2023 Mid-Atlantic Severe Wx Thread (General Discussion)

[yoda]

4 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Tornado confirmed

 

000
NWUS51 KLWX 230039
LSRLWX

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
836 PM EDT SAT APR 22 2023

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0158 PM     TORNADO          1 ESE POOLESVILLE       39.14N  77.40W
04/22/2023                   MONTGOMERY         MD   NWS STORM SURVEY

            EF0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN FOR AROUND A MINUTE, WITH 75
            MPH WINDS, 100 YARD PATH LENGTH, AND 25 YARD PATH WIDTH
            ALONG DOWDEN CIRCLE NEAR STEVENS PARK. THERE WERE TWO
            SOFTWOOD TREES UPROOTED AND ONE SOFTWOOD TREE WAS
            SNAPPED WITH THE DAMAGE LAYING TO THE NORTHWEST. THERE
            WAS LEAF SPLATTER ON ALL SIDES OF A HOUSE. A THREE FOOT
            DIAMETER PINE TREE WAS SNAPPED ABOUT SIX FEET UP WITH
            THE DAMAGE LAYING TO THE NORTH. AN APPLE TREE WAS ALSO
            SNAPPED.


&&

EVENT NUMBER LWX2300986

[vastateofmind]

On 4/6/2023 at 3:57 PM, mappy said:

Can you share the radio you use? I need a new one as well and looking for recommendations on brand/features 

As you're likely aware, Midland has cornered the wx radio market. I've bought Midland wx radios for the past 20 or so years, and their lifespan tends to be in the 2-5 year timespan. I tried a Reecom wx radio several years ago for something different and it only lasted a year...so I'm back to considering the Midland brand.

My requirements for a wx radio are pretty simple -- 1) program S.A.M.E. codes based on specific (e.g., tornado, severe t-storm, snow, etc.) watch/warning alerts for for counties of my choosing, 2) ability to plug it into a wall, preferably with battery backup, and 3) built-in "siren" for when watches/warnings are issued. Bottom line -- if there's a severe t-storm or tornado warning in the middle of the night, I WANT to be woken up by a siren, no matter how jarring that may be. 

Here's what I narrowed down to (and sorry in advance for all of the embedded Amazon links):

1st choice, Midland WR120B -- Meets my basic req's listed above, cheapest S.A.M.E. code-capable wx radio out there (~$35), fairly well reviewed; quality on Midland wx radios is variable so I don't want to make the "bigger" investment this time.   

2nd choice, Midland WR400 -- The bigger cousin to the WR120B, with an upgraded screen and "fluffy" extras like AM/FM radio and alarm clock, all coming in ~$70; I've purchased this model twice in the past 15 or so years, first unit lasted about 4 years and the second unit lasted about 2 years. When they work, they work well. I don't care about the fluffy extras but the white-on-black screen upgrade on this current model is nicer than the previous WR400 units I had...but that's not enough (for me) to pony up the extra $40 this time for the simpler WR120B model this time around.

3rd choice, Midland ER310 -- Including this as it's a more capable "emergency" radio, with (limited) solar charging and battery crank included, also portability a plus, BUT...no S.A.M.E. coding capability onboard. This one would be a great travel/camping/hiking choice if you and your fam engage in any of those activities, although it's pricier at ~$60.

Now that I've documented all of this...going to drop that WR120B into my Amazon cart and get it delivered this week. Been putting off too long.   

[mappy]

Thank you! @vastateofmind

[Stormfly]

On 4/23/2023 at 1:28 PM, vastateofmind said:

their lifespan tends to be in the 2-5 year timespan.

 

Just curious, what is the failure mode?

I only ask because I have a portable weatherradio alert (Ratshack brand, hehe) from the early 90s that still works.

[Kmlwx]

If you want to spend the $$$ - you could also get a scanner to monitor local law enforcement/fire frequencies as well - most of them have NOAA capability with SAME as well. But those do tend to be MUCH more expensive versus a dedicated weather radio. Only useful if you're into scanning at all. 

[GramaxRefugee]

1 hour ago, Stormfly said:

Just curious, what is the failure mode?

I only ask because I have a portable weatherradio alert (Ratshack brand, hehe) from the early 90s that still works.

Ditto. (Except substitute "mid 80s" for "early 90s")

[vastateofmind]

18 hours ago, Stormfly said:

Just curious, what is the failure mode?

I only ask because I have a portable weatherradio alert (Ratshack brand, hehe) from the early 90s that still works.

Good question! For the mid-sized Midland radios I mentioned buying twice, the first WR400's backlighting failed (not a deal breaker) and then the siren/alert capability died shortly thereafter (though the radio transmission itself still worked). The second WR400, radio itself simply stopped receiving, period, after two years -- out of the 6-7 frequencies that are preprogrammed to receive automated wx forecasts, all of them simply played static. No amount of radio placement or antenna adjustments worked at all...radio just stopped receiving.

I probably just got two lemons. Just received and set up the smaller WR120B yesterday...one nice upgrade Midland includes now is that you can simply select your state/county for SAME alerts right in the radio settings, and you don't have to go look up your county code on the internet and then "type" it in manually. Also, forgot how LOUD the siren is, damn.

[Stormfly]

Interesting, reminds me of so called "Behringer syndrome" as musicians and audio pros call it.

 

[high risk]

Need to watch Sunday.     It's unclear how much morning/midday rain will limit surface heating and destroy mid-level lapse rates, but anytime a deep low pressure center passes by to our northwest, it bears watching.     12Z NAM Nest and HiResW FV3 both suggest some late day strong convection in an environment with some respectable shear.

[George BM]

8 hours ago, high risk said:

Need to watch Sunday.     It's unclear how much morning/midday rain will limit surface heating and destroy mid-level lapse rates, but anytime a deep low pressure center passes by to our northwest, it bears watching.     12Z NAM Nest and HiResW FV3 both suggest some late day strong convection in an environment with some respectable shear.

April 6, 2017.

February 7, 2020.

Not that I believe it will be like those events but those are two examples of what you mentioned. Deep-low, neg-tilt trough...

[Kmlwx]

31 minutes ago, high risk said:

Need to watch Sunday.     It's unclear how much morning/midday rain will limit surface heating and destroy mid-level lapse rates, but anytime a deep low pressure center passes by to our northwest, it bears watching.     12Z NAM Nest and HiResW FV3 both suggest some late day strong convection in an environment with some respectable shear.

"Tasty" ~Yoda

[Kmlwx]

34 minutes ago, George BM said:

April 6, 2017.

February 7, 2020.

Not that I believe it will be like those events but those are two examples of what you mentioned. Deep-low, neg-tilt through...

Feb 7 was only a marginal day and even no watch was issued! Pretty impressive. 

[Kmlwx]

CIPS has some interesting analogs in the mix. June 1, 2012 is in there  

[Eskimo Joe]

10 hours ago, high risk said:

Need to watch Sunday.     It's unclear how much morning/midday rain will limit surface heating and destroy mid-level lapse rates, but anytime a deep low pressure center passes by to our northwest, it bears watching.     12Z NAM Nest and HiResW FV3 both suggest some late day strong convection in an environment with some respectable shear.

Well said. We have two big players in our favor:

1.) Dynamic neutral to negative tilted low racing to our NW.

2.) Short wave rotating around the base of the low. 

The dynamics are there, question is whether we can get a few hours of sun to mix things up.

[high risk]

1 hour ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Well said. We have two big players in our favor:

1.) Dynamic neutral to negative tilted low racing to our NW.

2.) Short wave rotating around the base of the low. 

The dynamics are there, question is whether we can get a few hours of sun to mix things up.

   The other question now is whether the surface low will actually track to our northwest and put the DC area into the warm sector Sunday afternoon.    The evening CAM guidance tracks the low across far southern MD or the northern neck of VA and keeps the severe threat a decent distance to our south.

[Eskimo Joe]

8 hours ago, high risk said:

   The other question now is whether the surface low will actually track to our northwest and put the DC area into the warm sector Sunday afternoon.    The evening CAM guidance tracks the low across far southern MD or the northern neck of VA and keeps the severe threat a decent distance to our south.

Looks like we get severe or heavy rain. I'll take the latter.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

Kind of a below average start to the season. It seems that the downsloping trend is holding for now. It may be hard to get those bowling ball lows in the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest going forward, the pattern is ridge north/some type of drought. 

[WxWatcher007]

 

[high risk]

Damage pictures from the Va Beach area are pretty impressive.      We had discussed further up in this thread a concern for a tornado threat with a strong low pressure center passing just to our northwest.   The actual track of the low ended up well south of here, so we were out of the threat, but the low tracked just northwest of the Tidewater area, so this event is not a major surprise.

[yoda]

16 hours ago, high risk said:

Damage pictures from the Va Beach area are pretty impressive.      We had discussed further up in this thread a concern for a tornado threat with a strong low pressure center passing just to our northwest.   The actual track of the low ended up well south of here, so we were out of the threat, but the low tracked just northwest of the Tidewater area, so this event is not a major surprise.

EF-3 preliminary rating

[southmdwatcher]

NWSChat - NOAA's National Weather Service

 

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WAKEFIELD VA
254 PM EDT MON MAY 1 2023

...NWS DAMAGE SURVEY FOR 04/30/2023 TORNADO IN THE GREAT NECK AREA
OF VIRGINIA BEACH...

.VIRGINIA BEACH TORNADO...

RATING:                 EF-3
ESTIMATED PEAK WIND:    145 MPH
PATH LENGTH /STATUTE/:  4.5 MILES
PATH WIDTH /MAXIMUM/:   350 YARDS
FATALITIES:             0
INJURIES:               0

START DATE:             04/30/2023
START TIME:             5:48 PM EDT
START LOCATION:         EASTERN BRANCH OF LYNNHAVEN RIVER IN VIRGINIA BEACH
START LAT/LON:          36.883/-76.086

END DATE:               04/30/2023
END TIME:               5:53 PM EDT
END LOCATION:           FORT STORY IN VIRGINIA BEACH
END LAT/LON:            36.930/-76.010

THE TORNADO FORMED OVER THE EASTERN BRANCH OF LYNNHAVEN RIVER IN 
THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH. THE TORNADO PROGRESSED UP RIVER ROAD 
AS AN EF-1, PASSING BY THE GREAT NECK RECREATION CENTER. IT 
INCREASED TO AN EF-2 INTENSITY, AS IT MOVED INTO THE CHELSEA 
NEIGHBORHOOD. THE TORNADO CONTINUED ONTO HAVERSHAM CLOSE WITH EF-3
INTENSITY. IN THIS AREA, SEVERAL HOMES WERE SHIFTED OFF THEIR 
FOUNDATIONS AND ROOFS AND UPPER WALLS WERE COMPLETELY REMOVED. THE
TORNADO THEN CROSSED BROAD BAY AND THE EASTERN PORTION OF BAY 
ISLAND, CLIPPING WINDWARD SHORE DRIVE AS AN EF-1. IT THEN MOVED 
OVER FIRST LANDING STATE PARK AND INTO FORT STORY AS AN EF-1, 
SNAPPING TREES, DAMAGING BARRACKS, AND DAMAGING SEVERAL OTHER 
BUILDS BEFORE MOVING OFFSHORE. 

APPROXIMATELY 115 HOMES WERE DAMAGED ACCORDING TO THE CITY OF 
VIRGINIA BEACH. VEHICLES WERE OVERTURNED AND BOATS WERE SUNK AND 
MOVED. THERE WERE NO DEATHS AND NO INJURIES. 

NWS WAKEFIELD WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND THANKS TO VIRGINIA BEACH 
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND THE U.S. NAVY AT FORT STORY FOR THE 
ASSISTANCES WITH THE TORNADO SURVEY. 

[WxUSAF]

Seems like we have chances for storms rolling over the ridge with the NW flow this week? Maybe organized MCS type events?

[George BM]

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

Seems like we have chances for storms rolling over the ridge with the NW flow this week? Maybe organized MCS type events?

The GFS shows MLCAPE >1000J/kg on Monday in the region w/ that modest NW flow. We are getting closer to peak severe season in these parts.

[Kmlwx]

The CFS several times when I checked over the winter kept showing a ring of fire style pattern for Jun-ish. 

[high risk]

On 5/4/2023 at 9:45 PM, Kmlwx said:

The CFS several times when I checked over the winter kept showing a ring of fire style pattern for Jun-ish. 

       It still kind of looks that way, but wow - it's beyond discouraging for at least the next week and likely beyond for any kind of decent convection.   For me, the climatological peak of SVR in the Mid-Atlantic is roughly May 10 to June 20, and we sure are wasting it right now.

[Kmlwx]

21 minutes ago, high risk said:

       It still kind of looks that way, but wow - it's beyond discouraging for at least the next week and likely beyond for any kind of decent convection.   For me, the climatological peak of SVR in the Mid-Atlantic is roughly May 10 to June 20, and we sure are wasting it right now.

I think it often depends on what exact "type/style" of severe we are talking about. Certainly this time in May we still can have potentially strong "spring" systems that can provide a lot of shear. But sometimes we are lacking in instability still this early. It hasn't been a super hot/humid May so far (part of me says thank goodness...). 

I remember a ton of really good storm events June/July - but a lot of the July events were likely more "pulse" stuff with less shear available that just happened to be memorable for swaths of the area. Certainly agree that for "area wide" stuff we are starting to waste some climo peak. 

Our area seems to go on "runs" of severe streaks. 

Far too lazy to look at the SPC event archive right now - but I seem to remember that there were some other beefy severe days in 2008 and 2012 clustered in the same time neighborhood as the "big ones" 

It really only takes about 1-2 weeks of a run to make a year a massive severe year for us IMO. Throw in some sort of tropical/flooding event in late summer/early fall and we can really string together some meteorological madness. Just have to get the snow part of the puzzle back into the mix  

I'm heading down to the OBX form this coming Saturday to the following Saturday...I'm OK if nothing happens between those dates...selfish. 

[Kmlwx]

Adding another post rather than editing...(mind vomit right now)

I guess the point I was getting at was I think you're right in the sense that it's a relatively short period when we can really mix high shear with decent CAPE. Too far towards summer and we get closer to pulse season (not that a more dynamic event can't happen...but it would be more likely to be a ring of fire/cold pool driven event) - and too early and we don't have the high dews or instability yet - but shear/dynamics could be more impressive. 

If we aren't going to have storm threats...I'd much rather have the tolerable humidity and heat as long as possible. We all know that it's only a matter of time until we are all suffering in the 90s with dews in the upper 60s and 70s. 

[Eskimo Joe]

11 hours ago, high risk said:

       It still kind of looks that way, but wow - it's beyond discouraging for at least the next week and likely beyond for any kind of decent convection.   For me, the climatological peak of SVR in the Mid-Atlantic is roughly May 10 to June 20, and we sure are wasting it right now.

We haven't had a decent regionwide event since the 2012 Derecho.

[high risk]

On 5/14/2023 at 9:59 PM, Kmlwx said:

Adding another post rather than editing...(mind vomit right now)

I guess the point I was getting at was I think you're right in the sense that it's a relatively short period when we can really mix high shear with decent CAPE. Too far towards summer and we get closer to pulse season (not that a more dynamic event can't happen...but it would be more likely to be a ring of fire/cold pool driven event) - and too early and we don't have the high dews or instability yet - but shear/dynamics could be more impressive. 

If we aren't going to have storm threats...I'd much rather have the tolerable humidity and heat as long as possible. We all know that it's only a matter of time until we are all suffering in the 90s with dews in the upper 60s and 70s. 

 

      All good points.     As you said, our best potential for a good combination of shear and instability is that mid-May to mid-late-June period.    Events prior to that usually lack instability, and events later in summer often lack good shear.   That said, we still usually get a few severe watch boxes in July and maybe August, and a tornado season can occur in the fall if the tropics are active.

[87storms]

       It still kind of looks that way, but wow - it's beyond discouraging for at least the next week and likely beyond for any kind of decent convection.   For me, the climatological peak of SVR in the Mid-Atlantic is roughly May 10 to June 20, and we sure are wasting it right now.

I never really considered May to be a severe month here. Maybe it’s recency bias, but I always thought of it as June and July…similar to how January and February are the standard snow (or wintry) months.