4/2/2010 DISC: OK

[MattLuttrell]

While driving through the gust front this morning, in Norman, I encountered a wall of debris and violent wind coming from the south. (The gust was from the west.)

After we regained visibility and dirt and limbs stopped blowing, the next 200 yards of road was blocked by debris. After sunrise I returned and found that large trees had been damaged or destroyed. All damage was blown to the north-north west as I had observed.

Funny that after 15 years of storm chasing I encounter my most violent winds on a morning drive...

(Most of the damage I could find was limited to this very small area.)

 

[Jeff Bartlett]

Rush Springs

On my way to Duncan early this morning and got hammered in OKC earlier. Now in Rush Springs and the highway is shut down and there is some pretty good damage in a small portion of the south side of town. To early to guess what did it, but in all of my years, it sure appears to be damage from a small tornado. Lots of insulation, destroyed mobile home, moderately damaged permanent structures, and plenty of stuff hanging on fences and in the trees. I'll go back for some pics and try to post them later.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Just had the line blow through here in OP....nothing to crazy...cold outflow...~ 50mph downdraft winds ongoing. Looks like that does it for us today LOL.

 

[Michael Riedl]

Those Damage pictures look very similar to how my town looked after a Massive Derecho with winds of 80-100+ MPH.

Nothing but Rain and Lightning here.

 

[Jeff Bartlett]

Rush Springs

Photos:

Sorry if the sizes are too large. I don't have a photo editing program on this laptop.

 

[Bart_Comstock]

Jeff, it looks like from a couple of you photos that the debris were all scattered in one direction which makes it look more like very strong straight line winds impacted the area. You obviously could observe a lot more than I could have so do you know if it look like the debris were scattered a long a linear path or were they blown in every which direction? Was the burned out house a result of the storm?

 

[Jeff Bartlett]

Bart,

The damage path was about 300 yards long by less than 100 yards wide (from the best that I could tell). Like I said, it was too early to tell for sure, but the randomness of the damage was reminiscent of a small tornado. One mobile home would be completely destroyed while the next mobile home upwind would be untouched. Like I said, it's too early to tell for sure and I'm no expert, that's Tim Marshall's territory. Not sure if the burned out house was like that before or not, but it was right across the street from the cafe that was missing its entire roof. I thought it might be connected. This mornings gust certainly didn't help matters if it was a pre-existing condition.

 

[Bart_Comstock]

Bart,

The damage path was about 300 yards long by less than 100 yards wide (from the best that I could tell). Like I said, it was too early to tell for sure, but the randomness of the damage was reminiscent of a small tornado. One mobile home would be completely destroyed while the next mobile home upwind would be untouched. Like I said, it's too early to tell for sure and I'm no expert, that's Tim Marshall's territory. Not sure if the burned out house was like that before or not, but it was right across the street from the cafe that was missing its entire roof. I thought it might be connected. This mornings gust certainly didn't help matters if it was a pre-existing condition.

Microbursts and strong gusts can have very small damage swaths. I wasn't so much curious about the size of the damaged area as I was the pattern in which the damage was distributed. Was everything blown in one direction or scattered randomly? That is the key way to figure out if it is damage reminiscent to a (brief) tornado or straight line winds.

Was the damage pattern like this?...

Or like this?...

I know you aren't an export and I am not asking for a detailed damage survey, just if you noticed which way the debris were blown.

 

[Jeff Bartlett]

I suppose it was more of a straight line from W to E ... although when a mobile home explodes, it's kinda hard to tell. Then determining which debris came from which structure was pretty tough, too. I don't envy the investigators and surveyors who have to dig through that stuff. My hats off to them for the work that they do.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

I've surveyed a number of tornadoes over the past few years (a majority of them small) and the converging/random damage path is something I don't think you can really determine from the smaller tornadoes (unless of course it hits something fairly consistent like the tree patch/forest as illustrated above; and hope it's strong enough to knock down the trees). As the person who surveyed the Rush Springs area today (with a small amount of authority), I can say that there's really nothing of note as far as a damage path with convergence/randomness nor a path with spread/consistency as would be expected with a microburst. From what I have witnessed for small tornadoes, the damage is usually very concentrated, but the debris field or next damage point can be traced downstream very easily. I just wanted to state that the lack of a converging/random damage path isn't the lack of a tornado. Typically for this type of set up (which this is either my 2nd or 3rd survey of this type--that being QLCS/some hybrid thing--with multiple signatures/damage areas needing investigating) I look for a narrow damage field to match with radar observations (and NOT necessarily 88D observations---I get lucky I have PAR and CASA data to play with usually) and a mental model. For full disclosure, you can see all of my surveys here.

P.S.: I've been asked to reserve my opinion on what actually occurred for a later date (don't worry...I'm not being censored or anything nasty like that...just involved in an interesting conversation that involves forecasters and researchers and phenomenology). So don't bother asking I'll let you know....eventually.

P.P.S.: the survey data on the above link is the opinion of the surveyors listed and NOT necessarily the official record listed in Storm Data.

 

[Scott Roberts]

Iola, KS Damage

This is from the storm that passed through Allen county about 8:45am. More photos posted on my blog, http://blog.ksstorm.info

 

[Greg Higgins]

Again, Monday morning quarterbacking based on the photos only, but several "structures" appear to be of weak construction and poor or no anchoring system. The one mobile home appeared to only be sitting on hadite blocks while the mobile home in the background appears to have minor damage.

 

[M Dillard]

Aerial survey from about 2 WSW of south Rush Springs U.S. 81/81 B intersection to about 5 ENE showed a hopscotch path of damage. Counted 4 mobile homes blown apart and probably a dozen barns/sheds destroyed. Some sheet metal was carried as debris fields covered several hundred yards from point of origin.

Powerlines down along same path had US 81 blocked for most of the morning. 3ENE of Rush Springs lines were down for about 1 mile.

Tree damage was somewhat difficult to determine because of recent ice storm damage however trees near impact damage areas appear to be topped to some degree.

Hard to believe no serious injuries with the mobile homes involved as most agreed it hit at 6 AM.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

Again, Monday morning quarterbacking based on the photos only, but several "structures" appear to be of weak construction and poor or no anchoring system. The one mobile home appeared to only be sitting on hadite blocks while the mobile home in the background appears to have minor damage.

None of the mobile homes I found were anchored to the ground. One sat on block piers and the other three were still on the wheeled trusses.