HurricaneJosh

Cool map, Joe! It's very informative, so thanks for posting it. (By the way, I don't know why anyone would be annoyed by it. This is a weather forum-- we analyze these events here.) Re: the path, are those really the start and finish points, or just where the surveying started and ended? It's just crazy that such a large, intense tornado spun up and spun down so fast like that.

This post is almost a word-for-word repeat of exactly what we were discussing yesterday (a couple of pages back). I don't mean this as criticism-- I don't read all of every thread I respond to, either. I guess the same topics come up repeatedly because they're relevant.

Oh, hey, Mardi! Nice to hear from you. Yeah, I think we're all a little bit in shock from this tornado season. I mean, in the USA we always expect the tornado season to be big, but this one is by far the worst in many, many decades.

The 2005 'cane season is a valid comparison to the 2011 tornado season by many metrics-- for example, 1) the high number of storms, 2) the high number of intense storms, 3) these "anachronistic" high death tolls, and 4) the extremely high dollar-figure of damage.

Good comparison of the two events-- and, I agree, there are a lot of similarities here-- as well as some important differences. Interesting that mobile-home parks were not a big factor in either storm, as we always tend to view them as death traps in tornadoes.

Very interesting-- thanks for sharing this. Given that the population of Joplin is only 50K, that's quite an influx for a Sunday afternoon! I didn't know you were studying emergency management. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts about all this once the dust settles a bit and we know more. Yeah, that sword can cut both ways. Not to bring earthquakes into it, but it was fortunate that the great Northridge Earthquake of 1994 hit L.A. at 4:30 am; even though people were sleeping, most of the really bad building failures were commercial. The death toll would have been much higher if it happened on a weekday afternoon. On the other hand, the Kobe Earthquake a year later killed thousands because it happened in the wee morning hours-- as the residential failures were much more extensive than the commercial failures in that one. So many factors... Yeah, it is just really weird. Do you even have any initial theories about what happened here?

Does anyone know why the winds were estimated at such a specific value-- 198 mph? I thought they rounded to the nearest 5 mph. Can someone shed some light?

Weird, I said exactly that this morning on another forum. Totally, dude.

Agreed. It could just be "one of those things". But even a simple statistical analysis of the fatalities-- where they occurred, in what types of structures/vehicles, etc.-- could shed some light on what exactly happened. We need to understand it. This is like the tornadic Katrina-- a single, contemporary event causing an "anachronistic", "old-school" death toll. In 2004 I would have told you that there's no way in hell that 1,000 Americans would ever again die in a 'cane-- and then Katrina killed almost twice that. Of course, with Katrina, the causes were fairly obvious. This Joplin event is somewhat mysterious by comparison.

Clearly, this was a very difficult tornado to warn for, given the speed of development, the brisk motion, the rain-wrapping, the late-day lighting, etc. So, I'm frankly impressed the NWS could even get a warning out in time. Thank God they did. But the death toll is a bit of a shock. As gymengineer pointed out (above), it's not like this is the first time in the modern era that a violent wedge tornado has plowed headlong into the heart of a good-sized city. I'm curious what made this event so much more deadly than Topeka 1966, Lubbock 1970, Omaha 1975, Wichita Falls 1979, etc. etc. The death toll is just so much greater, it begs the question. Were there a couple of major building failures with lots of people inside? Do people not have basements there? I hope that someone does a study about this and issues some findings. It could be really valuable for future preparedness efforts.

Yeah, I gotcha. I do hope JoMo posts soon. It's a bit nerve-wracking! I'm sure he's fine-- and probably posting here is his last priority right now-- if they even have Internet connectivity in the city.

For sure. But that's what we do here, I guess: we analyze the mechanics and the metrics behind events which are sometimes catastrophic to humans.

Well... I'm sure it matters a little to wx nerds. I know it matters to me. Like, I'm curious to know what they find and how they rate it. It was obviously a big event.

No, but it's plenty of time for the average, able-bodied citizen to take cover, or for a teacher to bring children into the stairwells (or wherever they bring them). Maybe because I'm from earthquake country, where we get zero warning-- catastrophes happen in the blink of an eye, like a bomb going off-- fifteen minutes just seems like a generous amount of time for making decisions and taking action.

JoMo, in one of his last posts, mentioned the sirens had gone off. Also, in the now-famous video from the convenience store, you can overhear people talking about a warning before the tornado hits the building. My impression was that they didn't actually see the funnel coming-- it was large and rather foggy-looking-- but were taking cover due to the warning. I could be wrong, but that's my impression. They had some warning for sure.

Well of course. I would assume they're in there today.

Re: the EF5 thing... People sometimes seem quick to call an EF5 when they see a neighborhood flattened, but of course so much depends on the quality of the construction, etc. As most people here know, a house can get "swept away"-- leaving a bare foundation-- by something much less than an EF5 if it's not properly attached to the foundation. One other thing: when you see a wide, aerial shot of Moore, OK, or Greensburg, KS, you're not really looking at EF5 damage-- you're looking at EF3-EF4 damage, within which are a couple of isolated instances of EF5 damage. So, seeing these flattened neighborhoods in Joplin doesn't immediately say EF5 to me-- it says an obviously violent tornado went through, and it could have been an EF5. Let's see if they can find some specific evidence of it. It seems pretty clear that this was at least an EF4.

Wow-- there are some really awesome moments late in the clip as they almost get to the periphery of the tornado circulation. I met Jeff in Mexico when I was chasing Hurricane Jimena. (He chases hurricanes now and then.) He's known as a pretty daring, aggressive sort of chaser, if I remember correctly. Like, he really goes for it.

Ugh, that is just not right. Those poor people must be traumatized already.

JoMo's posts from yesterday, up until the storm hit. The good news is that they had warning-- he heard sirens: Note: The timestamps are Pacific time, so add 2 hours for local (Central) time. JoMO, I hope all is OK for you!

It may end up being an EF5, but I don't think it would be based on this sort of evidence. Lesser tornadoes can really toss vehicles, which are relatively light for their size.

Yeah. I'm not denying it was an EF5-- I just haven't seen personally seen evidence of that. I would say it was most certainly at least an EF4, as per my comments above-- I've seen a few photos that look like hearty proof.