2011-04-27 MISC: AL,TN,MS,KY,OH,IN,WV,GA

[James Clarke]

My friend just informed me that her aunt perished in the Birmingham tornado and lived in the McDonald Chapel area NW of town. She also mentioned that her town of Hartselle is without power,its about 20 miles north of Cullman which was hit by a tornado. She told me she watched a spin up SW of Decatur, AL earlier in the day.very sad

 

[Brian Mette]

I actually just heard a Weather Channel broadcaster say that yesterday has overtaken the '74 super outbreak as the new standard of tornado outbreaks.

Yeah, a meteorologist on KFOR in Oklahoma City just said this outbreak is now the worst in US history. He's counting all the tornado reports as individual tornadoes. He also apparently forgot about the like, 300 something that died in the Super Outbreak.

 

[mwenzbauer]

I'm wondering if we could be looking at the first single tornado to cause 50 fatalities in decades. When was the last time that happened? 1960s?

I think that would be 2/21/71 in Mississippi... F4 killed 58.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

well there's other ways this could end up being worse than the 74 Outbreak. 315 died in that, as of now death toll is at 231 and climbing. Tornadoes reported in MS, AL, MO, TN, WV, GA, FL, AR, SC, NC, VA, IN, OH, WV MD per Storm Reports (that's 15 states, whereas the 74 Outbreak only had 13 states) even if the sheer number of tornadoes turns out to not be as many as the 74 Outbreak, still going to be an historic, tragic event. the damage will no doubt be in the billions of dollars, and will probably easily surpass the dollar amount of the 74 Outbreak.

not only that, but this happened in 1 day! 74 outbreak was from April 3 - April 4th.

each outbreak is peculiar in it's own way, and no 2 will ever be alike, but outbreaks can always be compared.

I'll postpone comment on the Fujita Ratings of these storms until the NWS can survey the damage and assign ratings to them.


anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

edit: i had SC, NC listed twice, so i corrected my post to reflect that.

 

[Derek Weston]

From a data standpoint I agree, this will likely be the "best" outbreak in history. Data collection, analysis and benchmarking has come a long way since 1999, muchless 1974. Good news is the data may greatly aid in advanced warning techniques and future storm prediction.

True... much better data to be collected here. Though, I wonder what sort of advancements we can really make off of this information.... I can't imagine the handling of this situation being much better. The was recognized from the get go as an extremely volatile and dangerous situation. The watches and the wording pre-storm initiation reflected this. (I've never seen a 95%/95%) Media coverage was giant -- weather channel and local. Storms had huge lead times warning wise.

I feel as though we're nearing a point in meteorology where we can't better most warn times. The greatest gains in human safety are going to be advancements in engineering of homes -- really, great engineering exists, it's just not common enough -- and in actually human observance of severe weather. Basically... people taking note of the information that is at their disposal. This will save more lives than anything.

 

[ChristianTerry]

well there's other ways this could end up being worse than the 74 Outbreak. 315 died in that, as of now death toll is at 231 and climbing. Tornadoes reported in MS, AL, MO, TN, WV, GA, FL, AR, SC, NC, VA, IN, OH, WV MD, SC, NC per Storm Reports (that's 17 states, whereas the 74 Outbreak only had 13 states) even if the sheer number of tornadoes turns out to not be as many as the 74 Outbreak, still going to be an historic, tragic event. the damage will no doubt be in the billions of dollars, and will probably easily surpass the dollar amount of the 74 Outbreak.

not only that, but this happened in 1 day! 74 outbreak was from April 3 - April 4th.

each outbreak is peculiar in it's own way, and no 2 will ever be alike, but outbreaks can always be compared.

I'll postpone comment on the Fujita Ratings of these storms until the NWS can survey the damage and assign ratings to them.


anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

I heard the tornado passed just to the North of the University.

 

[Michael Riedl]

well there's other ways this could end up being worse than the 74 Outbreak. 315 died in that, as of now death toll is at 231 and climbing. Tornadoes reported in MS, AL, MO, TN, WV, GA, FL, AR, SC, NC, VA, IN, OH, WV MD, SC, NC per Storm Reports (that's 17 states, whereas the 74 Outbreak only had 13 states) even if the sheer number of tornadoes turns out to not be as many as the 74 Outbreak, still going to be an historic, tragic event. the damage will no doubt be in the billions of dollars, and will probably easily surpass the dollar amount of the 74 Outbreak.

not only that, but this happened in 1 day! 74 outbreak was from April 3 - April 4th.

each outbreak is peculiar in it's own way, and no 2 will ever be alike, but outbreaks can always be compared.

I'll postpone comment on the Fujita Ratings of these storms until the NWS can survey the damage and assign ratings to them.


anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

Yes it happened over two days but the duration for the event was 18 hours. The trough flew across the country.

 

[jeremy wilson]

anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

Minor if any damage at Bama from what I've seen. Several close call vids form the campus.

 

[James Clarke]

well there's other ways this could end up being worse than the 74 Outbreak. 315 died in that, as of now death toll is at 231 and climbing. Tornadoes reported in MS, AL, MO, TN, WV, GA, FL, AR, SC, NC, VA, IN, OH, WV MD, SC, NC per Storm Reports (that's 17 states, whereas the 74 Outbreak only had 13 states) even if the sheer number of tornadoes turns out to not be as many as the 74 Outbreak, still going to be an historic, tragic event. the damage will no doubt be in the billions of dollars, and will probably easily surpass the dollar amount of the 74 Outbreak.

not only that, but this happened in 1 day! 74 outbreak was from April 3 - April 4th.

each outbreak is peculiar in it's own way, and no 2 will ever be alike, but outbreaks can always be compared.

I'll postpone comment on the Fujita Ratings of these storms until the NWS can survey the damage and assign ratings to them.


anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

media reports saying that University of Alabama students are among the casualties.

 

[Derek Weston]

well there's other ways this could end up being worse than the 74 Outbreak. 315 died in that, as of now death toll is at 231 and climbing. Tornadoes reported in MS, AL, MO, TN, WV, GA, FL, AR, SC, NC, VA, IN, OH, WV MD, SC, NC per Storm Reports (that's 17 states, whereas the 74 Outbreak only had 13 states) even if the sheer number of tornadoes turns out to not be as many as the 74 Outbreak, still going to be an historic, tragic event. the damage will no doubt be in the billions of dollars, and will probably easily surpass the dollar amount of the 74 Outbreak.

not only that, but this happened in 1 day! 74 outbreak was from April 3 - April 4th.

each outbreak is peculiar in it's own way, and no 2 will ever be alike, but outbreaks can always be compared.

I'll postpone comment on the Fujita Ratings of these storms until the NWS can survey the damage and assign ratings to them.


anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

This is going to push the super outbreak damned close. I think you're looking at at least a half dozen violent class tornadoes yesterday with death tolls nearing what we saw in the super outbreak. I think the actual count takes a backseat to those two items.

And even then... is an event any less of an event because one long track violent tornado stayed on the ground two hours and thusly generated one report vs a cyclical supercell that keeps dropping violent tornadoes intermittently and generated 10 reports over the same path? A more telling metric might be to tally up total path area of tornadoes on a given outbreak with strength of tornado in any given area figured in. (perhaps a simple multiplier would do EF0 = path area X 1, EF1 = PA x 2, etc...) Though one issue with that calculation may be valuation of area... weak tornadoes with wide paths gaining too much value.

 

[mikedeason]

anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

The UA campus was not directly hit. Most of the damage from the tornado appears to have occurred south of the campus along 15th Street heading eastward into Alberta City. This is the area where University Mall and DCH are located as well. Several student are confirmed among the fatalities though as there are many who live in apartments and houses in this area.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I would like to know where the 287mph wind speed came from. Some of the damage definitely looks like EF4 and EF5 damage. But 287 mph is incredible. The big one on May 3 1999 was similar and higher in spots and the grass was ripped from the ground, trees completely bare of limbs/leaves and bark. I've not seen anything quite that impressive yet, which makes me question the 287mph wind speed. But I've definitely seen pics that justify the EF5 rating.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I have yet to see EF5 damage in any of the pictures I've seen, but I probably haven't seen all of the images released, and I'm sure new stuff will continue to be released throughout the next few days. I'm pretty sure the wind speed measurement is being obtained from the gate-to-gate velocity signature from a radar scan a few minutes after the tornado exited Tuscaloosa:

The two bins in the oval had velocities of +133.8/-109.8 = 243.6 kts of shear = 280 MPH OF SHEAR. This is not a ground wind speed measurement, nor is it an aerial speed measurement. The rotational velocity is the average of the two maxima, or 121.8 kts = 140 MPH, which would be a better estimate of wind speed. However, the radar beam was hitting this feature at 2700 ft ARL, so at that distance from the radar and at that height, it probably was only resolving the low-level mesocyclone, not the tornado. Also, winds aloft do not correlate well with winds at the surface, especially in areas of high surface roughness (like in Alabama). There were still very high velocities, but not quite this high, when the signature was in Tuscaloosa. I saw a max delta-V of 175.2 kts from the 2210Z scan when the storm was over Tuscaloosa.

I wonder how the towns of Holt and Peterson fared with this as it went right between the two.

 

[Jeff Duda]

This is going to push the super outbreak damned close. I think you're looking at at least a half dozen violent class tornadoes yesterday with death tolls nearing what we saw in the super outbreak. I think the actual count takes a backseat to those two items.

And even then... is an event any less of an event because one long track violent tornado stayed on the ground two hours and thusly generated one report vs a cyclical supercell that keeps dropping violent tornadoes intermittently and generated 10 reports over the same path? A more telling metric might be to tally up total path area of tornadoes on a given outbreak with strength of tornado in any given area figured in. (perhaps a simple multiplier would do EF0 = path area X 1, EF1 = PA x 2, etc...) Though one issue with that calculation may be valuation of area... weak tornadoes with wide paths gaining too much value.

I think the two better ways of measuring that would be sum(average tornado width*length) or sum(average tornado width*length*EF-scale-rating).

 

[Amanda Farnham]

anyone know if the University of Alabama was hit? I haven't heard anything on it, so just wondering if anyone knew.

I want to say I saw a quote this morning that there was no major structural damage. For the life of me, I cannot find it right now. I will try and hunt it down and post it here.

 

[Robert Dewey]

I think the two better ways of measuring that would be sum(tornado path area*length) or sum(tornado path area*length*EF-scale-rating).

I actually really like that idea. Just using tornado account alone can be misleading in cases where you have many weak tornadoes vs. a couple long-tracked tornadoes, and that could be a possible solution.