2020-05-24 EVENT: NE

[JamesCaruso]

Saw these two TOR reports - obviously the same TOR based on time and location - could a landspout have been strong enough to derail a freight train??


MODS - I realize there was severe weather across multiple states on this date but I included only NE in the thread title because this post is about a specific TOR report there (and the only TOR reports for the day). Please rename if you consider more appropriate.

 

[GPhillips]

I don't know about derail a freight train, but I would think it could tip over some presumably empty coal cars. The radar certainly looked benign with no rotation showing up in the nearby storm and the location of the tornado along the clear air boundary at 0.5 degrees just to the southwest of the weak storm. SPC's mesoanalysis had a relative maximum in the 0-3 km CAPE overlaid with a relative maximum in the surface vorticity so the environment looked decent for landspouts. Pictures of the landspout are on the NWS Hastings Facebook page. US National Weather Service Hastings Nebraska

 

[Jeff Duda]

Something about this report seems fishy, so I'm skeptical. We aren't being given the necessary details to really determine exactly what happened. Maybe the cars had been previously derailed and were being associated with the landspout?