2012-02-28 MISC: NE/KS/AR/MO

[Craig Norris]

Local Kansas City and Topeka news media reporting significant structure damage and possible mass casualties in Harveyville KS from an apparent tornado

 

[samuel stone]

the tornado 6 mi ssw of my old hometown residence in Hutchinson, KS acutally looked pretty impressive a friend sent me a photo on via picture message earlier nice little stout rop it appeareed as. luckily it lifted before moving over the city. my parents told me they had some pretty intense winds as the couplet moved directly over them after the tornado was gone. I chased the beloit tornado warned storm and had nice wall cloud for a short time ill try to post pics on reports tommorow or the next day.

 

[Fred Dearborn]

Opened the window up last night before bed so i could hear the line of storms coming and was woke by tor sirens coming from Conway.Actually watched a debris ball on radar after it passed Buffalo and tracked ne towards Lebanon where damage was reported.Drove into town about 1am to survey and got reports of one fatality in Buffalo.Damage in Lebanon imo looked to be EF1.Cell passed just north of my house about 5 miles and what blew our minds is this tor path was almost identical to the path from the F2-3 that passed through Lebanon back in Nov. of '95 I believe..

 

[hobobuster]

This was juuuust north of me last night(I live right next to Bentonville). I also have a few screenshots from the Hutchinson supercell when it was forming and puching through.

 

[Adam Simone]

I was able to capture this velocity image at 9:02pm when the tornado struck Harveyville, KS. It has been rated an EF-2 tornado. Last I heard there were 4 people taken to the hospital, 3 with serious injuries but no fatalities.

 

[samuel stone]

anyone have any thought on TWX not issueing a tornado warning for that harveyville storm. I hadnt seen the velocity image until just when I looked at Adam's post. certainly appears as though it warranted a Tor Warning

 

[Mike Smith]

Cautionary Tale?

anyone have any thought on TWX not issueing a tornado warning for that harveyville storm. I hadnt seen the velocity image until just when I looked at Adam's post. certainly appears as though it warranted a Tor Warning

Meteorology is not perfect and, at least in my lifetime, never will be. That said, had this identical storm occurred on April 1 at TWX, this should have been a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION tornado warning. Yet, there was no warning at all.

The lack of a warning on this F-2 (by definition, "significant") tornado demonstrates the futility of tornado intensity warnings at the current state-of-the-art. This was a cycling supercell with good rotation. Obvious, right?

The problem is that things that are obvious in review are not always obvious at the time and with the pressure of dealing with multiple, fast-moving warning candidates. Things that work well in the lab don't always work as well in the real world.

From where I sit, the NWS should put its efforts into improving the accuracy of existing tornado warnings, especially as pertains to false alarm rates. Given severely limited resources, tornado intensity warnings, trying to push average lead times past 15 minutes, and warn-on-forecast should be put on the back burner for now. This is going to take new science (perhaps from Vortex II) but we need to get on it -- now.

 

[rdale]

anyone have any thought on TWX not issueing a tornado warning for that harveyville storm. I hadnt seen the velocity image until just when I looked at Adam's post. certainly appears as though it warranted a Tor Warning

It was only there for one scan, after the tornado had touched down (and possibly lifted.) There was nothing preceding this that would have indicated tornado. It was a notch on the leading edge of a line of embedded storms, and it was gone 5 minutes later. The cell had no prior reports of a tornado (the line itself apparently had one an hour previous) and no future reports of a tornado. Sometimes things just happen.

 

[Adam Simone]

It was only there for one scan, after the tornado had touched down (and possibly lifted.) There was nothing preceding this that would have indicated tornado. It was a notch on the leading edge of a line of embedded storms, and it was gone 5 minutes later. The cell had no prior reports of a tornado (the line itself apparently had one an hour previous) and no future reports of a tornado. Sometimes things just happen.

Agree with everything you said. It only showed up in 1 scan and was only on the ground for 4 minutes. I know Chad Cowan tweeted earlier today that the NWS was on the phone with him prior to the tornado trying to get information from him on the storm but he couldn't see anything. By the time the rotation was scene on radar and a warning would have been issued, the tornado would have been gone. Just a freak accident that shows no matter how good of technology we have things still happen.

 

[Mike Smith]

There was nothing preceding this that would have indicated tornado. It was a notch on the leading edge of a line of embedded storms, and it was gone 5 minutes later. The cell had no prior reports of a tornado (the line itself apparently had one an hour previous) and no future reports of a tornado. Sometimes things just happen.

That is not correct. This system had been cycling tornadoes since about 6:40pm. Here is the hook (there was also a couplet, not shown) at 6:40 in Reno Co.


And, this is 58 minutes before the tornado at Harveyville.



While you are correct that the cell was lining-out, that specific cell had a history of producing tornadoes and funnels. At the time of the Harveyville tornado, it had strong gate-to-gate shear. If we had 30 second data (2 rpm, very doable), or data from a TDWR, that tornado might have been warnable.

Instead of fixing these very fixable issues, we are going to ask meteorologists in these offices to expend their "mental bandwidth" (a finite resource) and their time (a very finite resource with storms moving at 55 mph) trying to figure out what intensity tornado warning to issue.

 

[Mike Smith]

It only showed up in 1 scan and was only on the ground for 4 minutes.

There is something to be said for age (recently celebrated my 60th).

The WSR-57's and WSR-74's operated at 3 rpm. Put another way, there would have been 12 scans showing the Harveyville tornado while it was on the ground and some (unknown number) before it touched down. With the right technology, it would have possible to have provided some warning on the storm, at least for the latter part of its track.

 

[rdale]

That is not correct. This system had been cycling tornadoes since about 6:40pm.

I see no tornado reports in the hour before Harveyville, where was one reported in that timeframe? If a storm has nothing for an hour, and shows no signs of rotation, I'm not sure they can be blamed for not going with a TOR.

At the time of the Harveyville tornado, it had strong gate-to-gate shear. If we had 30 second data (2 rpm, very doable), or data from a TDWR, that tornado might have been warnable.

Agreed, but we don't have 30 second data and/or TDWR in that area, so I'm not sure how the NWS office can be blamed for not issuing a warning.

Instead of fixing these very fixable issues

TDWR's aren't cheap (and there is no money in the NWS budget anyways, note the ending of the Wind Profiler Network this summer) and 88D's can't go high RPM because of partner requirements. So I would not consider those "very fixable". I would go so far as to call those ideas "not realistic at all."

we are going to ask meteorologists in these offices to expend their "mental bandwidth" (a finite resource) and their time (a very finite resource with storms moving at 55 mph) trying to figure out what intensity tornado warning to issue.

It's really not that complex. For example, look at the Buffalo MO tornado. The warning was initially issued as a "radar indicated." After the debris ball, all they did was add text to a SVS that nobody in the public or private industry would ever see. In the new tier structure, they could have issued a new TOR with "confirmed" tornado. Makes sense to me, and doesn't involve any extreme levels of "mental bandwidth" more than they already exerted. It just allows that information to be better relayed to the end users, and to me that's a good thing.

 

[Mike Smith]

Rob,

I wish you would reply to what I wrote rather than creating your own interpretation. I don't "blame" TWX. That word does not appear anywhere in my posts.

I've said all along that no one has the scientific skill forecast the ultimate intensity of a tornado and put it into a warning. This, because it affected one of the offices that will be engaged in the intensity warning experiment on April 1, it tends to prove my point. I believe the NWS is shooting itself in the foot because it will set itself up for criticism for not getting the intensity correct:

• Congressman Gasbag (after being briefed by his staff): "Was this a 'significant' tornado?"
• NWS manager: "Yes, sir."
• Congressman Gasbag: "But, you only issued an 'ordinary' tornado warning, didn't you?!"

Truncating volume scans is an idea whose time has come based on numerous conversations (including with aviation interests) the past year. No one -- and I mean no one -- is using layer composite reflectivity and some of these other products. Truncating the volume scans in these situations is the smart thing to do. It just requires some will and leadership.

Finally, w/r/t the hour before, look at this link: www.stormtrack.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=6699&d=1330576836 You'll see TWX's TOR (purple polygon) where I have added an arrow to denote the hook. As I understand it, there was a funnel cloud report (it was darkness). This was less than one hour before Harveyville.

I've always said we should tell people what we know and your Buffalo, MO example is a good one. But, there is a huge difference between noting what is occurring and trying to forecast what is going to occur in the form of tiered intensity warnings.

Mike

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

An interesting video from CNN -- apparently a chaser (that I've not heard of before) got caught in a tornado on one of these storms, which subsequently rolled his truck several times and left him with injuries. His descriptions of the events as they went down give the impression that he wasn't very situationally aware of what was going on.

Watch video >

 

[Josh Richardson]

I'm gonna guess he is a local storm spotter, he has a Harrisburg shirt on.