuesday.

Here's when sh*t started getting crazy.

Really at that point, you just throw your hands up and say "tornado-like winds." 

I always say during spotter training that you won't care whether the 100 mph winds were rotating when they hit your house. 

[CT Rain]

3 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Really at that point, you just throw your hands up and say "tornado-like winds." 

I always say during spotter training that you won't care whether the 100 mph winds were rotating when they hit your house. 

Yeah pretty much. Whether it's a circulation on the edge of it or just the core it's going to be ugly. 

[Hoth]

1 hour ago, CT Rain said:

The fact that Hamden, CT managed a tornado and 100 mph microburst on 5/15 with a 55F water temperature just south is nuts. 

EML everytime. 

It didn't even feel all that unstable here, quite comfortable in fact. Even mid-afternoon you could feel the marine influence on the south wind. I thought for sure the storms were just gonna fall apart as they approached.

[weatherwiz]

21 hours ago, CT Rain said:

The storm was more discrete and there was more instability - I think better low level shear in general. 

Yeah dews were much higher and I think LCL’s were much lower. I actually didn’t even see what LCL’s ended up being around here on Tuesday. Do you know what they were? I know they were modeled to be a bit higher than what you would like to see but local dew pooling/theta e advection I’m sure lead to some lower LCL’s. 

[OceanStWx]

20 hours ago, weatherwiz said:

Yeah dews were much higher and I think LCL’s were much lower. I actually didn’t even see what LCL’s ended up being around here on Tuesday. Do you know what they were? I know they were modeled to be a bit higher than what you would like to see but local dew pooling/theta e advection I’m sure lead to some lower LCL’s. 

Actually LCLs weren't especially favorable Tuesday, but were trending towards 1000 m in the valley. Similarly, LCLs were > 1000 m on 6/1/11 in western NE but 750 m east of ORH. So the supercells were heading into a better environment.

[weatherwiz]

49 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Actually LCLs weren't especially favorable Tuesday, but were trending towards 1000 m in the valley. Similarly, LCLs were > 1000 m on 6/1/11 in western NE but 750 m east of ORH. So the supercells were heading into a better environment.

I think if we had lower LCL’s on Tuesday we would have saw a strong tornado (maybe two)

[adamrivers]

The West Woods area of Hamden is devastated... crazy stuff.

Here are some pictures from around Hamden

 

https://kc101.iheart.com/featured/adam-rivers/content/2018-05-16-storm-damage-photos-from-hamden-this-morning/

[Hoth]

7 hours ago, adamrivers said:

The West Woods area of Hamden is devastated... crazy stuff.

Here are some pictures from around Hamden

 

https://kc101.iheart.com/featured/adam-rivers/content/2018-05-16-storm-damage-photos-from-hamden-this-morning/

I took a drive through there just now. Todd Street is still inaccessible. The tree and wire damage in some sections is pretty extraordinary. I can only imagine how terrified my uncle was getting caught in the middle of it on Gaylord Mountain Rd. 

[Cold Miser]

A bit of a disheartening conversation with my mom yesterday. 

My parents (mom is 80 years old and my dad 87) live in Southbury, CT...one of the towns that was hit hard during last weeks severe.  They lost power as the tornado path seemingly went overhead and touchdown not too far from their house.  Lucky for them they were able to head to the Adirondacks for Memorial day a bit earlier, leaving the downed wires, trees, other damage, and frustrations of everyone else behind.  Many people were not so lucky as they were forced to hold up in shelters.  

We spoke yesterday about the weather, and forecasting in general, although the main gist of the brief conversation was with regard to the same old stuff we read on this forum...She was pretty much disgruntled at the "lack of forecasting", preparing them for the weather that happened that day. She admitted that early on in the day and the night before there were discussions of severe weather, but what got her was that no one mentioned on the news that there would be all of the damage, particularly the extent of the power outages in her area.  Basically, she is of that age where there is this expectation of details and specifics that just don't exist.  It was  bit disheartening to hear as I know all of the mets on this forum hear this kind of frustration all of the time...always 20/20 vision after the fact kind of stuff. She even pulled the go to line out as well..."Why do they even bother when most of the time they are wrong" .  She ended with, "What ever happened to the old days where the weather would come in once at night and once in the morning? Instead we have all day forecasting with nothing predicting what happened"  By the time it's my turn to chime in she has already worked herself up and want to discuss it anymore. 

[CT Rain]

I put together this blog post on last week's storms with a bunch of good radar grabs. 

http://www.ryanhanrahan.com/2018/05/20/may-15-2018-tornadoes-and-damaging-wind/

[CT Rain]

30 minutes ago, Cold Miser said:

A bit of a disheartening conversation with my mom yesterday. 

My parents (mom is 80 years old and my dad 87) live in Southbury, CT...one of the towns that was hit hard during last weeks severe.  They lost power as the tornado path seemingly went overhead and touchdown not too far from their house.  Lucky for them they were able to head to the Adirondacks for Memorial day a bit earlier, leaving the downed wires, trees, other damage, and frustrations of everyone else behind.  Many people were not so lucky as they were forced to hold up in shelters.  

We spoke yesterday about the weather, and forecasting in general, although the main gist of the brief conversation was with regard to the same old stuff we read on this forum...She was pretty much disgruntled at the "lack of forecasting", preparing them for the weather that happened that day. She admitted that early on in the day and the night before there were discussions of severe weather, but what got her was that no one mentioned on the news that there would be all of the damage, particularly the extent of the power outages in her area.  Basically, she is of that age where there is this expectation of details and specifics that just don't exist.  It was  bit disheartening to hear as I know all of the mets on this forum hear this kind of frustration all of the time...always 20/20 vision after the fact kind of stuff. She even pulled the go to line out as well..."Why do they even bother when most of the time they are wrong" .  She ended with, "What ever happened to the old days where the weather would come in once at night and once in the morning? Instead we have all day forecasting with nothing predicting what happened"  By the time it's my turn to chime in she has already worked herself up and want to discuss it anymore. 

I mean she's not wrong. How many severe thunderstorm watches have we had that result in a couple branches down? How do we communicate the truly high end events?

For the 15 towns hardest hit this was incredible - but for the other 154 towns in Connecticut this wasn't too big of a deal. All weather is local afterall. 

[Cold Miser]

1 hour ago, CT Rain said:

I mean she's not wrong. How many severe thunderstorm watches have we had that result in a couple branches down? How do we communicate the truly high end events?

For the 15 towns hardest hit this was incredible - but for the other 154 towns in Connecticut this wasn't too big of a deal. All weather is local afterall. 

She was looking for someone to tell her days in advance that the storm would do the kind of damage it did and in those locations. 

[HoarfrostHubb]

6 minutes ago, Cold Miser said:

She was looking for someone to tell her days in advance that the storm would do the kind of damage it did and in those locations. 

I want someone to tell me the day and time and type of cancer that I will get...or tonight's Megabucks numbers...surely those are possible nowadays

 

I've had similar conversations with my mother in law

[HoarfrostHubb]

1 hour ago, CT Rain said:

I put together this blog post on last week's storms with a bunch of good radar grabs. 

http://www.ryanhanrahan.com/2018/05/20/may-15-2018-tornadoes-and-damaging-wind/

Thank your for putting this together.  Great detail and very well written.

[Damage In Tolland]

4 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Thank your for putting this together.  Great detail and very well written.

[Ginx snewx]

2 hours ago, CT Rain said:

I put together this blog post on last week's storms with a bunch of good radar grabs. 

http://www.ryanhanrahan.com/2018/05/20/may-15-2018-tornadoes-and-damaging-wind/

nice writeup Ryan

[OceanStWx]

3 hours ago, CT Rain said:

I mean she's not wrong. How many severe thunderstorm watches have we had that result in a couple branches down? How do we communicate the truly high end events?

For the 15 towns hardest hit this was incredible - but for the other 154 towns in Connecticut this wasn't too big of a deal. All weather is local afterall. 

That's a key point. For the vast majority of CT, it was pretty meh. And for the next EML those towns may say mets always blow it out of proportion. 

In addition to the general knowledge of severe weather in the Plains, they also have the frequency. So while in any one event it's unlikely your backyard will be hit by a storm, over the course of a year there is a relatively high chance. 

People that experienced the severe weather Tuesday are unlikely to forget it, but  it's still a tiny percentage of the state. And that's not even counting the parts of MA and RI that were also included in the watch.