2013-11-17 MISC: IL/WI/IA/IN/OH/MI/KY/TN

[Warren Faidley]

Anyone know if there has even been a high risk issued in November previous to today?

Thanks:

W.

 

[Brian McKibben]

Anyone know if there has even been a high risk issued in November previous to today?

Thanks:

W.

I believe November 12, 2002?

 

[StephenHenry]

November 10, 2002. One of my first chases.

 

[Brian McKibben]

I believe November 12, 2002?

My Bad... it was November 10, 2002.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/archive/event.php?date=20021110

 

[Donnie Beasley]

Anyone know if there has even been a high risk issued in November previous to today?

Thanks:

W.

November 15, 1989

November 27, 1994

November 10, 2002

November 15, 2005

 

[Billy Griffin]

I'm curious to find out what the final, 'confirmed' tornado count will be. Amazing geographical spread of severe weather and tornadoes... I believe from Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio (?) and Michigan (?) - and the night continues on......
Lots of good photos and video reports coming in as well. Quite an impressive, but sad, day.

 

[joel ewing]

My original target for this day was right here at home (New Baden, IL, just east of STL), as I expected a scenario similar to 4/2/06 where a couple of tail-end supercells would provide opportunities less than an hour from here. I liked the more easterly storm motions down here, coupled with the better instability. I envisioned a chase down the I-70 or I-64 corridors, dropping south near the Indiana border for new storms.

I didn't stick to my target, and ended up busting. I instead took off after the inital activity initiating just west of STL, heading north to Springfield to position ahead of these cells. I then jumped on the storm approaching Lincoln, Illinois, which displayed promise initially, but remained cold and undercut in appearance as it raced by. I then plotted a course east and south via Champaign to catch the next storm as it crossed I-57. Even after planning a generous intercept route for extreme storm speeds, I still underestimated the storm's I-57 crossing time. Before arriving at Champaign, it was apparent I would not make it in time to the storm's crossing point near Tuscola. However, a new supercell evolved out of the current storm's forward flank, and began ramping up just southwest of Champaign. I positioned just north of Champaign near Thomasboro to observe this storm as it passed. A long arcing RFD gust front wrapped back to a rain-wrapped meso, but otherwise the storm did not exhibit imminent signs of producing.

After this storm moved northeast of my position, I let it go and plotted a course to intercept the Tuscola storm farther east in Indiana. However, just after the Champaign storm moved northeast of my position, a strong couplet appeared about 6 miles to my north-northeast. I stopped and turned around, straining to look into the murky precip but seeing nothing. This image is from my rear dashcam just as I decided to stop and turn around:

The tornado is obviously in there, but I think it's a stretch to call this a catch. This is the EF4 that is probably very close to, or impacting, the town of Gifford at this time. I would not find out about the town for another hour. Stopping to attempt to view this storm for the additional 20 minutes cost me any chance of intercepting storms further downstream, ending my chase.

On the way home, I encountered a fresh tornado damage track on I-57 at Tuscola from the storm I was originally trying to get to. This was the one captured on dashcam video by Scott Sims as it impacted him under the overpass on I-57. The tornado was heavily rain-wrapped, and would not have been visible if I had made it to Tuscola in time. I encountered two overturned semis another 2 miles down the road, apparently from straight-line winds.

Had I stuck to my original target at home, I may have caught the EF4 that occurred just 35 miles to the east. However, there were no guarantees. I would have had to chosen Highway 177 to see it, otherwise I would have encountered the storm at a time it was cycling. Timing was everything this day, mostly the luck of the draw to get on a storm at the exact moment it was producing.

This is sort-of a off-topic post/response, but for the benefit of our newbie StormTrack members and folks that haven't chased too much...I took notice of a portion of Dan's statement here: "The tornado is obviously in there...but I think it's a stretch to call this a catch". Personally, I really respect a statement like this.... he didn't try to b.s. any of his readers or himself and claim it as a for-sure-intercept of a tornado. IMO, one of the biggest differences between a new chaser and an old pro is the ability to discern what is a tornado and what isn't. Tornadic storms often have all manners of unusual stringy-hanging-funnel-like appendages hanging down that aren't actually tornadic vortices. Only time and field experience can educate a chaser as to what is and isn't the "real deal". Even though Dan probably did have a potentially large tornado in his photo, he wasn't 100% sure....and stated it accordingly. Thanks Dan. Man....you've had quite a season....haven't you, brother?

 

[Mike Krzywonski]

Here's some interesting commentary by Dr. Greg Forbes on a couple of "non-textbook" tornadoes & their parent storm structure: http://www.weather.com/video/thats-fascinating-tornadoes-41372

 

[Skip Talbot]

Here's some interesting commentary by Dr. Greg Forbes on a couple of "non-textbook" tornadoes & their parent storm structure: http://www.weather.com/video/thats-fascinating-tornadoes-41372

Nolte's video is really interesting. I don't think I've seen structure like that before, where the updraft base and tornado is anchored to a well defined FFD shelf cloud. Usually there's a vaulted region that separates the base and the FFD, or the FFD just feeds into the northern end of the wall cloud. At first I thought it was a really thick inflow band like I've seen on some storms, but a wide angle shot of that storm does indeed show the gust front bending all the way around the FFD to the north. I guess it could be both a shelf and a thick inflow band, vorticity along the gust front being aggregated into the tornado as its pulled into the tornado cyclone.

The second shot though, I'm pretty sure is just a classic supercellular tornado being viewed from within the FFD where you can't see the supercellular structure. Tony Laubach and Matt Phelps had video of this tornado and it shows a pretty classic RFD clear slot with the tornado anchored to a lowering under the base.

 

[Nick Nolte]

Yes, it certainly was interesting, structure wise. When we first spotted the tornado it was still about 15 miles away and there was some ragged wall cloud action that we could see to the east of it. The west edge of the tornado was pretty low contrast from that distance so it was difficult to discern any wall-like features. We re-positioned a few miles south to where the first segment of Forbes' clip was shot and noticed the FFD front feeding all the way back to the tornado. I also couldn't recall seeing that before without there being some RFD/vault delineation before a wall and the tornado. There also wasn't much of a wall cloud at this point, or if there was it was basically the upper half of the tornado.

Hopefully Williamson won't mind me linking to one of the photos he shared to facebook, but I think this is the wide shot Skip was talking about: https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1397262_10103504536836949_1888101633_o.jpg
I guess that does show perhaps a bit of wall cloud on the left side to the east/se of the tornado but at the time it seemed to just be anchored to the base.

edit: for reference my video and Jon's photo are looking towards the south/southwest

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Several cameras inside a middle school in Indiana captures part of the school being badly damaged by a tornado from this day.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=76a_1385580846