VAwxman

Congrats, but how common is that?

Pretty common in energy too once you get in.

First EF5 rating out. And it's NOT for the storm that tracked from Tuscaloosa -> Birmingham. If true, this outbreak will rank greater than 1974 IMO.

How so?

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

Amazing image. Crazy to see how long the track of this thing was.

I didn't clearly state my point... so allow me to do so here.

The weather behind this event cannot be compared to the weather from 1974. It's not a discussion that's relevant or adds value to the trauma and carnage that happened yesterday.

If you want to say the weather system in 74' was more widespread - that's accurate.

And, the energy behind my original response to you was meant to say 'bring this elsewhere.' Any post that tries to compare a historic event to the events that unfolded in the last three days isn't really giving the respect to what happened and what's still happening.

Why bring that in here when your knowledge could clearly analyze, compare and dissect the events that happened THIS year - not 1974. Let's give this some time before we look back to comparing any part of this to 74.' More value in looking at what's going on today...

It's just my opinion.

You are free to your opinion and I would never say otherwise, but...

This is a weather board and I and I am criticized for discussing things from a meteorological perspective?

I'm not the one who brought up the 1974 stuff. I only commented on it. Sorry you are offended by weather talk on a weather board.

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.

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.

Meteorologically, yesterday, to me, still does not compare to 1974. Yes I know the deaths may, which IS more impressive given the technology of today, but from a meteo perspective, while yesterday looked like the best setup I have ever tracked, it doesn't quite measure up to something that could spawn simulaneous F5s 1000 miles apart. That is something that is even harder to fathom in my view, again just from the met perspective.

I have followed many big tornado outbreaks over the past dozen years, and this was the first one in which I was genuinely fearful in the day or two preceding the event. This one really scared me. I didn't say that directly in any of my posts, as I'd much rather stick to the cold hard analysis of the event and leave much of the drama and emotional side out of it. Probably some of you were able to read between the lines anyways. But in any case, starting on Monday and going into Tuesday evening/overnight, this felt different from the other outbreaks.

I couldn't agree more. I made the comment to a buddy of mine (sarwx here on the boards) before leaving work Monday that there was a completely different feeling... not the usual anticipation / excitement, but fear. You just knew the potential was up there. It definitely looked like the most dangerous setup I personally had ever seen a couple of days out.

The case for La Nina favoring lots of severe continues to grow. This year is setting all sorts of records, 2008 was huge, 1999 had some big outbreaks, 1974...

Throw 1965 in there as well.

Chad Meyers was completely hideous when they had him on briefly on Anderson Cooper at 10PM last night; he basically proclaimed the outbreak "over" because the "atmosphere was cooling."

I think roughly 20 people were killed after 10PM last night.

Well in that case, I up CNN's grade then. It's good they didn't have him on more if he really said something stupid like that. Kudos to them.

Far more people in this country care about the wedding than these tornadoes; it's simple ratings.

Maybe. I sure don't know any of them. And apparently none of my friends know any either, though to be fair there is a bias since, naturally, most of my friends are into weather.

I will say that TWC did a great job yesterday (I had not watched their programming in my years). The Bryan Norcross/Greg Forbes team were very informative and hopefully this positive trend will continue from that organization.

Yeah stellar job by TWC. They acted as a weather channel should act.

Really was surprised by the news channels. Big "F" for them from what I saw at least, but I didn't have them on the whole time of course since TWC was a ton better.

I give special kudos to Fred Gossage, TornadoTony, and CUmet who never really wavered from what they believed was a historic event.

One positive aspect was that this was pretty obvious from over a week out, from the perspective of great potential being there, no doubt.

I want to reiterate that the coverage out of ABC 33/40 today has been outstanding, and their message has probably saved many lives.

Yes, that is just stellar coverage. Top notch. I'm VERY impressed with those guys.

Red's been issued once before, on 4/7/06. They will issue the red if multiple tornadoes have been dropped down and are dropping down at 20Z. Prolly won't issue it before hand though.

Right. I imagine they'd never roll out the 60% contour until stuff was already ongoing, which is most likely in a 20Z outlook. 45% is pretty dang stout.

hello there 45% tor contour

Wow... only second time I recall seeing that.

Yeah, doesn't make sense to declare a bust at 12:15 PM EDT / 11:15 AM CDT. Lots of day left.

Well no one with any credibility forecast anything to 1974's level, so technically there can be no bust on something not forecast.

And I don't think he's declaring bust on the event, but just the comparison to 1974 by a couple of posters.

I was pretty sure when I woke up I'd see a few posts questioning today just because Tuesday was perceived as an underperformer, though you guys wound up making it into a pretty good discussion. In my view, Monday did not underperform. Tuesday may have been less than expected, but the best parameters were never supposed to come together until late in the evening, which isn't the most favorable time of day, and by then enough stuff was already out there that you got more of a "mess". Today has always, to me, looked the most favorable, if we get the current convection out of the way, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully for all in its path it will underperform, but no one should let their guard down just because of yesterday (to be fair I don't think anyone here said that though).

Ugh... I think we beat this into the ground. Can we all just sit back and see what happens?

The surface low was gradually filling in that case. This time we will have a deepening surface low. As others have said, there are some similarities on the larger scale and the threat area is quite similar to 1974. Other than that, I'd be really hesitant to say that this will be as bad as that...you'd be wrong at least 999 times out of 1000. It's sorta one of those things that you just have to let play out.

Right. Even if the setup is close to identical synoptically, so much has to work out just perfectly for the same result as far as number of tornadoes, etc. I'd also argue that, given the detection methods and spotter networks we have now, the real total in 1974 was likely easily over 148. Someday we may well see 140 in one outbreak again, due to that alone. Interesting for discussion's sake though.

I certainly see why SPC didn't want to pull the "high" trigger yet. Models do show the storms hanging around into tomorrow, but I wonder if, as happens a lot, the storms move faster than progged and clear out. Nonetheless, on a day two outlook, I see the logic in refraining for now.

Thank you. It looked to me like West Tennessee might be spared given the timing and the lack of precipitation on Tuesday evening on the 12z GFS, but it may be that there is convective precipitation that is not picked up by the model.

Yeah I tend to ignore where model QPF is and just focus more on where the parameters look strongest. Obvioulsly 78-84 hours out, much can change though.

On what evening?

Oops. Forgot to mention the day... Was looking at Tuesday evening.

Not that I need to repeat what some other great severe wx posters have already mentioned here, but the setup as shown by the GFS is as alarming as any I have seen on modeling in a long time. The LLJ is well out in front of the trailing cold front, and the upper level 500 mb jet punches squarely into the warm sector as opposed to staying near / parallel to the incoming cold front. The 250 mb jet structure is also ideal, as some areas are in both the right rear quad of the departing disturbance, and the left front quad of the stronger incoming one. Also, the GFS shows capping weakening by the evening over AR into western TN, which would spell trouble given storm mode could easily be supercellular / tornadic that far ahead of the front. Will be interesting to say the least to monitor future runs and see how this trends.

Glad to see a thread on this. Obviously this far out, we cannot get concerned with pinpointing specifics like boundaries and position of low / upper level jets, but given that I think the teleconnections favor the trough ejecting out of the west with a fairly broad base (as many model runs show) and we will have widespread 60+ dews in the eastern half of the nation, that is a recipe for potential trouble, no doubt.

That average is skewed by the few who work on large-market TV stations.

Someone posted an article some time ago that said the 80K or whatever was actually the median salary, not the average. The median would not allow it to be skewed by the higher paid folks on TV, high level NWS, or energy jobs, but I have a hard time believing that is actually the median salary for a met.