OceanStWx

QPF queens getting the shaft in a different way than normal tonight. Mid levels were screaming east, east, east... Funny how it's responded in the QPF time as we head closer to the storm. Upton must have been spending too much time rip and reading qpf.

Makes it real hard to collaborate a pretty map when you get one office running nude through the streets.

This is probably an exercise in futility considering most people around here, but folks really need to beware of some caution flags. I'm not saying this won't be a great storm, but locking in record totals from NYC through BOS is dangerous. If you check BOX's experimental snowfall graphics, their most likely total is only an inch or two lower than the maximum, and 10-15 inches higher in some cases than their minimum. That to me says it all. We (as an organization) got a little carried away and started forecasting totals too close to the maximum possible rather than the most likely.

I like thinking about it in terms of the HPC graphics. I can't post graphics right now for whatever reason, but in essence 3 out of 4 forecasts are greater than 18 inches, and 3 out of 4 forecasts are less than 27 inches. There's maybe the range you should be thinking about, rather than 24-36 inches.

Missed this at the time - but take a look at the dual pol data from the Feb blizzard off OKX. Above the freezing layer (note bright band in CC) the positive/negative streaks of ZDR are depolarization streaks.

 

Atmosphere was so highly electrified the ice crystals were aligning with the electric field vector. 

 

Pretty sweet.

 

This is the 3.4 deg tilt so the top of the bright band is ~5kft and the depolarization streaks (normally seen in the anvils of thunderstorms) are above 8kft. The high amount of graupel and small hail in the clouds from convection was able to electrify the clouds enough for this fun. 

Nice catch, and excellent use of depolarization.

I know, it was a once or twice-in-a lifetime kind of event. Less snow in 1978 but the drifts (and wind) made up for it. Hopefully we'll get something like that again.

 

I could almost see the "hail sleet" being a sleet/hail combo where the vertical motion (and convection) was intense enough to produce sneaky warm layers via latent heat release and the vertical motion was suspending sleet pellets and you were getting riming of supercooled water that refroze on the sleet pellet (like hail growth) or in some cases fusing sleet pellets together. 

 

The dual pol products from OKX show all sorts of weird stuff going on with mixing/melting layers just popping up all over the place but generally focused in a N/S band from just east of OKX north into Tolland County right along the eastern edge of that superband where convergence in low levels was very strong and some upright convection was taking place. 

 

If anyone has any other ideas/theories please join in!

 

I'd like to save a bunch of the dual pol screen grabs and make them into a movie file so you all can see. 

I would have a hard time believing true sleet (i.e. total melting even with latent heating going on). It's not unprecedented though, as the Groundhog Day blizzard in 2011 saw similar reports in northern Illinois.

And if lightning was as prolific last winter as in 2011 I would have to imagine at least some graupel production would be going on to generate those kind of charge separations necessary. If truly intense upgright convection formed, I could envision a scenario where enough super-cooled water was lofted to form hail from these suspended graupel particles.

The best one I seen was when Teammobeu trained me...we were launching around 55 mph. The sonde smacked the ground twice....then one of our little tracking buildings....and in all three occasions it was like watching someone come flying off the top ropes on WWE....thing had no tone...thought it was dead....and when we got back to the office it was transmitting. I smacked one off the ground 2 weeks ago...winds were only 7kt so I used the appropriate length of string...then right as I released we gusted over 20....figures....successful flight up to about 8mb....but for me....BRING ON THOSE 920mb lows with 100mph....

I think my best involved a strong clipper. We got about a quarter inch of solid glaze ice and winds were sustained 35 gusting to 45/50 mph behind the system for the evening launch. Now our UA building has doors that face north and south, so a westerly wind is basically pick your poison for which door to attempt to run out. I set the sonde up outside in an easy position for my free hand to grab it, because I know the balloon is going to catch the wind right away. This is something I had done many times before. So I come out the door and now the balloon grabs the wind and I'm being dragged down the ice with absolutely no traction to stop. I slide right past the sonde and end up crawling on my hands and knees to get back to it. After all that effort the balloon still got caught in an eddy and the sonde ended up bouncing.

I mean that balloon is never going to lift you off the ground, but without traction is will take you for a ride. I can only imagine how it reacts once you're over hurricane force.

Thanks Baro....but you get proficient in high wind launches very quickly out here....I don't even get excited now unless above 65mph....can't wait to launch in 80+ mph.

Those high wind launches are always your best stories, and the ones you'll remember. Though I can honestly say I never had the pleasure of even approaching 65 mph.

I thought of two days immediately when I saw this with one being the Roanoke day that Hoosier mentioned and the other being 8/4/08 from DVN and ILX roab soundings with the 2nd one from ILX just huge....the most I've ever seen, amazing.

My first day of work at DVN, I remember I came back in to assist with the evening launch and comms. I remember wondering what I got myself into when the temps around 00z were close to 85/80.

Funny though that 6/18/09 immediately popped into my head when I saw the question, despite this sounding having the higher CAPE values.

I know in the other thread OceanStWx was saying the higher ups, higher than the director of the NWS even, was asking why so many people died. If it was higher than the director of the NWS that tells me its either the Commerce Secy (since the NWS is in the Commerce Dept) or its the President himself. Therefore we are going to see some changes made but I don't know what could have been done in storms of this magnitude and storms that were so prevalent in such heavily populated areas. I do think its a decent idea to consider though sending out authorities with intercoms on the cars alerting people a tornado is coming and to take shelter, especially with a long lead time and when the power is out- but perhaps I am not thinking everything through.

Well I'm not sure the reaction extended that far up the chain, but my guess is that politicians were leaning heavily on department and agency heads for answers as to why so many people died. These politicians of course had no prior knowledge regarding the forecast/warnings and just see the end result.

The service assessment began this week, and what I'm personally hoping comes out of it is a focus on preparedness and response/action. Some of these deaths were inevitable, but I also feel that a number (probably significant) of them could have been spared with better preparedness leading up to and better response during the event.

I don't trust Environment Canada tornado ratings. Most of the time they confirm tornadoes over the phone with possibly a picture or two of damage emailed to them. All the damage pictures I've seen from Elie MB show roofs off houses and pine trees on their side. But then again, I'm no expert.

I attended a conference where one of the surveyors gave a presentation on rating the Elie tornado. It was interesting how they went about it. Even though it directly impacted some man made structures they didn't feel like they had enough information to go on. They ended up using video (from a tripod) to track debris of known size to determine wind speed. Regardless, great thought, effort and care went into that rating.

Are you saying NWS HQ is not happy with the local WFO performance? I ask because I would find that baffling.

Higher than HQ from what I understand, as in "what did we do wrong to have so many people die?"

Edit: I do, however, think we should question how we can keep fewer people from dying. But I don't necessarily think anything was done wrong.

It definitely wasn't... the two tornadoes were spawned by different supercells.

However, there was a different EF3+ that went through Marion County that killed 6 in that county... that may have been a continuation of the Smithville tornado.

In addition to two other EF3s that went through Marion County.

It is worth mentioning that power was out all day over this entire area. The older portable Tvs don't work anymore, and only one chattanooga radio station broke coverage for warnings. So basically if you didn't have a battery powered weather radio, you would not have known a thing. I live a couple of miles north of ringgold and west of Apison, and I had no clue what was going on because the batteries in my weather radio were dead.

I understand that infrastructure was compromised from morning convection, but this is my opportunity to preach preparedness. Many large events are often preceded by morning convection, some of which is severe and does damage. Especially with an event as well forecast as this, I don't think there should be thousands of people being caught off guard. A $20 weather radio with back up batteries can go a long way. For every inconvenience of being woken up in the middle of the night for a false alarm, there is a life saved and that's worth it.

I know it pains me to hear these stories about "no warning" when in reality it was not receiving a warning. I can't imagine how it feels for the many, many warning forecasters out there who issued good warnings but had people perish anyway. I have already heard some disturbing reactions from the higher ups in DC, and it will be very interesting to see how the service assessment plays out. Will it be a blame game or will we actually figure out some new ways to reach people and disseminate the message.

I plotted the beginning and end lat/lon in Google Earth. The end point is about 10 miles from the AL border. It also shows the tornado traveling SW to NE. Based on this, it appears as if it was a separate tornado track.

I see what you're saying now, but still seems odd to me to have a tornado that short produce damage that extreme. Truly a violent vortex if that's the case.

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

My guess is that this is the path length in the CWA only. If you check out a map, it is roughly 3 miles to the AL border. That information will likely be updated for final storm data purposes, once HUN finishes their surveys.

Paraphrasing a FEMA administrator in Tuscaloosa, they haven't even gotten to the damage in northern Alabama yet (i.e. Hackleburg, Phil Campbell, Decatur, etc.).

Yeah, I just found the warning. I think it was on the CBS morning show (that's on at like 3-4 AM) that I saw the report and the reporter said "and they had no warning"

As did the latest CNN interview I saw. Leading them into the answer by asking if they heard, "any alarms before the tornado hit." I appreciate the hell on Earth they just went through, but Ringgold, GA was struck hours into the event. I don't understand how this could take people by surprise, to the point that they were outside when the tornado hit and they only ran inside when they saw a neighbor's roof come off.

I have had some people on my Weather or Knot blog comment that saying in their home town of Taft, Tennessee, debris from the Hackelburg AL tornado actually fell in their town.

Totally believable, as that supercell tracked all the way over the border.

Was the Cullman tornado warned after it had already touched down? I saw a news report where they said there was no warning.

I have no knowledge of whether it was or not, but I would lean towards warned because these signatures were just so apparent. I certainly hope that wasn't the case.

Unfortunately, there will be a lot of "no warning" reports in the next couple of days despite the fact that there was a high risk, long lead PDS watch, and long lead warnings with aggressive wording.

The heart of the outbreak, I guess over Alabama.

The hours covering 21z/27 - 00z/28 will include the tornado that hit both Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.

I was out for the entire day yesterday. What would be the best radar and time period to look at when downloading archives?

For what specifically? The extreme part of the outbreak lasted well over 8 hours.

CNN had one of their field reporters bring up a great point that adds to the complexity of the damage assessments. Some of these piles of rubble, did not originate from the nearest foundation. Some of these were just deposited there, and it takes time to figure out whether it came from there or somewhere else.

Agree, I think that aerial video of the track through Tuscaloosa is just jaw-dropping.

You know what struck me (besides the obvious devastation down the middle) were the strips of damage that most likely were associated with vorticies rotating around the main funnel. We know these were occurring from the various videos out there, and the damage seems to confirm that these were also very strong, to no ones surprise.

Forbes was pretty telling on NBC. He described what he think could be spots of EF5 damage as he flew over Tuscaloosa.

Being a student of Fujita, I would say he's got a pretty sound base of knowledge on the subject. I remember his assessment while in Atlanta as he viewed damage in Yazoo City was excellent.

Ha! Still Relevant...

We can quibble about the exact wind speed, but the poster criticizing me misses the main point. We know by all accounts that both Xenia and Guin were hit by a large and very powerful tornado. My point was that getting a setup conducive for tornadoes of that kind at the same time so far away from each other is hard to fathom. I think that point still stands regardless of what we knew about rating tornadoes back then and what we think we know now.

Couldn't agree more, considering how rare an event they are in the first place having those ingredients come together covering that great a distance is awe inspiring.

The Fujita scale was a wind scale. Fujita linked up the Beaufort scale with the Mach scale. The F-scale actually went to F12 (Mach 1) but F6 was considered inconeivable (nor would resulting damage be recognizable from F5). Since wind could not be directly measured it was inferred based on damage. Even Fujita, before his death, realized his scale was not relevent to cheaply built suburban housing, hence the EF scale.

Thank you for clearing up my error, I knew that didn't sound right as I was typing it.

The fact remains that the wind speeds are determined from damage, and the damage that occurred in 1974 is what is being compared to this event. In fact one could argue that poorly built structures 36 years ago might have been rated lower with the current EF scale not higher.

I also apologize if this discussion no longer belongs in this thread, it seems to have taken quite the tailspin since I left work.

several local on air mets were saying that indeed going by just the storm reports, but it is clear that the storm cycled and a new tornado MAY have formed just east of BHM ..but of course it's possible it could of merged with the old one....

The tornado was warpped in rain and the couplet weakned for a few scans before going nuts again

I would tend to agree that it lifted east of Birmingham and put down a new one before hitting Rome, GA. However, the damage assessment could ultimately prove me wrong.