Hoosier

I'd probably do the same thing but it's bad advice for the general public, especially in a rain-wrapped case like yesterday when even experienced chasers can be caught in precarious positions.

I guess it depends if a lot of the fatalities occurred in the commercial areas. It looks like it mowed down a lot of residential real estate. I just think having it plow through at a time of day when everyone is completely oblivious is probably worse.

This year is becoming like 2005 was for hurricanes...and the next couple days look really active.

There were some bad circumstances as you mentioned, but yeah, I'm surprised. Joplin is practically in the middle of tornado alley so you'd expect preparedness/awareness to be better than most areas. I always thought the next 100 fatality tornado would occur in a sizeable population center outside of tornado alley or at a big outdoor sporting event. I think we will have to take a look at the entire system to see what improvements can be made, but it may be that there are not a lot of practical solutions.

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/nws-joplin-storm-an-955263.html

Looks like a confirmed high-end EF4 so far but survey still ongoing.

That makes it the deadliest since the Woodward, OK tornado of April 9, 1947, and currently the 9th deadliest on record in the US.

Yeah, good point.

The hurricane parallel to this event is something like Charley in 2004. Everyone knows about the potential (or they should), warnings are in effect, but the rapid ramp up into a beast catches people off guard. I really can't think of a worse set of circumstances for Joplin unless it would've hit at night.

Forward motion wasn't extremely fast but it wasn't a slow mover either. I think it was somewhere around 40 mph give or take.

We've been incredibly unlucky this year with major tornadoes hitting large population centers. As far as fatalities, you really have to go back to 1953 (Waco, Flint/Worcester) to find something like this less than a month apart. Unfortunately, this type of thing may become less rare in the future with all the population growth and expansion.

Posting this here as it may become a story of national interest... Obviously we have to wait for the survey but it looks like it may have been a violent tornado. The tornado appears to have tracked across the southern portion of the city and quite wide. It only happened a few hours ago and there are already reports of 24 deaths, but that number will probably rise. Joplin has a population of about 50,000. This is the latest example of a major tornado striking a densely populated area, an all too frequent occurrence this year. We have a member from Joplin by the name of JoMo. He was posting in the severe weather thread until the tornado approached. It is unclear whether he was hit but we have not heard from him since the tornado struck. Please keep him in your thoughts.

I still can't get over that Bangladesh sounding. What would a warning look like? ...RADAR INDICATED A DANGEROUS SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING VIOLENT TORNADOES AND BASKETBALL SIZE HAIL...

Today was about as unstable of a mid-May day here as I can recall.

We'd need to know the helicity to get a close approximation. Just looking at the CAPE and crudely estimating the helicity, I'd say the EHI would be over 15 and possibly approaching 20.

With that shear... wicked

ILX ran a special 18z sounding on 7/13/04: Low level flow isn't that impressive but there's nice veering with height. Also check out the max hail size...I have no idea how that is calculated

Peoria sounding is the closest thing we have. Given the surface obs at the time of the tornado, I'm guessing the thermodynamic environment in northern IL was very similar.

We need a RAOB site in Indiana or Kentucky

Yeah it's harder to get the good shear this far south in summer. Usually you have to rely on some freak meso/microscale interactions to produce strong/violent tornadoes.

Jesus...I knew 8/4 was really unstable but I didn't realize it was that unstable. I wonder what instability is like in that area of the Middle East that often gets dewpoints well into the 80's.

Obviously there are different ways to measure instability but I'm focusing on CAPE. I remember one from IA or NE last year or the year before which had MLCAPE well over 5000 (maybe over 6000). 7/13/04 was another crazy unstable day with SBCAPE over 7000 in IL. Another good one is the Peoria sounding from 8/28/90 with MLCAPE over 5500 (SBCAPE of 7000-8000 IIRC)

That is really impressive.

I won't be surprised if the final number surpasses the total from 1974.