10/18/2007 DISC: FL / MS / AL / TN / KY / IL / IN / WI / MI

[Rocky Rascovich]

The towercam from WEAR-TV caught the tornado as it was skipping through the Pensacola area. The footage rivals anything seen on the plains. It was quite visible although the image itself is a little dark. At times you can see multi vortices rotating around a large circulation that at times was aprox. 1/2 mile wide. The funnel itself was probably about 50-100yds wide and looked rather intense. (Maybe EF-2??) Check it out at the link below:


http://www.weartv.com/newsroom/breaking_news_video.html

 

[Blake Michaleski]

I was headed out to chase near the Hattiesburg area in Southern MS when I got a text message from a friend telling me about this. I have a good friend who lives and works in Pensacola. She is a school teacher. Her School is just west of downtown, her home is just east of down town...It went right between them. I was fearful she may have been injured or all those children. I couldn't get through to her so I called the school, the Secretary told me all was fine there...I finnaly got to hear from her and her house is fine. She lives on 13th street and there was major damage on 8th street.

This event literally hits close to home...

Big props to NWS MOB though, they had a good amount of lead time. My teacher friend said they got the warning and had all the kids in the hallway.

I considered chasing out that way today but that stuff coming ashore is so hard to try and intercept, especially near a city like that.

We did have a somewhat successful day down here in the deep south. I'll post a little in the Reports section.

 

[Jody Radzik]

The footage rivals anything seen on the plains.

It doesn't trump that Manitoba footage those boys got this year, but at least the camera is steady.

 

[Martin Kucera]

Great footage from Pensacola

Pensacola must have been quite a place to be today. There is a great set of photos and some nice videos of the tornado that started as a large waterspout and moved inland. Also two more quite large waterspouts happened near Panama City Bch later in the day. Wow, what a day !

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/weather/10/18/midwest.storms/index.html?eref=yahoo#cnnSTCVideo

 

[Kevin Scharfenberg]

NSSL has posted images from our "rotation tracks" algorithm that are viewable in Google Earth. This can help you visualize where all the low-level mesocyclones tracked today (after about 330 pm CDT). The link to the images and more info can be found here: http://ewp.nssl.noaa.gov/18oct07/

Hopefully these images are useful to the ground survey teams.

 

[Mike Krzywonski]

The Pensacola News Journal has some links w/ good photos & video footage. The tornado has been rated EF-1. I lived in Pensacola for 3 yrs., which is where I first began photographing lightning.

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

http://www.pnj.com/assets/pdf/DP890951018.PDF

 

[cdcollura]

It's these "close to home" events that so many people miss as it passes right under their noses.

I do not live near Pensacola, but I'll never forget May 12, 1997 in Miami ... Missed that one, and it was right outside (a few miles away) as I was stuck in office with no windows (aka: work) - ARGH!!

 

[Kory Hartman]

SevereStudios chaser Ben Holcomb chased into Indiana yesterday afternoon. He observed a small funnel near Fulton, IN [about 60 mi. west of Fort Wayne].

On his way back to his hometown of Lansing, MI, a large tornado hit just east of Lansing near Williamston. There is major damage reported.

Full coverage and damage pictures are coming in from Ingham County:
www.severestudios.com

 

[John Peters]

Tornado in Kosciusko and Elkhart county IN, rated EF-3

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product.php?site=iwx&product=PNS&issuedby=iwx

 

[Bill Hark]

Of the video on the Pensacola News Journal, my favorite is the police video. Great steady dashcam stuff. From how the officer positioning the camera in comparison to other police tornado videos, I think that officer has at least a pssing interest in tornadoes.

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071019/VIDEO/71019017/1006


Bill Hark

 

[Terry Tyler]

man...

i really dont understand what went wrong yesterday...

why didnt the storms form in north MS earlier in the day?

was it a cap?

or maybe the lack of the lift?

i swear it to you...i waited all day long for something to form...looking at all the whisps on the radar screen, and looking for a tower to build...looking at the 8-10 SCP in the area and 1-2 sig tornado parametars...

i knew that if a storm formed, and got rooted in the boundary layer...it would be a REAL storm...i mean a REAL storm...but nothing ever took off...there was 3500 SBCAPE out there, 75-100 0-3 KM cape that would get surface based storms fixed up...perfect mid level, and low-level shear sittin on 70 degree Tds...

everything seemed to be right there...but nothing ever took off...

the moisture and the instability was there, so the only thing i could thing that went wrong was the lift...but i didnt know for sure...

i just wished i understood what really went on out there...

is ther anyone on this board who can break down what happened, and why this happened?

or is it just the lift?

i noticed that it never really got into the area until later that night...

 

[AlDanks]

Funnel near Fulton, IN

SevereStudios chaser Ben Holcomb chased into Indiana yesterday afternoon. He observed a small funnel near Fulton, IN [about 60 mi. west of Fort Wayne].

About what time was the funnel sighting near Fulton. I am trying to confirm another funnel sighting in that area. Sighting was around 6:15 ish. There were 3 storms rolling through. The small lead storm had a rain-free base and appeared to have a brief cone funnel - maybe only a minute. I was positioned on CR 1000N at US 131 - about 5-6 miles straight E of the funnel. Fulton is just a little N of where it would have been.

 

[Dave Gallaher]

I agree with Bill Hark re the sheriff's deputy chase. Of course it helps greatly when doing urban storm pursuit to have a cruiser with lightbar (!) that you can park anywhere. But he did a great job of capturing that event.

 

[Brett Adair]

man...

i really dont understand what went wrong yesterday...

why didnt the storms form in north MS earlier in the day?

was it a cap?

or maybe the lack of the lift?

i swear it to you...i waited all day long for something to form...looking at all the whisps on the radar screen, and looking for a tower to build...looking at the 8-10 SCP in the area and 1-2 sig tornado parametars...

i knew that if a storm formed, and got rooted in the boundary layer...it would be a REAL storm...i mean a REAL storm...but nothing ever took off...there was 3500 SBCAPE out there, 75-100 0-3 KM cape that would get surface based storms fixed up...perfect mid level, and low-level shear sittin on 70 degree Tds...

everything seemed to be right there...but nothing ever took off...

the moisture and the instability was there, so the only thing i could thing that went wrong was the lift...but i didnt know for sure...

i just wished i understood what really went on out there...

is ther anyone on this board who can break down what happened, and why this happened?

or is it just the lift?

i noticed that it never really got into the area until later that night...

Weak lapse rates.....and the better upper support was to the north. Little surface convergence and you actually may have had some robbing of inflow going on given that crap to our south along the gulf coastal plain. Quite sickening seeing 0-1km SRH over 300 m²/s² and getting nothing out of it due to a damn rain shield.

 

[Brett Adair]

Of the video on the Pensacola News Journal, my favorite is the police video. Great steady dashcam stuff. From how the officer positioning the camera in comparison to other police tornado videos, I think that officer has at least a pssing interest in tornadoes.

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071019/VIDEO/71019017/1006


Bill Hark

It seems as if another deputy has a shot of a tornado from yesterday. Apparently a Lamar County, Alabama sherrifs deputy took video/photos of a tornado on the ground 6 miles west of Sulligent near the AL/MS state line. Just east of the KGWX radar site. I'm trying to find some more information on this one...