2019 Mid-Atlantic Severe Wx - General Discussion

[Hank Scorpio]

Yesterday I had a nice view of that area of rotation from Tysons as it moved from Fairfax County, across the Potomac, and into MD before the rain moved in and blocked my view. Pretty neat to watch! 

[BlizzardNole]

Nice pictures!  What's that in the fourth one?  I don't see it in the third.

[Hank Scorpio]

4 minutes ago, BlizzardNole said:

Nice pictures!  What's that in the fourth one?  I don't see it in the third.

Thanks! Something similar popped up a few times in different places as the whole thing interacted with the Potomac. Here's another occurrence earlier, before it crossed 495:

 

[George BM]

20 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Thanks! Something similar popped up a few times in different places as the whole thing interacted with the Potomac. Here's another occurrence earlier, before it crossed 495:

 

I wonder if you'd find any kind of damage if you went to those locations? Might be very minimal but still. *shrugs*

[09-10 analogy]

OK, so that lowering I saw from Fort Reno did have something to it. 

Just seeing those pics, imaging a tornado of some strength rolling along the Beltway in the vicinity of the Legion bridge during rush hour ... what a mess that would be. 

[Eskimo Joe]

On 4/26/2019 at 4:42 PM, mappy said:

Missed all the fun including the tornado warned storm over my work. Was sitting in traffic driving back from Montgomery county. Oh well

 

[George BM]

It's a very low-key threat and more likely than not won't happen this way but a few mesoscale models try to get some remnant storms into the region tomorrow afternoon before they redevelop into asoutheastward moving storm cluster or two. This, of course, would be the most extreme case though. Just low-key watching it and exactly where the WNW to ESE oriented front sets up. 

[Disc]

On 4/22/2019 at 11:44 AM, Eskimo Joe said:

That was a great cell to watch.  I noticed that about 2 or 3 frames before the first TOR was issued there was an uptick in CG and the tops shot over 30kft.  I know there's some research either at SPC or one of the bigger met. universities into the possible correlation for CG frequency and when a storm goes severe.  I would imagine this event would probably qualify for study in that area.

Just now seeing this as I haven't been on.

I will comment that there has been research done with intra-cloud lightning preceding an uptick in severe potential and it's usually a better indicator than CG. Many times, storms will only have intra-cloud at the beginning of their life, whereas CGs don't follow until later on. As an example, the graph below shows a scenario where you see a large uptick in intra-cloud just before there is a large jump in MESH and a hail report of up to 6". When looking at the CGs, it tends to remain much more constant, with little to no trends. 

 

[high risk]

5 hours ago, George BM said:

It's a very low-key threat and more likely than not won't happen this way but a few mesoscale models try to get some remnant storms into the region tomorrow afternoon before they redevelop into asoutheastward moving storm cluster or two. This, of course, would be the most extreme case though. Just low-key watching it and exactly where the WNW to ESE oriented front sets up. 

                 It's enough of a threat that SPC has outlooked us for MRGL.    The hi-res guidance shows a few storms developing tomorrow afternoon and moving southeast, mainly affecting the I-95 corridor and points south and east.     Instability is modest at best, but there is decent deep-layer shear and some downdraft cape to promote some wind gust potential.

[Kmlwx]

The latest (11z) HRRR has essentially nothing

[George BM]

One little note. No mesoscale model has the current activity in Eastern Ohio about to move into southwest Pennsylvania. CAPE is modest but still... it might be able to trigger something in the area later even if the current convection dies out. Just a small note.

#Notanexpertopinion

[mappy]

On 4/28/2019 at 5:11 PM, Eskimo Joe said:

 

I saw. 

Lots of discussion earlier this week on why an elementary school in the middle of the tornado warning dismissed the kids anyways. Apparently the warning came out minutes before the dismissal bell rang, and the principal was told yet had the kids leave anyways. really stupid. 

and FWIW: my daughter's school held the kids until 4pm, even though the warning was south and east. 

[yoda]

36 minutes ago, mappy said:

I saw. 

Lots of discussion earlier this week on why an elementary school in the middle of the tornado warning dismissed the kids anyways. Apparently the warning came out minutes before the dismissal bell rang, and the principal was told yet had the kids leave anyways. really stupid. 

and FWIW: my daughter's school held the kids until 4pm, even though the warning was south and east. 

I know I mentioned this in the April Banter thread -- but I will repost it here since mappy mentioned it in this thread:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/principal-ignored-tornado-warning-and-dismissed-children-during-storm-according-to-irate-parents-201230107.html

Jenn Reedholm, one of the irate parents, was waiting outside of the elementary school when she received the tornado warning on her phone, according to WBALTV.

"I got the alert on my phone that said, 'Tornado warning, take shelter now,'" Reedholm told the outlet.

Reedholm entered the school's office to take shelter where she asked the principal, Lisa Dingle, if she would delay the afternoon dismissal.

"She said, 'It's just a warning.' I said, 'No, it means imminent danger, and it says take shelter now,' and she ignored me and carried on the dismissal as usual," Reedholm claims. "[It] was down-pouring and lightning really bad, really dark, and the teachers decided to take some of the kids back in, and then chaos became more chaotic at that point when kids were crying, screaming, 'It's very scary.' I was scared, I was shaking."

“Kids were soaked to the bone. A school with mostly walkers, they sent everyone outside into wicked lightning and did not allow parent to come in out of the storm during the emergency,” one woman shared on Baltimore County Public Schools’ Facebook page. “They put every single person on campus in harms way including students, staff, parents and others...The school board really needs to take some disciplinary action this time.”

[Kmlwx]

34 minutes ago, yoda said:

I know I mentioned this in the April Banter thread -- but I will repost it here since mappy mentioned it in this thread:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/principal-ignored-tornado-warning-and-dismissed-children-during-storm-according-to-irate-parents-201230107.html

 

 

To be honest- hearing my friends (non weather enthusiasts) and coworkers - most people still do not understand which is worse (watch vs warning). A lot of this is ignorance - watches don't trigger CMAS so it should be fairly obvious to the public that "TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY" is more serious than "CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE"

[osfan24]

I would also imagine that part of the problem is we see very few tornadoes in this area and even fewer are impactful, so a lot of people don't take it seriously.

[yoda]

https://mobile.twitter.com/iembot_lwx/status/1123639765612531719

https://www.weather.gov/lwx/NelsonTor

[Eskimo Joe]

5 hours ago, yoda said:

https://mobile.twitter.com/iembot_lwx/status/1123639765612531719

https://www.weather.gov/lwx/NelsonTor

2nd tornado in the watch box, thus verifying it.  SPC is batting perfect on the red boxes in our area so far this year.

[yoda]

The storm west of MRB looks a lil hooky

[mappy]

18 hours ago, Kmlwx said:

To be honest- hearing my friends (non weather enthusiasts) and coworkers - most people still do not understand which is worse (watch vs warning). A lot of this is ignorance - watches don't trigger CMAS so it should be fairly obvious to the public that "TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY" is more serious than "CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE"

this is a huge problem across the board. my own mother, for a time, didn't even know the difference. 

however, regarding schools, the State of Maryland Board of Ed needs to make sure their teachers and especially their principals are properly trained to know the correct verbiage and what to do. I hope this is a serious lesson to the school, and the overall county, on properly handling of these situations. 

[RickinBaltimore]

19 hours ago, Kmlwx said:

To be honest- hearing my friends (non weather enthusiasts) and coworkers - most people still do not understand which is worse (watch vs warning). A lot of this is ignorance - watches don't trigger CMAS so it should be fairly obvious to the public that "TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY" is more serious than "CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE"

I always explained it as a watch was "Watch out, things could get dangerous" a warning was "things are dangerous NOW". Basically be aware versus be active NOW

[H2O]

1 hour ago, mappy said:

this is a huge problem across the board. my own mother, for a time, didn't even know the difference. 

however, regarding schools, the State of Maryland Board of Ed needs to make sure their teachers and especially their principals are properly trained to know the correct verbiage and what to do. I hope this is a serious lesson to the school, and the overall county, on properly handling of these situations. 

One would hope its uniform from state to state but it doesn't appear that way.  i know that a few years ago when I went to pick up the kids from school it was when storms were hitting.  there was a TOR warning that went up but not for my immediate area.  the principal held all the kids inside regardless due to policy.  I was surprised they were as proactive and glad they did it.  What was lol was being in a hallway with all these other parents who had a ton of misinformation due to not taking the time to read or listen to the forecast for that day.

[Kmlwx]

Days and days and days of MRGL

[WeatherShak]

18 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

Days and days and days of MRGL

I mean, kind of makes work break, radar checking kind of fun though.  Right?

[NorthArlington101]

Days and days and days of MRGL

Today feels like a pity warning for the Beltway kinda day.

[Kmlwx]

Long range 12z HRRR (lol) has a streak of very nice UD helicity across the area tomorrow PM. Both today and tomorrow look good on simradar

[NorthArlington101]

[Eskimo Joe]

23 hours ago, mappy said:

I saw. 

Lots of discussion earlier this week on why an elementary school in the middle of the tornado warning dismissed the kids anyways. Apparently the warning came out minutes before the dismissal bell rang, and the principal was told yet had the kids leave anyways. really stupid. 

and FWIW: my daughter's school held the kids until 4pm, even though the warning was south and east. 

That's a chronic issue with public and private schools nationwide.  It's a topic that's frequently discussed at EM meetings and conferences about getting schools to take natural hazards seriously.  They're so focused on school shootings.

[ErinInTheSky]

Severe warned in Gtown!

[ErinInTheSky]

And even better, I'm actually hearing thunder for the first time this year!

[NorthArlington101]

1 minute ago, supernovasky said:

Severe warned in Gtown!

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Today feels like a pity warning for the Beltway kinda day.

 

that warning includes a corner of the Beltway so I'm gonna count this. In Arlington for the day, hoping to hear a rumble or two.