HoarfrostHubb

So glad you are safe JoMo.

This SNE snow weenie is glad you are ok

Forgetting for the moment that he very likely has no internet access... really??? Nearly half of his town has been wiped out, he almost certainly knows people that have been killed, and he may have to struggle to get food and clean water. And you assume he should have come right on the board and posted? Get serious.

Look, we all want to hear from him, but we need to give him some time. The good news is that he isn't listed on any lists of fatalities or missing people, if the info we have on him is correct. So let's hope for the best, and respect that he's got more immediate concerns than posting on American.

One of our prominent SNE posters lost phone/power last year after a big snowstorm and he was offline for like a week.

We were a little worried about him and that was just snow.(and he is the biggest snow addict I know)

After what JoMo has been through (assuming he is safe/uninjured) it would take some time to come back online here. Not everyone's biggest passion is posting on AmWx.

Hopefully he is getting rest, eating good food, and drinking some cold beers somewhere.

Great map. As Josh said, amazing that it was so violent and intense and had suck a (relatively) short track.

There was one in eastern MS, near Philadelphia.

Quickdraw McGraw

Was Tuscaloosa ever upgraded to an EF5?

I see people referencing 4 EF5s, but I can only think of Hackleburg, Smithville and Joplin so far...

Philadelphia, Mississippi was the other

also on April 27

Possibly 2 today (obviously before NWS survey, just based on watching feeds and what some of the chasers/tv mets have said)

This is the year of the EF5

1500 still missing?

Probably just the chaos but that can't be good

You stay for a 3/4/5 I am out, my decision.

I'm worried many in our (well, more like your, but you know where my mom is) area have grown complacent since 1938.

I go over the evac procedures each year with my family that live in that area. They know they can come up here, but will they??

Fatalities are so high because there was no place to hide from an absolute beast that was unprecedented in Joplin. Luckily there are not hundreds more dead, total devastation.

I know that the fire chief's house was destroyed, but do we know how bad emergency services were hit?

That debris that was picked up on radar was sick

Debris up to almost 20K feet

IIRC the main high school in Joplin took a direct hit, but everyone was at a graduation ceremony off-campus when the tornado struck, which would be very fortunate.

Yeah, the HS is pretty much destroyed. Was just reading their facebook posts...

Big mess for the school district. Good thing graduation was at the college/earlier in the day

Remaining schools and the college being used as shelters, etc

I am always terrified of what happens when a big tornado hits a school while it is in session. The video from the helicopter clearly shows several schools destroyed, one of which looked like the high school or voc school.

Any reports if any of the deaths were at the hospital? The structure itself looked mostly intact, even if it was all blown out. The cars/helicopter, etc showed it was hit pretty bad.

The two previous posts by wxmann and CapeFear made good points.

A more recent comparison is the Tuscaloosa tornado last month. Both were relatively close in strength, both went to cities of comparable size and the total damage area is each community looks to be somewhat similar (Tuscaloosa storm carved a longer path as the city is somewhat larger but the Joplin storm may have been a bit wider). The Joplin storm hit more tightly packed blocks of single family residences whereas in Tuscaloosa more damage was done to apartments. Hopefully we can get an idea of the number of people in the core damage path in Joplin (it was about 6,000 people in Tuscaloosa). Tuscaloosa storm was better warned, more visible and awareness was more hightened in general. Neither of the too community had many dwelling with basments. Mobile homes are a non factor in either case. Tuscalossa was a weekend, Joplin a Sunday.

All variables that will have to be examined as do why so many more died in Joplin.

Maybe this was the biggest factor? I dunno... this will be examined in many ways over the next few months/years

Nasty time

Live news conference on CNN

Just unbelievable

MSNBC has that number as well...

What a terrible year this has been

I made a mistake on one of those posts... Worcester had 94 fatalities...

Another report I read had a quote from the governor saying that the storm was so loud that people could not likely hear the sirens.

Was this storm particularly fast moving? I have only so far seen one "on the ground" video from a chaser and it seemed to be tracking rather quickly. Would this contribute to more fatalities somehow?

90 fatalities so far, tying Worcester 1953... possibly many more to be found. Very sad

X rays from St. John's hospital found 70 miles away as per CNN article

Sounds like, anecdotally, this one caught a lot of folks there off guard. Makes sense, Sunday night, people maybe less likely to be near a TV or the internet, family stuff going on, just not clued in to the approaching danger. Sounded like that from at least a few of the interviews I caught this morning while flipping around the dial. Saw one mention that this cell kind of "blew up" from not much to that over a short time period. If so, maybe that added to the surprise factor. Have not had a chance to go back and look at the maps of it as it developed yet and god knows how reliable the reports are on the major news stations, but that was some of the soundbites I caught.

On one of the networks (TWC?) Al Roker was at the hospital site and was saying he talked to a nurse who was on the 6th floor. They had been told a twister might be there in 15-20 minutes and it arrived in less than 5 minutes.

Seemed to surprise people.

Awful awful scenes. Can't believe this year.

Good luck to those in the area

Bump, Euro today Nov 29 th , at 168 depicted a replay

I can't get it to load... I get an error... I will figure it out.

MLK seems to give us snow pretty often (or bitter cold)

Good skiing other than the crowds

Here is part 2 of the MLK 2009 dual event

Come to think of it maybe I'm thinking of the 2/23 storm which gave Will near a foot and I ended up with like 4 inches.

2/23-24 of 2010 gave this area a foot - 14" of snow then turned to rain... instant cement.

The pic is from 1/18/2009 Part of a medium 1-2 punch

That 1/18 storm was the wettest snow in recent years. 4.8" at my lower elevation. Followed by 2" the next day

Wonder if I snapped a shear pin with that one LOL (hence the shovel standing, mocking me in the cement!)