2024 Short/Medium Range Severe Weather Discussion

[andyhb]

https://www.whio.com/news/local/injuries-storm-related-damage-reported-mercer-county/ZE7JIPWZNNAFVKOUSCV3VTT5N4/

Fatalities confirmed in Logan Co. OH from the Wapakoneta/Lakeview tornado.

[nwohweather]

Look at the STP Map from the 18z HRRR. And the mesoscale analysis had  STP of 3+ for a lot of Ohio throughout the day that could have been caught by the 4pm update. Additionally effective SRH(IMO the signal biggest predictor of strong/violent tornadoes) was 300+ on the Mesoanalysis. I’m just saying to not raise to an enhanced, was a mistake based on the signals I saw. My guess is the SPC was thinking veering would tamper any threats which veering was specifically mentioned in the 4pm update

Well said. I noticed this too, atmosphere had robust recovery so we had solid instability, high SRH and great lapse rates.

[IWXwx]

 Aerials of the Wapakoneta tornado aftermath (that I couldn't catch up with) at Indian Lake. Of course, it took out mobile homes.

[CoachLB]

[CoachLB]

Lots of damage locally. Lucky compared to other locations. 

[Stebo]

I get why SPC didn't go harder on the risk, it is March and usually clouds linger and kill off a potential. That didn't happen and so the areas to the east where the better shear always was, got unstable and stayed unstable after sunset. It is a very tough forecast. I do think this might be an indication that this spring is going to have very significant potential in a lot of places especially considering the EML extensions and the transition into a La Nina while still in a -PDO from the last La Nina. Everything signals a very active spring.

[largetornado]

by my latest count, 4 killed in Winchester and at least 6 killed in Ohio.

[IWXwx]

Where the Taco Bell in Winchester used to be:

[IWXwx]

A quick video of the Selma/Winchester tornado near Selma

https://www.facebook.com/1137695226/videos/378165668471843

[largetornado]

1 hour ago, IWXwx said:

Where the Taco Bell in Winchester used to be:

Minimum ef4 damage right? Swept off slab?

[IWXwx]

40 minutes ago, largetornado said:

Minimum ef4 damage right? Swept off slab?

Preliminary is EF-3

More details coming

[andyhb]

3 hours ago, largetornado said:

by my latest count, 4 killed in Winchester and at least 6 killed in Ohio.

The fatalities in Winchester were redacted later. I think someone got "casualties" lost in translation or something of the sort.

[michsnowfreak]

4 minutes ago, andyhb said:

The fatalities in Winchester were redacted later. I think someone got "casualties" lost in translation or something of the sort.

So 6 confirmed dead in total? All at the OH trailer park?

Those videos were scary.

[andyhb]

7 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

So 6 confirmed dead in total? All at the OH trailer park?

Those videos were scary.

I'm not sure on the number of confirmed dead. The last more official statement I saw was 3 dead with the likelihood to rise.

Also I believe the Lakeview tornado has been upgraded to EF3 from the earlier EF2 PNS in Orchard Island.

[IWXwx]

The last info I got from Winchester was that there were 38 injuries. However, three are in critical condition.

[RCNYILWX]

Re. the SPC outlooks yesterday, took a hindsight look at yesterday's 12z HREF plus the Nadocast Twitter feed.

A good case can be made that SPC should have issued a 10% hatched tor in the general vicinity of the area affected by strong tornadoes, by the 1630z or 20z update.

Plenty of boxes were checked environment wise in the HREF mean fields, plus some of the neighborhood and paintball UH probs.

The 24-hour STP based calibrated tornado probs had a spot of 10% right near one of the strong tornado tracks.

Since they had a slight with 5% tornado probs, it wasn't an egregiously underdone forecast. 8/24/16 is a much better example of that when doing hindsight assessment of the day's SPC mesoanalysis fields.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

[andyhb]

3 hours ago, IWXwx said:

Preliminary is EF-3

More details coming

Now high end EF3. Have some suspicion that there are a few points that may be consideration for EF4. The Taco Bell and the church that were both completely destroyed in particular.

[IWXwx]

1 hour ago, andyhb said:

Now high end EF3. Have some suspicion that there are a few points that may be consideration for EF4. The Taco Bell and the church that were both completely destroyed in particular.

Right. That's why I mentioned that it's preliminary. I'm assuming that they will perform some more in depth engineering studies of those structures.

[nwohweather]

Re. the SPC outlooks yesterday, took a hindsight look at yesterday's 12z HREF plus the Nadocast Twitter feed.

A good case can be made that SPC should have issued a 10% hatched tor in the general vicinity of the area affected by strong tornadoes, by the 1630z or 20z update.

Plenty of boxes were checked environment wise in the HREF mean fields, plus some of the neighborhood and paintball UH probs.

The 24-hour STP based calibrated tornado probs had a spot of 10% right near one of the strong tornado tracks.

Since they had a slight with 5% tornado probs, it wasn't an egregiously underdone forecast. 8/24/16 is a much better example of that when doing hindsight assessment of the day's SPC mesoanalysis fields.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

Well said. If I’m not mistaken they were anticipating storms lining up, which never happened. Also, I believe instability and shear were all considerably higher than modeled in the morning.

Still, I’ll admit I didn’t expect to see multiple long track supercells. The Wapakoneta Storm was tornado warned from Indiana to Columbus

[largetornado]

37 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Well said. If I’m not mistaken they were anticipating storms lining up, which never happened. Also, I believe instability and shear were all considerably higher than modeled in the morning.

Still, I’ll admit I didn’t expect to see multiple long track supercells. The Wapakoneta Storm was tornado warned from Indiana to Columbus

ILN was on it. Give them props. 

There will be time for airmass recovery in western Ohio/eastern
Indiana later this afternoon and evening, with model consensus
of lower 60s dewpoints advecting in along and south. A pretty
concerning supercell environment is depicted with a mid level
jet streak providing ample deep layer shear, low level curvature
in the hodographs, and deep instability. Supercell mode is
possible if not likely, thus threats in terms of impact seem to
maximize in the 5P-11P timeframe in southeast Indiana, western
Ohio possibly as far east as central Ohio with large hail and a
a tornado or two.

[CoachLB]

[andyhb]

7 tornadoes confirmed thus far in the ILN CWA.

Quote

Public Information Statement
National Weather Service Wilmington OH
935 PM EDT Fri Mar 15 2024

...UPDATE ON TORNADO CONFIRMATIONS FROM MARCH 14...

The National Weather Service in Wilmington OH has completed its
first day of storm surveys following the severe weather event on
March 14.

While there are no immediate plans for additional surveys,
National Weather Service staff will continue to assess information
provided to us by local and state officials, Emergency Management
Agencies, and weather spotters. This process is expected to take
several days. Numerous long-track tornadoes have occurred, and our
continued analysis will work to determine if some of these long
swaths of damage are the result of a single tornado or multiple
separate tornadoes.

At this time, seven areas of tornadic damage have been identified
within the NWS Wilmington OH coverage area. This count may change
as we continue to assess the continuity of the damage.

* EF1 in Switzerland County IN and Carroll County KY. This tornado
  began further west in Indiana and additional information will
  follow after coordination with NWS Louisville KY.

* EF1 in western Mercer County OH, west of Celina.

* EF1 in eastern Mercer County OH and western Auglaize County OH,
  west of Wapakoneta.

* EF3 beginning in southern Auglaize County OH near Fryburg,
  continuing through the Lakeview area in northern Logan County
  OH.

* EF2 in central Union County OH near Broadway.

* EF1 beginning in central Delaware County OH, continuing through
  north-central Licking County OH.

* EF2 in Darke County OH and Miami County OH. This tornado began
  in Indiana and additional information will follow after
  coordination with NWS Indianapolis IN.

Final details on these tornadoes, including track statistics and
estimated maximum wind speeds, will be released as our analysis
continues over the next several days.

$$

HATZOS

[OHweather]

22 hours ago, RCNYILWX said:

Re. the SPC outlooks yesterday, took a hindsight look at yesterday's 12z HREF plus the Nadocast Twitter feed.

A good case can be made that SPC should have issued a 10% hatched tor in the general vicinity of the area affected by strong tornadoes, by the 1630z or 20z update.

Plenty of boxes were checked environment wise in the HREF mean fields, plus some of the neighborhood and paintball UH probs.

The 24-hour STP based calibrated tornado probs had a spot of 10% right near one of the strong tornado tracks.

Since they had a slight with 5% tornado probs, it wasn't an egregiously underdone forecast. 8/24/16 is a much better example of that when doing hindsight assessment of the day's SPC mesoanalysis fields.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 

This case is a good example of why conditional intensity outlooks for severe wx, which are in the works, will be beneficial. SPC didn't seem sure if there'd be recovery behind the morning-early afternoon round of convection, so the outlook probabilities (which are unconditional) could theoretically only be so high...however, if the airmass recovery happened the shear profiles and expected storm mode were quite favorable for tornadoes, so the conditional potential for stronger tornadoes was higher than the unconditional outlook probabilities may have conveyed. Unfortunately, there isn't a great way to message that with the current paradigm outside of hoping someone at a WFO is paying enough attention and is confident enough to ring that bell when they are looking at a pretty run of the mill 2-5% tornado outlook. 

Is there an argument that with an EML, very strong wind fields, and decent CAM agreement that we would recover that perhaps the SPC should've just bought into the recovery more and gone with higher probs? Yes I'd say that argument is there, as my experience is that you usually don't struggle to recover (and that the CAMs usually do quite well) when there's stronger forcing/shear and an EML nearby. I'd give a pass before the 1630z outlook though because the recovery behind earlier convection is always difficult to gauge and it was only mid-March, and even at 1630z perhaps it was too early to truly have confidence in sufficient airmass recovery/destabilization. By 20z I'd say given the CAM agreement and observational trends that higher probs were probably pretty easily justified. By then you're almost into the watch stage though so the gain isn't a ton even if they did go with higher probs in that outlook. 

A handful of significant tornadoes with fatalities occurring in a 2-5% tornado outlook is not ideal, though I agree that there have been worse forecast bursts before. I did not wake up Thursday morning thinking I'd issue a PDS Tornado Warning that day. By mid-late afternoon we were locally getting quite concerned about the potential severity of any storms that made it into our southwestern CWA that evening and ended up with an EF-2 (along with an EF-1 and what will probably go in as an EF-U) out of it. Eastern IN into western and central OH, largely out of the CLE CWA, really took it on the chin compared to us though. 

[Chinook]

My brother in law knows someone who was looking for survivors at Indian Lake. I got to see a few firsthand pictures of metal wrapped around trees and such.

[Chinook]

so the Hancock County tornado was southeast of Bluffton, rather than right next to Findlay or possibly towards Vanlue?

[Chinook]

Maximum rotation at Willard/Plymouth/Plymouth Township lines up with the report that the EF-2 tornado was at Plymouth Township  (Richland County/Crawford County)

[OHweather]

32 minutes ago, Chinook said:

so the Hancock County tornado was southeast of Bluffton, rather than right next to Findlay or possibly towards Vanlue?

There were several photos and eyewitness reports of a tornado east of Findlay, north of Vanlue and into Seneca County near Alvada and southwest of New Riegel. Finding damage has been difficult in that area. Stay tuned for some sort of final assessment of that area. 
 

But yes, the confirmed EF-1 in southwest Hancock County was with the next cell that came in behind the tornado warned cell. 

[nwohweather]

There were several photos and eyewitness reports of a tornado east of Findlay, north of Vanlue and into Seneca County near Alvada and southwest of New Riegel. Finding damage has been difficult in that area. Stay tuned for some sort of final assessment of that area. 
 
But yes, the confirmed EF-1 in southwest Hancock County was with the next cell that came in behind the tornado warned cell. 

How difficult was tracking this in the office? Findlay/Tiffin are in a bit of a radar hole and until they got a little more easterly it wasn’t the easiest rotation to discern

[TheWeatherPimp]

The Winchester Tornado hit very close to home (well it was my home). The house I grew up in was destroyed and my family's houses were less than 2 blocks from the tornado. They were very lucky and I feel extremely relieved. I was on the phone with them yelling at them to get in the bathrooms and cover themselves with blankets and pillows. It was nauseating. But I'm so thankful they are all okay. 

It sounds like the NWS Indianapolis has finalized the rating of the Winchester tornado as an EF3. To be honest, I truly thought they might push it over the threshold based on some of the photos I've seen but I haven't seen the damage in person and won't until later this week. 

[Floydbuster]

5 hours ago, TheWeatherPimp said:

The Winchester Tornado hit very close to home (well it was my home). The house I grew up in was destroyed and my family's houses were less than 2 blocks from the tornado. They were very lucky and I feel extremely relieved. I was on the phone with them yelling at them to get in the bathrooms and cover themselves with blankets and pillows. It was nauseating. But I'm so thankful they are all okay. 

It sounds like the NWS Indianapolis has finalized the rating of the Winchester tornado as an EF3. To be honest, I truly thought they might push it over the threshold based on some of the photos I've seen but I haven't seen the damage in person and won't until later this week. 

 

Thank God your family is alright. Here's hoping we luck out and avoid severe weather as much as possible the next few months.