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1979 Windsor Locks Tornado


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I just saw on Twitter that Quincy pulled some great aerial video from WTNH of the '79 tornado in Windsor Locks.

 

http://www.wxedge.com/articles/20131003aerial_footage_of_windsor_locks_tornado

 

This video appears to be from Poquonock where the subdivision just east of Rt 75 was leveled. Pretty clear F4 damage. 

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Have to imagine it was a relatively low CAPE/high shear setup along the warm front that lead to the kind of sig tor setup you see in Dixie Alley in the winter. 

 

I really wonder how much Cape was actually there.  From what I've heard, the sun actually came out and the atmosphere really warmed and given the high dews and 500mb temps were on the chilly side so it wouldn't shocked me if Capes boosted into the 1500 J/KG range, which given the setup is quite significant.  

 

That supercell though was a monster for a very long time, exhibiting rotation even when it was still south of Long Island!

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I would be willing to bet that at the time of tornadogenesis some of those numbers were much different.  I think 0-1km helicity was likely much higher, given the channeling southerly flow and 40 knots of effective shear is pretty darn impressive.  I also think 0-3km lapse rates may have been a bit steeper along with elevated instability given the presence of sun which poked through.

 

Those are incredible maps though, never saw those on NARR before.

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I would be willing to bet that at the time of tornadogenesis some of those numbers were much different.  I think 0-1km helicity was likely much higher, given the channeling southerly flow and 40 knots of effective shear is pretty darn impressive.  I also think 0-3km lapse rates may have been a bit steeper along with elevated instability given the presence of sun which poked through.

 

Those are incredible maps though, never saw those on NARR before.

Good points. I wonder how SST's were. I retrieved the maps from the CIPS Analog site...changed the dates in the URL's...didn't expect it to work, but apparently it does all the way back to 1979.

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Good points. I wonder how SST's were. I retrieved the maps from the CIPS Analog site...changed the dates in the URL's...didn't expect it to work, but apparently it does all the way back to 1979.

 

I would have to think the SST's were running above-average, how much I wouldn't even know what to guess, but given dews were able to get up to 70F, is one indication they had to be up there b/c if they were cooler you would think it would be more difficult to get those dews into the region and there has to be enough Cape in the lower levels in order to get a tornado of that strength, putting shear/kinetics/dynamics aside and having above-average SST's would certainly be a positive yield into obtaining higher low-level Cape values.  Apparently, that supercell was quite impressive over Long Island Sound as well and they notified the NWS at BDL of strong rotation over the sound.  

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I would be willing to bet that at the time of tornadogenesis some of those numbers were much different.  I think 0-1km helicity was likely much higher, given the channeling southerly flow and 40 knots of effective shear is pretty darn impressive.  I also think 0-3km lapse rates may have been a bit steeper along with elevated instability given the presence of sun which poked through.

 

Those are incredible maps though, never saw those on NARR before.

 

Yeah the grid for that is fairly coarse... but more importantly you have 40+ knots of 0-6km bulk shear and surface based instability. Along the warm front (take a look at BDL obs through the day) you probably had some very impressive 0-1km turning. 

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Good points. I wonder how SST's were. I retrieved the maps from the CIPS Analog site...changed the dates in the URL's...didn't expect it to work, but apparently it does all the way back to 1979.

 

Take a look at the paper by Bosart et al from the early 80s about it... plenty of details in there about it. 

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Yeah the grid for that is fairly coarse... but more importantly you have 40+ knots of 0-6km bulk shear and surface based instability. Along the warm front (take a look at BDL obs through the day) you probably had some very impressive 0-1km turning. 

 

0-1km shear values were probably exceeding 200-250 m2s2 and perhaps upwards of 300 m2s2 which is quite insane when matched with other favorable parameters.  Not to mention height falls were up there too

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0-1km shear values were probably exceeding 200-250 m2s2 and perhaps upwards of 300 m2s2 which is quite insane when matched with other favorable parameters.  Not to mention height falls were up there too

 

Yeah it was a very unusual setup but with strong shear and dew points near 20C south of the warm front that was all you needed. I'm guessing the 0-1km and 0-3km shear values were extremely strong in vicinity of the warm front. 

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Take a look at the paper by Bosart et al from the early 80s about it... plenty of details in there about it. 

Just looked up the .PDF. Looks like a good read, could probably learn a thing or two from it. The fact that one of our strongest tornadoes was in early October says about that day.

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Was there another TOR NE of HFD that day? I saw a map today that had a TOR triangle over what looked like Vernon or Ellington area

The BDL tornado was the only confirmed tornado in CT that day.  And actually, that was the only tornado in CT that year.

 

That tornado occurred in what was a "dormant" lull in tornadic activity for CT.  

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This map here shows another TOR in Ct that day

 

screen-shot-2011-10-03-at-2-14-10-pm.png

Severe Weather Reports 10/3/79

 

My dad was living in Rockville at the time, and always talks about a rotating "tornado cloud" he saw on his way home that day around 4:30pm.  He said that the cloud was spinning around quickly, but not moving towards the ground at that time.  Sounds like it was maybe a funnel?

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