Macintosh

2 minutes ago, Witness Protection Program said:

I cannot believe the asshats at The (sometimes) Weather Channel cut away from live programming to the Storm Stories bullshit.

Stop being surprised. Happens every time. 

12 minutes ago, Moderately Unstable said:

Yeah. It was my error. Though I remain confused.  (https://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd03041004s042005curr.pdf): For a power failure to take down an office, it would have to take out the generator. Both the office, and the radar, are supposed to have backup power in the event of commercial power failure (https://www.weather.gov/media/bro/pdf/PressReleaseNEXRADGeneratorSLEP_BRO.pdf). So, something isn't adding up for me. Was that offline for them? Was there storm damage to the generators? Etc.

I am in the generator industry which is why I’m here. Generators are notoriously hard to maintain and a severe, and I mean very severe, shortage of technicians means there is frequently no expertise available to maintain them or fix problems. My bet is on generator failure and probably multiple sites. 

A significant percentage of the cars, buses and subway trains in NYC metro have just been ruined by flood waters. Got to be hundreds of thousands of cars flooded out. In the midst of a tremendous shortage of new cars because of chip crisis. Epic disaster. 

25/14/10

6 minutes ago, audioguy3107 said:

It’s going to be entering the southern Atlanta suburbs in the next hour.  If it holds together.  Yikes.

Airport is on south side. 

3 minutes ago, SluggerWx said:

So much has already happened today when I didn't think we'd be discussing debris signatures until dark/after dark. It's scary to think about all this being a precursor to a stronger event within the next few hours...

Tons of convection and rain all over Alabama at present.  Hard to believe there could be this much activity now and still have a risk for later tonight.  Would think the atmosphere is getting worked over pretty well at this point, but not seeing any indication of that.

4 hours ago, andyhb said:

There's more to a "historic" tornado outbreak than just parameters. My biggest concern as of now is early convection mitigating the threat, especially if the warm front has more difficulty lifting north than forecast.

UK and Euro are consistent in a fairly ominous solution, but they also were for 3/28.

April 27, 2011 through Huntsville AL... significant morning severe activity over the same areas did nothing to negate the afternoon activity. Wish it had. 
 

Thank God you're ok, JoMo. All of Missouri is thinking of you and your town. Here in Perryville they set up a donation center and put Joplin Relief on the big sign marquee out front. We'll try and help as much as we can.

Looking at Piotrowski's video, at times you can hardly tell it's a tornado but a huge mass of boiling black clouds. Move this with a forward speed of 69 mph and you have some idea of what the people in 1925 must have seen. Incidentally, a 20 minute leadtime is excellent for a mesoscale event of only 9 minute's or so duration.

Steve

The lead times are fine. It's the response delay time that needs improving. That is, how long it takes to implement whatever plan of action one wishes to implement.

Created new thread for the building code vs. liberty issue. Please join if interested. I will have fun tearing the subject up in Off Topic.

http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/17861-building-codes-vs-liberty-a-heated-debate/

How the heck would having something be recquire in your house that would keep you safe infringe upon your liberty?

I'm all for liberty, but I'm not all for allowing people to be stupid.

Do you have kids? Would you put your liberty to not have a safe room or underground shelter above their safety?

Then you're not for liberty. Not as many of us define liberty. The fallicy is to think that one can legislate away stupidity. It can't be done, and in the process of trying we create a horrific system in which we lose our dignity, self-determination, and sense of purpose. I have a safe room, and of my own accord I keep up with the weather and the dangers of the world.

This discussion really has gotten off topic, but as of yet I haven't seen any mods complaining. Nevertheless I think we should probably move this to another thread.

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.

We dare defend our liberty.

A saferoom clearly did its job, the home is destroyed, but the family is safe. Every new build in Tornado Alley and Dixie Alley should be mandated as part of the permit with a safe room or underground shelter.

My liberty to make my own decisions is worth more than my life, thank you.

As F-5 said, there's a difference in response depending on how much information you have and your existing knowledge. One of my biggest complaints about weather coverage on TV and society in general is the herd mentality. We are programmed to think that all instructions must come from a central authority and that authority is not to be questioned. For our own safety we must do as we are told. While this arrangement might work pretty well on average, it's not a good idea to follow the voice of the telescreen blindly.

Here's the deal. We all have sovereignty as individuals. We should all make our own decisions. If I had a debris ball headed straight for me with 15 minutes warning, I'd probably consider leaving town. But even for experienced storm watchers with access to high res radar data, there is uncertainty in the track and position of tornadoes. That, coupled with the fact that you are leaving all shelter behind when you get in a car, makes the decision more difficult. I lean heavily towards hunker-in-the-bunker rather than warp-nine-just-in-time.

I'll put in my two cents here.....I live in the southern part of Birmingham and I am weather literate. I knew far in advance that any tornado that formed yesterday had the potential to do incredible damage. Even though I live in a well-built brick home with a basement, my policy on days like yesterday is to get the hell out of dodge if a strong circulation is coming my way and maintains a good radar sig for several scans. Right after 7pm, after the monster had roared through town, a tornado was spotted on the ground about 30 miles from me and heading my way. My house was in the center of the warning cone. A tornado emergency had been issued by BMX. I got the kids in the car and went 3-4 miles north on Hwy 280 towards Birmingham to achieve what I knew was a safe distance. Hwy 280 is the busiest road in the state and it was virtually deserted. We drove at a safe speed, obeyed traffic laws and had no problem getting to safe ground.

I would do it again every time.

However, if James Spann had told people to do exactly what I knew to do, the roads would have clogged immediately and thousands of people would have been exposed to grave danger. We need to separate what is common sense to weather savvy folks from what would cause the general public to panic.

Question. What made you drive north? Given that the cell you mentioned was moving northeast (if memory serves), shouldn't one be driving south or southeast?

I am just speechless looking at these numbers for the coming days

We were hit hard down here today with major damage in my immediate local counties.

Now looking at the numbers for next week - surely this won't verify.

Then the rainfall numbers - we are looking at the event of my lifetime in this area.

Beau, what is interesting to me is the amount of true damage we're seeing. Most of the watches/warnings I've seen the last few years have produced pretty mild tornadoes and some wind gust events. Of course, I'm speaking generally. What i've noticed this last couple of weeks is that we're seeing more actual damage, and severe damage at that. Not just tree limbs and metal barn roofs, but whole buildings destroyed. This isn't scientific, just an observation of mine.

Well< Mac, I have relatives both dead and alive from Anna ne to Marion area. Have been to CAPE many times so I have a strong interest in far southern IL. at this time of year weatherwise especially.

Flooding along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers is going to be intense. Cairo, IL could be in serious trouble.

Use this map only as a rough guide for Monday evening and watch how parameters unfold as we get closer to the event, Mac.

Interesting that you supplied a map with the highest probability spot right over my tiny little Perry County, MO. That's funny.

Now, I'm looking at the track of the low on the 12z GFS. Looks like it passes just a tad north of STL. Where can we expect the highest tornado probability?