2022 Short/Medium Range Severe Weather Discussion

[nwohweather]

Id gamble on something coming in sooner than expected vs trying the forest north of US-10

Looks like ole Frosty was dead right

[frostfern]

1 minute ago, nrgjeff said:

Gaylord Maps pic makes me sick. Looks like Chattanooga after our tornado. Ditto Scanner. Alas, we are still interested in severe and that is OK. We cannot control it.

The terrain goes from 580 feet elevation near Traverse City to 1350 feet at Gaylord.  That amount of elevation gain was enough to hold back the marine layer (like a dam) and tap much greater surface instability as the storm moved inland.  This allowed the elevated circulation to intensify and dig down to the surface.

[frostfern]

9 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Looks like ole Frosty was dead right

I made the right decision.  I saw how fast the predicted storm motion was.  I didn't have a partner/driver.  I'm not going to chase tornadic storms moving at 55 mph through the woods alone.  Need AT LEAST two people in the vehicle.

[Stebo]

15 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Looks like ole Frosty was dead right

Sure, and I thought there was a potential up there for tornadoes too, but that doesn't make it chaseable, which is what matters here.

[nwohweather]

28 minutes ago, Stebo said:

Sure, and I thought there was a potential up there for tornadoes too, but that doesn't make it chaseable, which is what matters here.

Was one of the best looking radar shots I’ve seen out of Michigan. Not a big downtown so that’s some terrible luck for those folks that it literally went down main street

[Hoosier]

The special 19z sounding from APX was fairly veered in the low levels, but it possessed excellent speed shear.  And despite lacking better directional shear, the overall CAPE/shear combo was potentially supportive of a significant tornado, which it appears we may have had.

[outflow]

6 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Was one of the best looking radar shots I’ve seen out of Michigan. Not a big downtown so that’s some terrible luck for those folks that it literally went down main street

Gaylord is more heavily residential east and se of i75 so it missed the most densely populated area of town to the northwest 

[Quincy]

6 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

The special 19z sounding from APX was fairly veered in the low levels, but it possessed excellent speed shear.  And despite lacking better directional shear, the overall CAPE/shear combo was potentially supportive of a significant tornado, which it appears we may have had.

Despite the somewhat veered 10m wind ob, there was a sickle shaped low-level hodograph (232 m2/s2 0-1km SRH) with 29 knots of 0-1km shear.  Easily supportive, as you mentioned. 

[michsnowfreak]

All the rural area up north and the tornado goes right through Gaylord. A shame. 

[frostfern]

2 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

All the rural area up north and the tornado goes right through Gaylord. A shame. 

I think I ate at the Culver's that got wrecked three years ago.

[josh_4184]

If this happens 1 hour later I would of been right there in that spot as I pass that area every Friday. Storm passed by a few miles north of my daughters school. 

[outflow]

One dead and 23 with injuries. 1st death from a tornado in Michigan in 12 years

https://www.wnem.com/2022/05/21/least-1-dead-23-hurt-northern-michigan-tornado/

 

 

 

[Hoosier]

54 minutes ago, outflow said:

One dead and 23 with injuries. 1st death from a tornado in Michigan in 12 years

https://www.wnem.com/2022/05/21/least-1-dead-23-hurt-northern-michigan-tornado/

 

 

 

Also appears to be the most injuries from a tornado in MI since the 7/2/1997 tornado that tracked into Hamtramck.

[outflow]

24 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Also appears to be the most injuries from a tornado in MI since the 7/2/1997 tornado that tracked into Hamtramck.

If it is rated an ef3, damage looks like ef2-3 will be the rating, it would be the first ef or f3 or higher tornado in the Gaylord forecast area 31 years and first in the entire state of Michigan in 10 years

[outflow]

2 hours ago, outflow said:

One dead and 23 with injuries. 1st death from a tornado in Michigan in 12 years

https://www.wnem.com/2022/05/21/least-1-dead-23-hurt-northern-michigan-tornado/

 

 

 

Updated to 44 injuries

[Hoosier]

Don't know if I've ever seen such a long narrow slight risk like this from the Mexico border to northern Maine

[josh_4184]

APX still reviewing the damage, haven't been able to access all the damaged areas due to power lines, damage, etc obstructing. Drove by the area that I could get to and have to say I was pretty shocked the damage, when I was watching this on radar I seen the path it was taking and was very concerned where it was headed. Not many know as its been hidden more and more over the years due to development but their is a trailer park (Notingham) situated directly between several business developments, tornado tracked directly over that, I am assuming this is where many of the injuries have occurred. Frankly surprised their haven't been more reported deaths yet. 

Since moving to Northern Michigan this is the 3rd tornado to have hit in my relative area, the other two were weaker tornadoes EF0/1 and hit relatively low pop areas which is expected  in Northern Mi. But having a strong tornado track right down M32 in the heart of the new business section is quite remarkable. Gaylord is a great community, will rebound quickly, but this was definitely a wakeup call to my family. My work is about 28 miles from where the storm caused the most significant damage, I was more concerned with how close the developing tornado passed towards my daughters school. They did execute their tornado drill even though it was only severe warned at that time, which I must admit I think APX was a little slow issuing the warning for that cell. It was already showing all signs of rotating near her school which is about 20 miles due West of Gaylord. APX also sent up a special balloon shortly before the storm reached the area which was indeed showing fairly impressive parameters especially for northern Michigan standards.

Most cities in Northern Michigan do not have weather sirens, but I feel in this age they are not needed as better alerting methods exist, I do feel that their needs to be more effort in developing the cellular alert system to push emergency alerts as that's the only way to reach as many people as possible prior to a potentially dangerous storm impacting that particular area.  If they implement this for amber alerts, terror alerts, etc why can't it be developed for severe weather? Approx. 7 min warning is not enough time, this day a doge it hasn't improved hardly at all since the inception of Doppler radar, surely we can do better.

 Its easy to armchair quarterback post event but I hope all NWS's can use this especially APX and learn what they did well but more imprudently what can be done better.

[IWXwx]

One tornado, two states. The ef-2 damage occurred in Illinois. It was on the ground for quite awhile.

...NWS DAMAGE SURVEY FOR MAY 19 2022 TORNADO EVENT...

.WABASH COUNTY ILLINOIS TO GIBSON AND KNOX COUNTIES IN INDIANA...

RATING:                 EF-2
ESTIMATED PEAK WIND:    115 MPH
PATH LENGTH /STATUTE/:  26 MILES
PATH WIDTH /MAXIMUM/:   300 YARDS
FATALITIES:             0
INJURIES:               0

START DATE:             MAY 19 2022
START TIME:             931 PM CDT
START LOCATION:         0.6 MILES SOUTHWEST OF KEENSBURG ILLINOIS

END DATE:               MAY 19 2022
END TIME:               957 PM CDT/1057 PM EDT
END LOCATION:           0.4 MILES WEST OF IONA INDIANA


SURVEY SUMMARY: NUMEROUS TREES WERE UPROOTED OR SNAPPED OFF, MANY
OF WHICH FELL ON HOMES AND STRUCTURES. DOZENS OF POWER POLES 
SNAPPED OFF. MINOR STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO BUILDINGS. SEVERAL PIVOT 
IRRIGATION SYSTEMS FLIPPED.

[josh_4184]

Per 10AM conf, tornado was on the ground approx 26 mins. I also need to update my previous post, apparently Gaylord APX was able to send a code red alert to all phones in the area regarding the warning I must have been to far away to get the alert.

[BuffaloWeather]

1 hour ago, josh_4184 said:

APX still reviewing the damage, haven't been able to access all the damaged areas due to power lines, damage, etc obstructing. Drove by the area that I could get to and have to say I was pretty shocked the damage, when I was watching this on radar I seen the path it was taking and was very concerned where it was headed. Not many know as its been hidden more and more over the years due to development but their is a trailer park (Notingham) situated directly between several business developments, tornado tracked directly over that, I am assuming this is where many of the injuries have occurred. Frankly surprised their haven't been more reported deaths yet. 

Since moving to Northern Michigan this is the 3rd tornado to have hit in my relative area, the other two were weaker tornadoes EF0/1 and hit relatively low pop areas which is expected  in Northern Mi. But having a strong tornado track right down M32 in the heart of the new business section is quite remarkable. Gaylord is a great community, will rebound quickly, but this was definitely a wakeup call to my family. My work is about 28 miles from where the storm caused the most significant damage, I was more concerned with how close the developing tornado passed towards my daughters school. They did execute their tornado drill even though it was only severe warned at that time, which I must admit I think APX was a little slow issuing the warning for that cell. It was already showing all signs of rotating near her school which is about 20 miles due West of Gaylord. APX also sent up a special balloon shortly before the storm reached the area which was indeed showing fairly impressive parameters especially for northern Michigan standards.

Most cities in Northern Michigan do not have weather sirens, but I feel in this age they are not needed as better alerting methods exist, I do feel that their needs to be more effort in developing the cellular alert system to push emergency alerts as that's the only way to reach as many people as possible prior to a potentially dangerous storm impacting that particular area.  If they implement this for amber alerts, terror alerts, etc why can't it be developed for severe weather? Approx. 7 min warning is not enough time, this day a doge it hasn't improved hardly at all since the inception of Doppler radar, surely we can do better.

 Its easy to armchair quarterback post event but I hope all NWS's can use this especially APX and learn what they did well but more imprudently what can be done better.

Glad you're okay Josh! We had an EF2 go through Hamburg 1/2 mile from my house a few yrs ago and it wasn't really predicted well here either as they are so rare around this area. Believe SPC had 5% hatch for tornados, but it spun up so fast coming off the lake that the warning was quite late. 

[josh_4184]

[josh_4184]

2 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Glad you're okay Josh! We had an EF2 go through Hamburg 1/2 mile from my house a few yrs ago and it wasn't really predicted well here either as they are so rare around this area. Believe SPC had 5% hatch for tornados, but it spun up so fast coming off the lake that the warning was quite late. 

Yea I realize that we don't see many storms to this magnitude, but I do feel like NWS and SPC kind of played it to conservative with their headlines and messaging prior to the storms firing ahead of the cold front. 

Most of gaylord proper still without power, many businesses along M32 sustained some damage to extensive, going to take a while to rebuild. I feel horrible for the families in the trailer park who lost love ones. Was watching it on radar from work and one I say this hook I was in disbelief never seen anything remotely close to this in this area.

[josh_4184]

Only two deaths is a miracle. 

[Torchageddon]

10 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Don't know if I've ever seen such a long narrow slight risk like this from the Mexico border to northern Maine

I've never seen one that long either, impressive.

A large MCS is hauling across SON this Sat:

This MCS is meaty, had a few flashes of lightning ironically when nothing was forecast this afternoon, but yet all those chances of strong storms yesterday into early this morning just nothing lol.

[Quincy]

1 hour ago, josh_4184 said:

Yea I realize that we don't see many storms to this magnitude, but I do feel like NWS and SPC kind of played it to conservative with their headlines and messaging prior to the storms firing ahead of the cold front. 

I don’t know about that, re: SPC. Their outlooks are probabilistic. Although the parameter space was high, the model guidance was not showing a tornado outbreak. Since there was one lone tornadic supercell, well within their 5% outlook area, I’d say they did a fine job.

It’s easy to criticize in hindsight. The problem with these setups is a lot of times, nothing happens. Sometimes you get one intense storm and even more rarely, maybe you get an “unexpected” outbreak.

I was watching that storm a short time before it produced a tornado and yeah, it looked like it was rapidly organizing (increased lightning production, better radar presentation, etc.) but if you jump too quickly and always call for the worst outcome, you’re going to desensitize. The storm also looked like elevated junk when it first came ashore, but once it started ingesting surface-based instability and interacted with terrain, then it rapidly intensified  

Were the watches and warnings perfect? No. They rarely are. 

[Hoosier]

1 hour ago, Quincy said:

I don’t know about that, re: SPC. Their outlooks are probabilistic. Although the parameter space was high, the model guidance was not showing a tornado outbreak. Since there was one lone tornadic supercell, well within their 5% outlook area, I’d say they did a fine job.

It’s easy to criticize in hindsight. The problem with these setups is a lot of times, nothing happens. Sometimes you get one intense storm and even more rarely, maybe you get an “unexpected” outbreak.

I was watching that storm a short time before it produced a tornado and yeah, it looked like it was rapidly organizing (increased lightning production, better radar presentation, etc.) but if you jump too quickly and always call for the worst outcome, you’re going to desensitize. The storm also looked like elevated junk when it first came ashore, but once it started ingesting surface-based instability and interacted with terrain, then it rapidly intensified  

Were the watches and warnings perfect? No. They rarely are. 

Agree with this.  SPC had a 5% tornado area from the first outlook of the day and was mentioning tornadoes in their discussions.  If that tornado stays in the woods it's basically an afterthought.  Bad luck that it went through Gaylord.  

[Hoosier]

Gaylord tornado has been rated EF-3 (so far)

[Chinook]

possible tornado near Shelbyville IN. The best radar-detected rotation may have been at Mt. Auburn.

[yoda]

2 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Gaylord tornado has been rated EF-3 (so far)

EF-3 with 150 mph winds

 

 

[Hoosier]

Here's a wider radar loop from yesterday