Deadly tornadoes rip OK, KS, and AR; high tornado risk today; Joplin tornado an EF-5
America's deadliest tornado season since 1953 continued its relentless onslaught of violent tornadoes yesterday. Numerous destructive and deadly tornadoes raked Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Arkansas, killing at least nine people. Yesterday's deadliest tornado hit El Reno and Piedmont, Oklahoma, about 30 miles to the west and northwest of Oklahoma City. Four people died, and one child is missing. Video of the damage from this tornado near the town of Piedmont shot by a news9.com helicopter shows damage characteristic of an EF-4 tornado, with many homes completely demolished and swept off their foundations. This tornado produced a wind gust of 151 mph at an Oklahoma Mesonet station in El Reno, Oklahoma.
Figure 1. Radar reflectivity image of the supercell thunderstorm that spawned the Piedmont, Oklahoma tornado that killed at least four people about 30 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.
Figure 2. Doppler velocity image of the supercell thunderstorm that spawned the Piedmont, Oklahoma tornado.
Figure 3. Top wind gusts recorded by the Oklahoma Mesonet yesterday showed that over 2/3 of the state received gusts of 40 mph or greater, and ten stations got gusts in excess of 58 mph (the definition of a severe thunderstorm.) A remarkable gust of 151 mph was recorded in El Reno, about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City.
Video 1. Chase video of the 1/2-mile wide tornado that killed four people in Canadian/Caddo Counties about 30 miles northwest of Oklahoma City on Tuesday, May 24, 2011.
Joplin, Missouri got a scare last night when Doppler radar showed a rotating thunderstorm approaching the city from the southwest. A tornado warning was issued and the sirens sounded, but the storm passed just to the northwest of the city, bringing Joplin only heavy rains, wind gusts to 41 mph, and intense lightning. A tornado warning forced the evacuation of NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman Oklahoma late yesterday afternoon, and the center was out of commission for a 50-minute period. However, yesterday's dangerous tornadoes missed the most heavily populated areas of Oklahoma, and SPC was able to resume normal activity after the storms cleared Oklahoma City. The center logged 47 reports of tornadoes yesterday, bringing the preliminary 4-day total of the current outbreak to 153 twisters. With more tornadoes expected today over a wide swath of the country from Arkansas to Ohio, this week's tornado outbreak is likely to rank as one of the top ten tornado outbreaks in history. This year already has the two largest tornado outbreaks in history, the April 25 - 28 outbreak (327 tornadoes) and the April 14 - 16 outbreak (162 tornadoes.)
This year's tornado death toll is in the 495 - 499 range, making it the deadliest year for tornadoes in the U.S. since 1953, when 519 people died. That year, three heavily populated cities received direct hits by violent tornadoes. Waco, Texas (114 killed), Flint, Michigan (115 killed), and Worcester, Massachusetts (90 killed) all were hit by violent F-4 or F-5 tornadoes. A similar bad tornado year occurred in 1936, when violent tornadoes hit Tupelo Mississippi (216 killed), and Gainesville, Georgia (203 killed.)
Figure 4. Satellite image taken at 22:32 UTC (6:32pm EDT) May 24, 2011, showing a line of tornadic thunderstorms over Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. Image credit: NASA/GSFC.
Figure 5. Radar image of an unusual "J"-shaped tendril emerging from a tornadic thunderstorm near Dallas, Texas. This storm had unusually high radar reflectivity (note the pink colors of 70 dbZ echoes), because of large hail in the storm. This thunderstorm produced softball-sized hail (4.5 inch diameter.)
Video 2. Chase video of several Oklahoma tornadoes intercepted yesterday by Reed Timmer of tornadovideos.net.
The Joplin tornado an EF-5, and the costliest tornado in history
The Springfield, Missouri office of the National Weather Service announced yesterday that storm surveys of the 7-mile long, 3/4 mile-wide path of damage carved by the Joplin tornado revealed that winds in the violent tornado exceeded 200 mph, making it the 4th EF-5 tornado of the year. The twister roared through Joplin beginning at 5:41pm CDT on Sunday, May 22. In nine terrifying minutes, the tornado killed at least 125 people, injured 750 more, and destroyed 2,000 buildings. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) rates this year's Joplin tornado as the 8th deadliest U.S. tornado of all-time, and the deadliest since at least 1947, when a violent F-5 tornado hit Woodward, Oklahoma, killing 181.
Catastrophe risk modeling firm EQECAT said yesterday that insured damages from the Joplin tornado could be between $1 billion and $3 billion dollars. According to NOAA's National Severe Storm Laboratory, the costliest tornado between 1890 - 1999 was the May 3, 1999 Oklahoma City tornado, which did $1 billion in damage (1999 dollars.) There were no tornadoes during the period 2000 - 2010 capable of causing $1 billion in damage; the only two EF-5 tornadoes during that period, the 2007 Greensburg, Kansas tornado and the 2008 Parkersburg, Iowa tornado each did less than $300 million in damage. Thus, with the possible exception of this year's Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornado of April 27, the Joplin tornado is probably the most damaging tornado of all-time.
Another "High Risk" day for severe weather and violent tornadoes today
The Storm Prediction Center has placed portions of seven states, from Arkansas to Indiana, in their "High Risk" region for severe weather potential, and warn of the potential for long-lived strong or violent tornadoes. This is their second consecutive "High Risk" forecast day, and fourth of the year. A high risk forecast was also issued on April 27, which was the busiest tornado day in world history, with 198 tornadoes occurring in a 24-hour period. Over 300 people died. The other "High Risk" forecast by SPC came during the final day of the April 14 - 16 outbreak over the Southeast U.S. Fifty-two tornadoes hit that day, and 26 people died in North Carolina and Virginia. The severe weather threat will diminish considerably on Thursday, when only a slight risk of severe weather is expected from Alabama to New York.
Figure 5. Severe weather threat for Wednesday, May 25, 2011.
Joplin tornado the 7th U.S. billion-dollar weather disaster of 2011
The Joplin tornado is the 7th U.S. weather disaster of 2011 costing more than a billion dollars. With hurricane season still to come, 2011 has an excellent chance of beating 2008's record of nine billion-dollar weather disasters. The billion dollar weather disasters of 2011 so far:
1) 2011 Groundhog Day's blizzard ($1- $4 billion)
2) April 3 -5 Southeast U.S. severe weather outbreak ($2 billion)
3) April 8 - 11 severe weather outbreak ($2.25 billion)
4) April 25 - 28 super tornado outbreak ($3.5 - $6 billion)
5) Mississippi River flood of 2011 ($9 billion)
6) Texas drought ($1.2 billion)
7) Joplin tornado ($1 - $3 billion)
Links
The New York Times has an interactive tornado fatality map showing how this year's killer tornadoes have mostly clustered over the Southeast U.S., with the glaring exception of the Joplin, Missouri tornado.
NOAA's Visualization Laboratory has an impressive animation of the satellite imagery during the month of April, showing the locations of all the tornadoes as they happened.
Helping out tornado victims
For those who want to lend a helping hand to those impacted by the widespread destruction this month's severe weather has brought, stop by the Red Cross website, or portlight.org blog. Portlight has been very active bringing aid to the victims of this year's tornadoes.
Jeff Masters
The storm in Joplin Mo. before destruction
Much clearer view of it as it roped out (
vortecguy)
Reader Comments
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Link plz!
Hi emc....see a little stuff trying to pop in La and Texas, also
Let's not get into this here, my reactionary friend. The debt is as sustainable as we make it; when the government stops helping the citizens that need it (and I wold think the poeople in Joplin need it) then it stops being a government.
Again it's NOT HOW MUCH MONEY WE HAVE, IT'S HOW IT'S BEEN MISSPENT.
it would be a terrible disaster if Memphis got hit the way some of the other cities have been getting hit lately...
This one is the cell S of Joneboro.
Link
click on weathernija.
Yep, going to have to watch those closely on the south end of the system
It's actually both at this point. When a government keeps taking on new responsibilities and needs to fill, it affords them more power and sway (and directly diminishes the amount of liberty the governed possess).
I have no fondness for Wall Street's pillaging of 2008, and I don't think those who have been ravaged like those in Joplin should not be monetarily assisted, but the unsustainable path that the govt. finds itself on (in large part due to the entitlement problem, secondarily due to becoming the world police) will not have a happy ending.
yep, those little tail-end straglers can get nasty
Link to the chaser feed...
also the storm southwest of Memphis is a monster hp cell.
bheck back at the original response, I modified it should show up now
The reason I wanted to do so was that I was hoping somebody with more knowledge than me could describe why there seem to be three separate areas of precipitation.
The first area I'm referring to are the spiral bands moving up the east side of the low right now (the bands spawning all the tornadoes).
The second patch is moving northeast up through Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan and doesn't look like it's strictly part of the low since it doesn't line up with the spiral pattern.
The third patch is centered over Wisconsin and extends slightly into Minnesota on the west and into northern Michigan on the east.
Are there terms to describe these three areas of precipitation? Why don't the second and third areas seem to line up with the spiral shape of the big low spawning all this stuff? Do these questions even make sense?
Oh, and PS - if you believe your U.S. dollars are "worthless" please send me a private message. I will send you my mailing address to which you can mail all your worthless dollars. I'll even pay for postage. ;-)
Stay safe!!
Kansas City, Base Reflectivity 0.50 Degree Elevation Range 248 NMI
Appreciated.
first visitor of 11 season
Thanks, Keep, that's perfect! If anyone has a quickie answer for why precipitation is appearing in three distinct areas I'd love to capitalize on this opportunity to learn, but I certainly understand that there are greater priorities at the moment...
But she didn't lose her sense of humour. She text me saying she was going to die of heat stroke due to standing in a stairwell. And I could have her belongings if I could find any after.
My heart aches as I listen to the stories of death and destruction and I pray that these people find the strength to start over. I don't know what I would do. :-(
TORNADO WARNING
ARC035-123-TNC157-260015-
/O.NEW.KMEG.TO.W.0159.110525T2337Z-110526T0015Z/
BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MEMPHIS TN
637 PM CDT WED MAY 25 2011
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MEMPHIS HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
CENTRAL CRITTENDEN COUNTY IN EASTERN ARKANSAS...
NORTHEASTERN ST. FRANCIS COUNTY IN EASTERN ARKANSAS...
SHELBY COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST TENNESSEE...
* UNTIL 715 PM CDT
* AT 637 PM CDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A ROTATION NEAR
EDMONDSON...OR 10 MILES SOUTHWEST OF WEST MEMPHIS...MOVING EAST AT
40 MPH.
* LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO MARION...
WEST MEMPHIS...BARTLETT...GERMANTOWN...MIDTOWN MEMPHIS...
MILLINGTON...CORDOVA AND T O FULLER STATE PARK.
THIS WARNING ALSO INCLUDES AREAS NEAR LAKE MCKELLAR.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
.THE SAFEST PLACE TO BE DURING A TORNADO IS IN A STORM SHELTER. IF NO
STORM SHELTER IS AVAILABLE...SEEK SHELTER ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF THE
BUILDING IN AN INTERIOR HALLWAY OR ROOM SUCH AS A CLOSET. USE
BLANKETS OR PILLOWS TO COVER YOUR BODY AND ALWAYS STAY AWAY FROM
WINDOWS.
IF IN MOBILE HOMES OR VEHICLES...EVACUATE THEM AND GET INSIDE A
SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. IF NO SHELTER IS AVAILABLE...LIE FLAT IN THE
NEAREST DITCH OR OTHER LOW SPOT AND COVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS.
&&
LAT...LON 3538 8979 3507 8967 3501 9039 3520 9048
TIME...MOT...LOC 2337Z 254DEG 36KT 3510 9029
$$
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