Posts Tagged ‘Tornado’

Here is radar of the tornado rated EF-0 near Crowley, LA where some structures were damaged.  This tornado was very weak and short lived but did produce about 3 injuries.

This shot is the second and stronger tornado that occurred in Rayne, LA on the NW side of town.  Estimates are that 60 homes have been completely destroyed and at least 50 injuries have been observed with some serious.  One person has been confirmed dead with unconfirmed reports of more.  Gas leaks have been reported and officials have been unable to get into some of the damaged areas due to debris and the threat of gas leaking.  Much of Rayne has been evacuated due to these threats.  This was one serious beat on radar a little earlier this morning. 

Thankfully, we won’t deal with anything like this across Alabama today.  Most of the rainfall will be out of here by late tonight and the front will move through North and Central Alabama calmly.  A tornado watch is in effect along the AL/FL Gulf Coast until 10PM this evening for the threat of an isolated tornado down that way.  Instability is much less than it was in Louisiana earlier….so the threat of major tornadoes has greatly diminished.

On Monday 2/28/11 we departed our central Alabama location at 3am en route to North Alabama for what looked to be a good chase day.  Early on we were cranking up the tunes while driving north bound and entertaining our guests on our StormScapeLIVE stream.  By 5am we were in the Decatur area and decided to exit off and have a good bite to eat with John Brown and Mike Wilhelm at the local Waffle House.  After grabbing a bite to eat we noticed that cells began going up right behind a gravity wave that was traversing north Mississippi and decided to fuel up and head NW. 

We progressed toward the Florence vicinity and noticed a distinct NE component to the storms.  Once we passed Waterloo, AL we observed lighting and some light rain but no real evidence of severe weather.  Thus, we backed off and went back into Florence and waited for later action.  After watching another storm weaken and go to our north from there we decided to head back to the interstate and make a play on later storms that were scheduled to form.  Just before noon storms began going to severe in Western Lauderdale and Colbert County.  We strategized and decided to go northward toward Athens and take the exit and drive in the direction of Rogersville just across the river and into Lauderdale county.  We noticed some evidence of rotation along Us-72 and took SR-207 northward to follow the developing storm.  Once we made it to Anderson the storm accelerated to our east and we were unable to really catch it.   After taking SR-99 eastward back towards Athens….we pulled over in the Cartwright community as we heard some kind of a roar with the cell departing to our ENE.  Inflow winds were picking up into the cell as it really ramped up in forward speed and entered Limestone County.  This storm went on to produce a tornado near the state line north of Hazel Green just east of HWY-231. 

After being bummed about missing a tornadic producing cell….we went back to I-65 to catch up with cells that were beginning to fire to the SW along the pre-frontal convergence.  After getting back on I-65 southward we noted that the cells were beginning to develop a little rotation even with the mainly veered low level winds at the surface.  We punched through a cell that had probably 5”/hour rainfall rates and got into position as a “kidney bean” shaped cell approached us at the rest area just south of Good Hope in Cullman County.  Once we got into position and at an elevated location we witnessed this at the beginning of the video.

This funnel was pretty consolidated for a few moments and actually extended probably 1/2 or 3/4 of the way to the ground at times.  Some folks on our stream thought they witnessed a touch down, but we can’t find any video evidence that would suggest that at all.  This was really the best cell that we caught on this day.

After intercepting the Cullman cell….we tracked south to the I-20/59 interchange and headed west.  This was a bad move on our part and put us too far north to get into the significant wind/hail that impacted parts of the Birmingham metro.  We got off at US-78 which mainly received heavy rain from the cell.

We sat there for a few moments in traffic gridlock and finally made it back to I-65 south bound heading toward the cells in Jefferson/Shelby.  We finally came out of the embedded rainfall while listening to all of the traffic on the 146.88 repeater out of Birmingham.  The reports of golf ball to tennis ball sized hail were pouring in and we figured that we may get lucky and get some rotation in the updraft base on the south side.  Once we got out of the core, we saw some rotation around the Shelby County airport.  We figured it was our last play of the day and decided to take the HWY-25 exit toward Columbiana/Wilsonville.  We saw a disorganized wall cloud a few times along the way with some higher base rotation, but the main show was further east with the Harpersville cell as a tornado warning was issued with damage being reported. 

We were unable to catch the cell, so we followed the rotational path of the cell that impacted Shelby/Talladega county and found the tornado damage located at the end of our video above.  The damage as all mainly minor, but looked like this on radar.

With veering winds throughout the event, you can’t ask for a much better day.  Instability was able to get storms fueled as the cap broke and the convergence kept them coming through the afternoon.  Had the winds stayed back…. a high end tornado outbreak would have unfolded.  Keep in mind that this is early spring and we still have a ways to go.

New Years Eve 2010 will go down as one of the most active weather days on New Year’s Eve ever.  As of 1:30AM on 1/2/2011….7 Deaths have been reported from the tornado event.  6 EF-3’s and 4 EF-2’s have been surveyed across the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Mississippi as well….some of which were long track.  We will get into the analysis of why the event was so much more devastating than forecast along with some shots of the Jackson, MS tornado from the VIPIR/FasTRAC radar systems from Baron Services.

First….I will start with a few images from the morning of the 31st.  The 12z upper air analysis charts revealed a pretty dangerous weather scenario that was about to take shape.

Looking at the above 500mb chart….you can see a very powerful negative tilt shortwave rotating around the upper low across portions of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas with the apex of the troughing around Tulsa, OK at 7am CST.   Also indicated is a very fast mid level flow with 50-80 knots across most of OK/KS out of the southwest.  Consistent cooling aloft aided in steepening 500-700mb lapse rates rapidly.  The column was also rather dry at H5.

The 250mb chart for the upper atmosphere indicated that massive divergence was beginning to occur across AR/MO in the exit region of a 110+kt upper level jet max plowed into the region.  This would again be another factor in aiding updraft development with a “vacuum” effect aloft for the storm to feed off of….or enhancing the lift.

And we can’t leave out the low level flow at 925mb….or about 3000ft.  This image indicates a low pressure area just off the surface over portions of NE KS with a major temperature gradient developing.  Winds ahead of this low were backed to the S-SSE at the low levels helping create a very favorable shear profile in the lowest 2km of the atmosphere for tornadoes.  The 14C temperatures also helped in boosting CAPE values to levels sufficient to keep thunderstorm updrafts pumping….which allowed several of these tornadoes to become large, destructive, and deadly.

Here is a vertical profile from the morning of 12/31 from the Springfield, MO balloon launch…

This sounding profile shows a small inversion or cap around 800mb.  However, the inversion is very weak and was broken by forced convection, slight cooling/moistening aloft that brought the profile more toward the wet bulb.  Once the storms got into the area….the shear was more than adequate for significant tornadoes given the 550+ m2/s2 shear values in the 0-1km and 0-3km layers.  You will notice that the CAPE is only 423j/kg on this sounding…..but that slight moistening of the column boosted those CAPE values shortly after this sounding.  I’m sure the 75j/kg 3km or low level CAPE was more like 200 j/kg once the cap eroded.  Still, small difference can cause big changes.  The main tornadic activity took place just to the east and north of this sounding location where the atmosphere was a little more moist. 

Thus, given the conditions stated above….these supercells developed in Eastern Oklahoma and traversed through NW Arkansas into Missouri.  This radar capture if of the tornado that hit the Cincinnati, Arkansas community killing 3 as it ripped through town.  This tornado was given a preliminary rating of EF-3.  These same storms continued and cycled through portions of Missouri producing the killer tornadoes in the Springfield county warning area. 

This is an image captured as the supercell produced a tornado at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.  You can see the vortex on the ground doing pretty much total devastation.  Also noted is the horizontal low level vortex just off the ground.  This tells me just how dynamical the system was for this area.  Very impressive….especially for December.

Later in the afternoon we were keying in on the deep south as a dryer than forecast mid levels were across the region along with a more loaded-gun type sounding.  The inversion was quite a bit deeper across the south with isolated showers and convection taking shape and being beaten down by the cap.  However, by about 4-5pm it was game time for the Jackson, MS metro area.  Supercells were developing south and west of town and were developing rapid rotation quickly as the low level jet was beginning to intensify over the region.

The image above in FasTRAC (Baron Services Product) you can see several rotations embedded within the QLCS (quasi-liner convective system) to the west, but one thing sticks out like a sore thumb.  The isolated cell ahead of the line that has a hook structure.  This notch southwest of Crystal Springs was feeding off of an environment that was pretty clear to it’s southeast with the low level, moist flow coming from that direction.  As the storm moved northeastward we watched it gain strength with higher output of lightning and better low level wind values.  As it approached Jackson we began noticing maxing wind velocities.

Reports were coming in that the tornado had touched down just west of I-55 with damage being reported just west of Terry, MS.  The tornado then tracked northeast where it continued it’s path toward the Jackson metro.

The tornado is wrapped up with the higher dbZ values (some purples) wrapping in just before reaching I-55.  This is an indication that either debris is being thrown by the tornado or either it’s becoming rain wrapped.  Given the deep moisture field and radar presentation, I’m pretty sure it was a bit of both. 

This image illustrates the strong inflow to the tornado.  The reds embedded within that green area indicates range folding as the winds were extremely strong and the radar didn’t properly alias the data correctly resulting in no or bad data.  I’m sure those were 80+ mph winds streaming into the tornado just off the surface.

This shot shows the tornado approaching the I-020 vicinity between Jackson and Brandon with many storm chasers all around the cell.  At this point, debris was being reported on I-55 with a 1/2 mile wide damage path and the National Weather Service personnel in Brandon were taking shelter as the tornado crossed just to there west.  This tornado was mighty impressive with EF-2 strength winds and a 26 mile long path.  The downtown area of Jackson dodged a major bullet given that this was during a rush hour period that most folks were off for the holiday.  No one has been reported to be killed from this tornado. This tornado also ran across the runway at the Jackson International Airport.  This was the beginning of the Mississippi tornadic evening.

Since the NWS office took a hit during the hour they normally launch there weather balloon sounding….the 00z balloon was never released.  Jackson did a planned sounding at 04z to see what the atmosphere looked like in the wake of their first tornadic storm. 

The sounding revealed an uncapped environment along with nearly 1700 j/kg surface CAPE still in place.  One of the reasons that you check the sounding data when it becomes available is the models are not always correct.  At this same time….the SPC mesoanalysis page (RUC derived) indicated less than 500j/kg CAPE in this area with building convective inhibition (CINH).  One would think that the weather would have calmed down if that were the case…..wrong.

As a second upper level perturbation and jet max moved into the region….a surface low developed on the LA/MS border and moved northeastward along the surface frontal axis.  More tornadoes in turn developed across Central/East Mississippi during the overnight in Attalla, Holmes, Kemper, Noxubee counties.  More areas are being investigated for ratings as wind or tornado damage.

We will update with more content as needed or if more comes available.

I don’t like to hear of fatalities when I get up in the morning…..and we already have three in the small community of Cincinnati in Washington County, AR from and early morning tornado that has destroyed at least one brick home and several structures.  Tornado watches and warnings continue to be in effect for portions of Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri at this hour.

These storms intensified rapidly as they pushed across the OK/AR state line this morning into the warm, juicy flow of air coming northward out of the Gulf of Mexico.  There is more potential for such an event to unfold further east today.

The 12z sounding from Jackson, MS indicates a loaded gun type setup with quite the inversion around the 775mb level of the atmosphere.  This dry air aloft will likely aid in developing potential instability that could be unleashed if this cap breaks.  Given the incredible shear values…. it is likely that storms/showers will spin from the near the onset ahead of a massive mid level trough that will shoot northeast later in the period.

Our in-house mesoscale WRF model indicates that the capping should be broken shortly after noon with convection firing across most of Mississippi and potentially into west Alabama.  Shear values will be supportive of super cell structures with the potential for tornadoes.  This is a developing situation and one that we will possible deploy on for a chase within the next hour or so.  Stay tuned for more updates regarding this potential.

Storms are really going now and tornado watches are up to the Alabama state line from US-82 southward in Mississippi.  Several warnings just came out for the Jackson, MS warning area and these storms are increasing and intensifying.  This is expected to continue eastward late into the night and tomorrow across portions of our area.  One confirmed tornado in Central Louisiana has destroyed well built brick homes near the Atlanta community.  This is a serious situation. 

We will be deploying as things get rocky in our vicinity later tonight or tomorrow morning.  You can monitor our live streaming video at the top of the page or on WBRC-TV FOX 6 once severe weather coverage picks up.  I’ll be with meteorologist James-Paul Dice and Wes Wyatt once continuous coverage begins.  More later…

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