2011-04-22 DISC: MO/IL/OK

[Carla Bisby]

I saw the tornado that hit STL near Creve Coeur/Maryland Heights and again in North County. There is a lot of damage near the airport. I feel kind of numb and stunned right now. I live in STL and never wanted to see this place hit. The tornado took a path similar to the 1967 F4.

 

[Andy Wade]

The cell that went tornado-warned near Pink, OK around 6:20 had some rotation evident at the back of it in the hook feature that showed up on radar, but aside from a brief, skinny funnel way, way up in the base, nothing happened that I could see (and the news chopper was practically right overhead, so if there was anything to see I think we would've seen it there).

 

[Mike Smith]

St. Louis' Lambert International Airport is closed until further notice. There is a report that there are still people stuck on planes that were damaged by the tornado.

 

[John Farley]

Fortunately, there were not many injuries in the St. Louis tornado, and those that did occur were relatively minor. Four people were transported to hospitals from Lambert Airport, but the injuries were not life-threatening. Others were treated on the scene for minor injuries, mostly from flying glass. The airport, however, has a lot of damage and I do not know how soon they will be able to resume normal operations. Also numerous houses damaged from Maryland Heights up through St. Ann and Hazelwood. Several freeways were closed for a time due to overturned trucks and power lines down on the highway. Very fortunate there have been no reports of deaths or serious injuries. The storm was well-warned, but a lot of people were still caught on the freeways and in the airport area, and it could have been much worse.

 

[jeremy wilson]

We chased the Byars cell today and I'm shocked that there's more video of that than the St. Louis tornado. In the modern age of youtube and facebook, i'd expect some vids already out. Surely some security cam stuff will come out later from the airport....

 

[timjankowski]

After retreating from an uneventful day in the Litchfield-Jerseyville area, we headed back to St. Louis for the night. We were rounding the 270/I-70 interchange when the tornado was on the ground at lambert. It was extremely difficult to stay on the road, numerous power flashes were around. I am intersted to see the track of this tornado as it felt as if we were right on the edge of the circulation. I will chase almost anything during the day, but the cloak of night makes me very nervous, for sure. We are hoping to get back out today for another chase, but we will likely survey the damage in the AM as we are stuck here at a hotel airport

 

[Jeremy Jones]

Here is a screen grab of the imbedded Supercell that hit Byars/Stratford, for anyone who missed it.

 

[Karenlynch]

I'm here too

I never saw the tornado. I live in Edwardsville. I can't believe the damage. I'm a storm spotter so they've told us not to spot at night. I'm very numb too, I mean, woah. Thank God no lives were lost. Did you see the traffic jam on 270? Crazy!

 

[Brian Stertz]

KMOV chopper video looks like EF1-Ef2 at Lambert Airport..strong EF-2 and maybe into low end EF4 in Bridgeton subdivision....looks like a 200-300 yd wide damage path there. Some very good looks from air on the KMOV website. Kudos to them.

 

[Ryan Schwartz]

Screen capture from RadarScope of the base velocity near New Melle, MO at 0016Z:

 

[John Peters]

...INITIAL DAMAGE SURVEY INDICATES EF4 DAMAGE IN NORTH ST LOUIS COUNTY...

A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DAMAGE SURVEY TEAM HAS FOUND EF4 DAMAGE IN THE BRIDGETON AREA IN NORTH ST LOUIS COUNTY.

EF4 DAMAGE INDICATES WINDS OF 166 TO 200 MPH.

Is this the tornado that affected the airport? Interesting, I have yet to see an impressive velocity couplet with this storm, but there was a pretty clear debris ball signature on radar.

 

[John Farley]

Damage surveys are ongoing, but the St. Louis NWS has now rated the St. Louis County tornado EF4:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/?n=04_22_2011

This does not surprise me, because as Brian notes above, helicopter video on STL TV stations today certainly suggested the possibility of such a rating. Tornadoes have been confirmed so far in New Melle, MO, St. Louis County, and Pontoon Beach, IL. There's also likely tornado damage farther east, in St. Rose, IL near Highland.

Edit - I was typing while John Peters posted on the same thing; yes this is the same tornado that hit the airport, although I think this rating is probably based on damage in a neighborhood.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Is this the tornado that affected the airport? Interesting, I have yet to see an impressive velocity couplet with this storm, but there was a pretty clear debris ball signature on radar.

John, this was one of those cases where the storm passed so close to the radar that it resulted in a very tiny couplet which I believe was resolving the tornado itself (scanning <500' AGL from 0020Z on):

 

[Mike Smith]

STL TDWR did a GREAT job when the tornado was very close to the -88D site.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Just some meteorological observations about yesterday. The warm front sat along the I-70 corridor in the morning, then lifted well north of I-70 by mid-afternoon under the influence of the surface low to the west. However, the boundary remained almost stationary back in the STL metro, extending northwest into north-central MO. The supercell of the day initiated and became dominant south of Booneville, but was nowhere near the warm front apparently until it approached the STL metro. I had expected a storm to go up slightly north of I-70 west of Columbia, then hit the front north of there and ride it east-southeast. Instead, we got the Booneville storm and it took over as the main show after sending off a left split. The storm became very intense from near Jefferson City eastward, but lacked the low-level influences to tornado until approaching the warm front near St. Louis. Low-level radar circulations did not appear very strong until the storm reached the area south of Warrenton.

Storm speeds were the primary chase challenge, along with south of I-70 having a difficult terrain and road network. Once I let the I-70 storm go at McKittrick, I could not get ahead of the next storm to the south even on I-44 at 60mph.