06/19/09 DISC: MI

[mikegeukes]

Interesting, in West Michigan we had 3 tornadoes on Friday night.
No tornado warnings were issued, the counties were under
Severe Thunderstorm Warnings.

NWS Grand Rapids information on the 3 tornadoes:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=grr&storyid=28974&source=0

Allegan County:
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo...ee_homes_in_southern_allegan_county.html#more

http://www.wwmt.com/articles/three-1363820-destroying-county.html

Storm Reports
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=grr&storyid=28985&source=0

Holland, Michigan hard hit by flooding:
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/06/100_year_rainstorm_floods_mich.html

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/mult...nesses-survey-storm-damage-attempt-to-recover

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/ottawa_county/highways_roads_closed_after_storm

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/ottawa_county/Holland_Mayor_Holland_is_under_water

Rainfall totals for West Michigan:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=grr&storyid=28986&source=0

Hundreds of Cars Flooded at Huge Country Music Concert: Ionia, Michigan
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/06/hundreds_of_b93_birthday_bash.html

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=110578&catid=48

http://media2.woodtv.com//photo/2009/06/21/b93-bash-flooding-c-062109_20090621104257_640_480.JPG

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/central_mich/Officials_on_B_93_Birthday_Bash_flood

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/central_mich/thousands_stranded_at_b93_birthday_bash

Sources: Grand Rapids Press, Holland Sentinel, Kalamazoo Gazette, National Weather Service, WOOD-TV, WWMT-TV, WZZM-TV

Mike

 

[Jason Harris]

Very interesting indeed. Why weren't there any warnings?

 

[Ryan Wichman]

I grabbed some Velocity scans from the times of the touchdowns in order they appear on the NWS write up:

Allegan County:
http://vortex.plymouth.edu/gen_nids...40&size=912x684&loop=no&zoom=.0865&center=GRR

Richland County:
http://vortex.plymouth.edu/gen_nids...10&size=912x684&loop=no&zoom=.0865&center=GRR

Kalamazoo County:
http://vortex.plymouth.edu/gen_nids...53&size=912x684&loop=no&zoom=.0865&center=GRR

From a quicky glance, nothing looks all that impressive that would scream tornado. Although I did not research into the background environment much, a lot of times storms in the great lakes only need some nice helicity to put some tor's down.

 

[Kurt Hulst]

It was 2 miles NW of the town of Richland MI, in Kalamazoo Co. There is not a Richland Co. simple mistake.

The reason why there is nothing that looks interesting is because you are looking at the scans 1 hour ahead of the time period. To see the scans when they were on the ground you need scans starting from 01:40z for the Allegan and Otsego tornadoes and the scan from 02:08z for the Richland tornado.

Can you post the links from those time frames?

I posted this earlier today

Surveys complete from Friday nights storms.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=grr&storyid=28974&source=0

Looks like Tom Oosterbaan and I may have been within a mile or two possibly less, of a tornado Friday night when a Ef2 touched down 2 miles NW of Richland. We took 24th street north to 89. It was very possible the circulation passed over us. Tom commented on how low the visibility was and that he had not seen it like that in a long time. My guess is we drove through the RFD. We were there approximately the same time it crossed our path.

(these radar scans are from UCAR and will only last for a few more days)
Radar at the time of tornado

SVR from 01z to 03z You can see circulation from 01:44 to 02:30z it shows as yellow on this radar.

 

[Robert Rohloff]

I was talking to my mother in Grand Rapids as I was looking at radar data on GR3. I has seen some warnings and hit the radar from GRR. I was watching the storm as I was talking and told her it appeared the storm south in Allegan was producing a tornado and I expected there to be a warning soon. It never came out even though the scans were showing good rotation in the storm. I was not surprised to see a tornado report from it, an EF2 on the ground for 5 miles was a bit surprising.

I have seen NWS offices issue on far less than what was showing up........

 

[Ryan Wichman]

Ah yes, silly central time to eastern time conversions....

here are the links for the correct times

http://vortex.plymouth.edu/gen_nids...40&size=912x684&loop=no&zoom=.0865&center=GRR

http://vortex.plymouth.edu/gen_nids...08&size=912x684&loop=no&zoom=.0865&center=GRR

These should be the correct times. Hope it helps.

 

[Marc Remillard]

Interesting discussion here...

Any news about the report in Indiana in the afternoon?

 

[John Vandehei]

I just noticed that NWS GRR published their report of the three tornadoes in Kalamazoo and Allegan Counties. Based on their tornado track map, the Richland tornado was just five miles north of my house. I was watching that storm both on radar and out my back patio and there was nothing suggesting it was tornadic. Oh well; I'm sure that tornado was either rain wrapped or well embedded in the rain. Plus at 10:00pm, it would have been nearly impossible to spot, especially with all the wooded terrain over there.

 

[Chip Redmond]

Northern Indiana NWS has a write up on their website located here:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=iwx&storyid=29276&source=0

It seems that the tornado report didn't verify and there was no tornado whatsoever. Another bogus public report.


Chip

 

[Chris Vagasky]

Just a few things I noticed...

0-1km Winds seemed to intensify a bit, with some veering with height, around the time of the tornadoes, which lead to ...

0-1km SRH AOA 300 m2/s2 with LCLs around 750m (hard to see, but trust me) ...

0-3km CAPE near 50 J/kg allowed ingestion of the enhanced low level shear ...

Interesting thing I found ...

STP Bullseye of 6 in SW Michigan

 

[Jason Harris]

Good stuff Chris: any thoughts on the radar observations? and wouldn't that sig tor bullseye have generated some sort of mesodiscussion?

 

[Chris Vagasky]

Jason:

The following MCDs were issued for Michigan on the 19th...

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md1242.html
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md1244.html
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md1248.html
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md1249.html

Only MCD 1248 mentioned a tornado threat, but it mainly mentioned it for Southern Illinois.

Looking at radar, I noticed this in 2 of the 3 tornadic storms (both Kalamazoo County storms) that coincident with the tornadic velocity signature, there was a reflectivity donut hole. See below:

 

[Chris Vagasky]

A note about the STP Bullseye...

Seeing that bullseye would have alerted me to the fact that one or more of the values that feed into the STP were very high. See this paper for a description of the STP.

Although the radar presentation very clearly showed a complex of thunderstorms, as opposed to distinct supercells, the high STP would have caused me to take a closer look at the near storm environment to understand that value.

That high value would have also had me monitoring the storms in that area much more closely for rapid strengthening of rotation.

That's just what I would have done. I can't speak for anyone else.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

It really didn't have anything to do more than 2 outflow boundaries intersecting each other. The line of storms was coming in from the west and pushing out an OFB eastward. The line of crap popped along the warm front and sent an OFB southward. Three spinups happened along where the strongest winds intersected. The only real good chance they might have had at warning would have been the Allegan County tornado, but good luck at that.

 

[John Vandehei]

Looking back at the data, it's apparent that if you were very observant, it would have been possible to suspect a tornado was occurring. Like I said in my previous post, I was watching this storm from my back patio. However, it was getting dark, and with the conditions at hand, I was turning my attention to lightning photography instead of tornadoes (no luck there either, it was all occurring in cloud). However, even if I knew there was a tornado occurring, I still don't think I'd of gone after that one. Based on Chris's radar post, that tornado looked like it was embedded in moderate rain. With the fading light, I think it would be foolhardy for all but the most experienced chaser to attempt that one.