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2014-04-27 MISC: AR, KS, MO, OK

I noted in a couple of SPC's discussions yesterday there was some talk of a westward-propogating gravity wave. Not much detail, and I certainly couldn't analyze one myself. However, there were several tornadoes that seemed to occur very suddenly - in Quapaw, OK (2 deaths), Baxter Springs, KS (25 injuries and ~80 structures damaged), and just north of Ft. Scott, KS. Also some reports of tornadoes sited near Nevada, MO, and Galena, KS. These all seemed to pop at approximately the same time. I think the Springfield WFO had around 6 warnings issued within a few minutes of each other in this area. The cold front was still off to the west, so I do wonder about the quick initiation of such violent storms and what the trigger was. Perhaps just convective temperatures were reached, but could a gravity wave have been involved? Did anyone else notice this?
 
Agree the gravity wave played a role. It was hard to find, but added volatility to the mix. Convective temp was reached and those cells went on a quasi-DL / pre-frontal trough. However the gravity wave was likely interacting with the boundary. Those cells did seem intensify particularly quickly, esp given the ATMO had been worked over just a couple hours prior.
 
Another item. I noticed on the big Arkansas tornado, in an early tornado warning there, a "tornado emergency" was issued for Maumelle. I thought that was odd since, out of the 12 or 14 towns in the path, Maumelle was pretty far to the right of the projected path. Couldn't understand why they chose Maumelle only for an emergency. On the preliminary storm reports page, it is Roland that was first hit (in chronological order.) Then the storm went on its tear through Mayflower and points northeast. Looks like Roland is about 5 miles from Maumelle. Sounds like I'm nitpicking a little, but I thought tornado emergencies were supposed to be reserved for a very clear situation in which there is virtually no doubt as to the place of impact. In this case, being 5 miles off is pretty significant. Unless Maumelle was actually hit but for some reason doesn't show up on the storm reports page, was this in effect a false alarm for one town, but a failure to detect for another?
 
Mike Johnston said:
Another item. I noticed on the big Arkansas tornado, in an early tornado warning there, a "tornado emergency" was issued for Maumelle. I thought that was odd since, out of the 12 or 14 towns in the path, Maumelle was pretty far to the right of the projected path. Couldn't understand why they chose Maumelle only for an emergency. On the preliminary storm reports page, it is Roland that was first hit (in chronological order.) Then the storm went on its tear through Mayflower and points northeast. Looks like Roland is about 5 miles from Maumelle. Sounds like I'm nitpicking a little, but I thought tornado emergencies were supposed to be reserved for a very clear situation in which there is virtually no doubt as to the place of impact. In this case, being 5 miles off is pretty significant. Unless Maumelle was actually hit but for some reason doesn't show up on the storm reports page, was this in effect a false alarm for one town, but a failure to detect for another?
Click to expand...

I assume it's because maumelle is a much more populated area. It was pretty obvious that the debris ball was going to pass northwest of maumelle:
View attachment 8385
image.jpg
 
Another item I found out about yesterday is that the people of Quapaw, OK may not have been warned at all. My mom, who lives in Pittsburg, KS, said their local news was reporting that Quapaw did not receive a warning because of a failure of one WFO to hand off the information to another WFO. Now, this doesn't make much sense to me: Quapaw is in the Tulsa WFO's area of warning responsibility and, since the storm was moving NNE, it's hard to figure what other WFO would have been responsible for handing off information to Tulsa. I can't see how it would have been Wichita or Springfield.

Now, the tornado subsequently moved just across the state border and hit Baxter Springs, KS, which is in Springfield's area of responsibility. But, I'm pretty sure Baxter Springs was warned, at least briefly because it showed on my GRLevel3 and a young woman in Baxter whose house was struck was interviewed on TWC last night and said the sirens went off for just a few minutes.

Has anyone heard whether, in fact, Quapaw was warned or not.

Also, now only 1 death in Quapaw instead of the previously reported 2.
 
We were actually on the storm that produced the tornado that hit Quapaw and Baxter Springs, we were able to watch the storm blow up, rotation begin and watched it actually touch down and move through Quapaw and Baxter Springs.. Quapaw had no warning, the storm wasnt even sever warned at the time. We were the first to call it in i think, called it in as soon as we noticed the rotation beginning. And from what it seemed, we may have been the only storm chasers on this cell. It looked as though everyone was in Joplin and Little Rock. Was incredable to witness everything from begging to end..

Time line went like this: We were following one that dissipated just a little north of Vinita, OK.. decided to go to Joplin from there but keep an eye on the storm blowing just east of us along I44, took highway 2 and then HWY 10/59 east..came into Miama, decided the storm was worth a quick shot to see what will come of it, continued up to Commerce, OK, decided nothing was going to probably come of it and decided to get on I44 and hit a storm that was showing rotation around Grove, OK.. started onto State Highway 69A heading south and just as we turned onto that road we noticed the inflow bands, storm started showing rotation and i think in less then 2 minutes we had a confirmed tornado on the ground south of E 50 Rd/Rte 66/ hwy 69. Watched it track NE cross over E 50 Rd/Rte 66/ hwy 69, actually going over a family in a Minivan (They were unharmed, just shakin up) then up into and through the heart of Quapaw then onto Baxter Springs where that town took a direct hit also, from there it moved just NE and dissipated. We have pictures and video from the rotation begging, the funnel begging to form. And then just brief video of it moving through Quapaw. We were unable to get video of its final stage, once it was a true rope tornado, at that point it had gone through Baxter Springs and we were trying to help people out. We have video from about 10 -20 seconds after it had went though Quapaw and Baxter Springs of the damage. All the video needs to be edited a bit, once its done i'll post it up. Incredible to think those people had no warning at all. The storm wasn't even sever warned and honestly, may not have actually been sever really until it had already produced the tornado. We got it called in as quickly as possible, but by the time the report had been bounced around, damage was done. My heart goes out to the people in those towns.
 
Ashley,

First of all, good for you for calling in the report. It may have at least been enough to give the people of Baxter Springs a little warning. Also, I'm not surprised at all by your observation that it wasn't even Severe warned as it produced the tornado. Those storms seemed to just explode within a few minutes.

One question for you: supposedly, there was a sighting of a tornado around Galena, KS from the same storm. It sounds like you stopped in Baxter Springs and stated the tornado roped out, but any idea at all whether the tornado could have made it a far as Galena or not?
 
Yes, it most definitely could have. If it had stayed on the ground, Galena would have made for a 3rd town hit, the town would have been in the exact path it was taking. But it seemed to dissipate just before, thankfully. My guess, they spotted it just south west of the town. But I know it dissipated between Galena and Baker Springs.
 
The time from the storm blowing up to producing the tornado would have probably been about 20 - 25 minutes? We got rained on for a good 10 minutes waiting for it to cross over us so we could follow in behind it from the west. It touched down E of S592 Rd, by maybe 40 yards, in the filed between S592 Rd and S600 Rd. I was able to see the debris cloud, it was faint but was there. We learned a few things yesterday, was a great learning experience. Kinda could kick ourselves for driving directly into Baker Springs, but only 2 of us, there wasn't enough to get it called in, watch the road and storm, watch radar, look at mapping, try and capture video. Needed a full production crew haha.
 
What are everyone's thoughts on the yesterdays high risk? Did we dodge a bullet in the fact that despite the strong wording and parameters, there was really only one super strong cell with a violent tornado? Surprised there weren't more tornados?
 
The cap determines whether a high risk is validated or not. It's pretty much unpredictable, and it stayed strong enough yesterday to bust the HIGH. It was weaker today so they HIGH has better chances of verifying.
 
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