HurricaneJosh

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.

Bad stuff headed their way again. A bowing segment with 60-70 mph winds approaching.

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:

Giant clusterf*k of storms in SE KS with more developing around that cell. Constant rolling thunder. Not seeing all that strong of a couplet. Did witness some mammatus despite the low clouds.

nd there go the sirens, rotation just NW of here.

Pitch black out, couplet nearly on me... Joplin, MO

Note: The timestamps are Pacific time, so add 2 hours for local (Central) time.

JoMO, I hope all is OK for you!

Well, this for one. This tornado just tossed the vehicles around like they were Matchbox cars and flattened them like pancakes... didn't see anything like this last year with the EF4. This looks more like the F5 damage to me.

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.

This.

I haven't seen anything indicative of an EF-5 yet... should be able to get some quick shots in this morning before the next storm rolls through.

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.

Looks EF5 to me... I helped clean up after an EF4 last year and it wasn't even close to as bad as the images I've seen from this one.

Hmmm. Can you share the images that look EF5 to you? Curious to see!

With the AL outbreak, there was the talk of the early morning severe weather knocking out power and therefore leaving parts of the population vunerable to not getting enough warning in the late afternoon tornadoes.

Especially with that outbreak still fresh in everyone's minds, having this massive death toll yet again just seems unreal. I'm sure it will come out in the NWS Service Assessment as to "why" it happened here, but F4's and F5's going across downtowns have not been accompanied by this type of death toll since the tornado warning system really got established. 1966- Both Jackson MS and Topeka, Kansas had F5's through the cities, with the Topeka one pretty much through downtown-- 19 died in the Jackson area and 16 died in the Topeka tornado. 1970- Lubbock, TX had an F5 go through downtown, including having a skyscraper in its path. There were 28 deaths there. 1979- Wichita Falls, TX, had the massive F4 mow through the city-- 42 deaths.

Maybe here, there were special circumstances, like a large amount of fatalities in one building-- we'll see if a lot of the deaths happened in the hospital itself.

That's a great point-- that these other "warning-era" urban tornadoes didn't kill anywhere near as many people as these 2011 events. I didn't even think of that.

Re: the hospital... It's beaten up, but the actual structure looks to be intact, based on the images I've seen.

2011 is having a very "1953" feel to it-- with multiple incidents of violent tornadoes hitting decent-sized cities and extracting large death tolls.

Reuters has that figure as well. So it's the deadliest single American tornado since Udall, KS, in 1955? We already hit that milestone this year, didn't we?

So, what's the expectation Re: intensity-- EF4?

A few of the damage pics have an EF4 look to them, with the homes really flattened and the trees stripped completely down to sticks. It definitely looks worse than EF3 to me in some places.

yeah... only 18 homes destroyed and a few dozen others damaged-but 14 fatalities. Yikes. scary stuff.

Yeah, I noticed that-- a very high number of fatalities for the size of the area affected.

no it clearly says 2.48 miles...another decimal point error? Or is this the same supercell and tornado that moved into AL and will get rated by a seperate office too?

If its not the same tornado then we could have at least 3 EF5's , this one, N al if it is upgraded and I'm assuming the tucs/BHM one too

Yeah, maybe it's a mistake or something-- or, like you suggested, maybe this part of the survey covers only one part of the track. I just find it hard to imagine that a discrete event with a track length that short generated winds over 200 mph. That would just be too weird!

Is this the final number though or is this the same one that moved into northern AL?

Not sure-- I was just reading from the survey report. Perhaps I misunderstood?

Interesting that the Smithville EF5 was relatively localized for such an intense event-- the path length was less than 3 mi, and it only damaged a few dozen homes. It must have spun up and wound down really fast-- like a microcane that bombs out and then totally falls apart.

Radar montage of the destructive supercell which hit Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, & more...

Wow-- really cool. Thanks for posting this.

several local on air mets were syaing that indded but it is clear that the storm cycled and a new tornado MAY have formed just east of BHM

OK, gotcha. I was having a hard time believing that was one continuous surface circulation-- but, hey, it's been an extraordinary event. Why would I be surprised by anything at this point?

I can't wait to read the survey report on that one (or those ones)-- and to see some detailed damage maps.

Long-term, the combined deaths and dollar damage done by earthquakes in this country are going to make the totals from tornadoes look like a joke (and to a lesser degree, I believe the same is true of hurricanes.)

We've just been oddly lucky in the last 200 years.

Most of the energy of Northridge was directed into unpopulated mountains.

Not saying you're making this argument, but on board after board I've seen people who literally believe that it's impossible for an earthquake to kill more than 100 people unless it's in some smelly Third-World country (how they managed to mentally delete the Kobe quake, I don't know.)

We'll see a quake with a death toll in the thousands in this country within 20 years, I suspect.

Re: Northridge, a lot of energy was sent N, but some of the pockets of max (Level IX) shaking occurred in Sherman Oaks and Santa Monica-- two densely-populated parts of the metroplex-- and most of the city had very heavy (Level XII-XIII) shaking.

Sorry to go OT...

Back on topic... Did I hear correctly that the Tuscaloosa tornado started in MS, crossed AL, and moved into GA without lifting? If so, wow.

I'm amazed at the hostility toward a suggestion of simple building standards.

In CA it is simply an expectation-- and guess what? When our metroplex of 8 million had a direct hit by a quake that produced whopping Level IX shaking right in the city, only 75 people died-- out of 8 million. Strict CA building codes saved thousands of lives.

WAFF in Huntsville is reporting 147 in their corner of NW Alabama which doesn't include Birmingham or Tuscaloosa. These are apparently not all official numbers. Considering all factors, I would not rule out some of the larger numbers. I don't think it will happen, but I wouldn't be just utterly shocked if the adding machines got into Katrina-like figures. We're talking about some densely-populated areas that got hit with what amounts to a death sentence.

I think the numbers will certainly grow. But just to clarify my own position, I'm not saying I personally think the death toll will rival Katrina's-- simply that, like Katrina, this event seems to have caused a much higher death toll than we've seen in a long while.

I'm not absolutely confident that wasn't exceeded.

Actually... Good point. As per your post earlier, God knows how many people might be unaccounted for in some of these very rural areas-- and it looks like even in the population centers, they're finding bodies everywhere.

There's definitely a Katrina parallel here, in the sense that we're seeing a contemporary death toll that seems strangely anachronistic-- like it's from another era.

This made me truly laugh out loud. As you have already stated, deaths were inevitable given the incredibly bad combination of factors yesterday for death. The more entertaining thing post-disaster is watching people become infatuated with the death toll and then say things like "isn't it horrible." Yeah okay...

I'd rather be talking about the wx behind the outbreak.

Agreed.

I was noticing there's more talk about the death toll than the actual tornadic events themselves, which were quite spectacular and unique. I'd like to know more about the dimensions and severities of some of these bigger storms-- but I guess we're still waiting for most of the survey teams to complete their work.

I also agree that deaths were inevitable. It is no one's fault. The earth is a constant stream of violent, natural processes-- tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.-- and sometimes we're just in the way of it. There is no one to blame. It is what it is. The NWS and the media were on top of this. Without them, the death toll probably would have been over 1,000.

Well... Even with the Moore tornado, if I'm not mistaken, there were only a few spot instances of EF5 damage (as is the case with any EF5 event; no tornado produces big, wide swaths of EF5 damage). Therefore, most of the imagery showing wide areas of devastation was actually showing EF3-4 damage. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

For me, a good rule-of-thumb difference between EF4 and EF5 is that with standard wood-frame homes, EF4 leaves piles of rubble, whereas EF5 actually leaves the site swept clean. Like, it won't even be clear what was at that location before the event occurred. So, a casual glance of the Tuscaloosa images I've seen says EF4 to me.

But, again, I am no expert and don't pretend to be. There are people in this thread who actually do these surveys, and I'm sure they'll shed much brighter light on this topic.

I am no tornado expert and I have yet to have any experience doing surveys, but the damage has to be representative of at least EF4 based on pics, possibly EF5. We will see.

Totally stripped trees with no branches, destroyed buildings of decent size, rubble everywhere, etc.

Agreed. I'm no expert, either-- I'm a severe part-timer, at best-- but a casual glance suggests EF4-- for the reasons you cited.

Back on the topic (and sorry I dragged it off a little)... What is the estimated EF rating for the Tuscaloosa event? I am sure it's discussed above, and sorry for asking y'all to rehash-- but it's a big thread. Does it look like an EF4?

It is. I guess I should remember how much CNN sucks anyways--maybe not the best example to use.

I agree it's seriously lame of any American news outlet to not make front-and-center a natural disaster that involves important regional population centers (a la Tuscaloosa) getting devastated.

P.S. MSNBC-- which I know a lot of people here hate-- makes the story the absolute top.