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4/24/10 DISC: MS/AL

Well I dug through the CSV Storm Data files on the SPC website and it turns out that if the 149.25 mile path length for the Yazoo City tornado stands, it will be the 2nd longest tornado track since 1976.

The first?

A tornado on November 23, 1992 is listed as having a 160 mile long damage path in North Carolina.

There's also a post up on the Norman Weather Partners site by Harold Brooks about this and he says it's the 6th longest since 1970 (jives with what I'm seeing in the CSV files).

AJL
 
I caught the tail end of this supercell as it produced the tornado in Oktibbeha County near Starkville, MS along with the tornado at a distance in Clay County just east of the West Point, MS community. I feel for the folks that took the destruction in Mississippi and Alabama.

Just after the tornado struck Parish/Cordova, AL area we arrived on future I-22 to find emergency vehicles at the scene. We pulled up on a vehicle that had been thrown into a rock wall. We found out that there was a family of four in the vehicle as the tornado hit them head on and moved the vehicle. From that point we tried to move into Parish but the town was completely blocked off with trees. Cordova had an entry way that the county officials had blocked off so we assisted in diverting traffic so they could clear the roads and check on folks that had been hit. It was quite an experience and my first real local aid experience when dealing with a strong tornado in our area.

Many people complained of the chase terrain and that is an obvious problem if you don't know the area. Mississippi and Alabama are my territories. I have many positions marked via GPS for good visible views of storms across the areas and know many of them by heart. If you don't scout areas out in this part of the country you will never make it chasing......and in some cases make it out alive. Glad everyone that came to chase in the area came out of things okay and with there lives....not to mention very happy to see everyone come together as a unit and drop the chasing when people were in need....TVN...ChaserTV...SevereStudios.... everyone.

I know there was a tremendous loss of life, but the efforts of everyone here in the field likely saved many more lives.
 
My Extreme Weather book has a map that shows all tornado tracks for the eastern half of the US up to 2003 when it was published. It shows many long tracked tornadoes on the map and lists the miles tracked for the top 20 deadliest single tornadoes. Here is the list.

March 18, 1925: 219 miles for the great tri state tornado.
April 9, 1947: 170 miles for the Woodward tornado.
April 24, 1908: 135 miles for the Amite, Louisiana - Purvis, Mississippi tornado.
May 26, 1917: 155 miles for the Matoon, Illinois tornado.
April 24, 1908: 105 tornadoes for the Natchez, Mississippi tornado.

Now not looking at the old "Significant tornadoes" book and just looking at the update book for 1992 since that year is mentioned here is what I found:

November 21, 1992 128 miles F4 Mississippi
November 22, 1992 s67 miles F3 Georgia - South Carolina
November 23, 1992 f160 miles F3 North Carolina

Don't ask me what the "S" and "F" mean before the miles because I am not sure and can't find it in the book. I think I asked that question on here before though.
 
Everyone keeps giving 219 miles as the length of the tri-state tornado, but according to a talk Chuck Doswell gave at an event sponsored by the Paducah NWS a few years ago, a retrospective study of the tornado's path a few years ago suggests it was likely about 15 miles longer than that, i.e. 234 miles. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the paper online, but it is at least worth considering that the longest tornado track on record might be 234 miles, not 219. Doswell also said that the evidence seemed to suggest one continuous tornado, although in such a retrospective study, this cannot be determined with total certainty.
 
MatthewCarman said:
Don't ask me what the "S" and "F" mean before the miles because I am not sure and can't find it in the book. I think I asked that question on here before though.
Click to expand...

In the old book, "f" denotes strong likelihood that it was a tornado family rather than a single tornado. All of the ones that I posted above had an "f" except the Tri-State tornado.

Did the new version give any further details on the November 23, 1992 North Carolina tornado?
 
Significant tornadoes update covers the years of 1992-1995. If you do not have it you may want to look into buying it since you can get it new and cheap on Amazon.

Here is what the book said:

"What was probably a family of tornadoes moved to the NE, unseen in the early morning darkness. It is officially recorded as a single tornado and called the longest path in North Carolina history. However, its listing as a single 160-mile-long path might have been the result of inexperienced personnel rather than unique meteorology. The track began 3m N of coats and ended three hours and 15 minutes later 3 miles NE of Elizabeth City. The F3 damage occured early in the path as five homes were destroyed and 23 were damaged in Harnett County, where losses totalled $952,000 and 10 people were injured. In Johnson County, 12 people were injured as 22 homes were destroyed, some at Wilson's Mills. Losses in that county were about $1,982,000. One house was destroyed in Wilson County as the tornado passed south of Wilson.

In Edgecombe County, the damage skirted the towns of MacClesfield and pinetops. Two people were injured and 32 homes were damaged. In Martin County, nine people were injured and nine homes were destroyed. The tornado passed near Hassel and Hamilton, along Hwy-142. Eighteen homes were damaged at Windsor in Bertie County. Near Elizabeth City at 7:20 AM, 21 students (ages 12-18) were injured when a 28,000 pound school bus was hurled more than 75 yards. There was considerable debate as to how a school bus could drive into the path of the tornado that that had been on the ground for three hours. The first tornado warning in northeast North Carolina was issued at 5:56 AM. The tornado warning for Elizabeth City was issued at 6:48 AM 36 minutes before the tornado hit. School buses without radios were on the road by 6:30 AM. Three homes were also destroyed in and near Elizabeth City, with losses at $958,700. The funnel dissipated at the Pasquotank River."
 
Very interesting. Thanks for posting that. And, no I don't have the newer version, just the old. But I do hope to get a copy at some point.

Also, just FYI -- an updated PNS from JAN that was sent today has this: "PATH LENGTH: 149.25 MILES (PRELIMINARY)." My concern was that there may have been a break in the path over rural extreme southeastern Sharkey County near the Old Sunflower River. This is where KDGX radar suggested it may have cycled. The Civil Air Patrol aerial survey video that Jeff Piotrowski posted in the other thread seems to confirm that indeed this was the case. There was no apparent damage as it crossed the Old Sunflower River. So, JAN is likely to shorten the path length in the final survey once the aerial view is considered.
 
NWS Huntsville has posted a survey of the four north Alabama tornadoes of 4/24. Looking at the radar loops is interesting, as the reflectivity scans do not lend themselves to automatic recognition of tornadic activity. The velocity loops are more obvious, but the HP structures seem obscure even for this part of the country to me. As of this posting, the recently upgraded EF-4 loop is not up yet.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/?n=hunsur_2010-04-24
 
Yesterday afternoon I spent several hours adding many more thermodynamic, kinematic, upper air and composite indices from between 16z and 18z (primarily from 17z) on Saturday, which at least provides a better, quick resource of the environment that the storm was moving into as it crossed the Mississippi River

I will admit that this is by no means an analysis from a professional meteorologist, but if you want a quick glance at some of the data, here it is: http://convectiveaddiction.com/2010/04/25/yazoo-city-ms-tornado-april-24-2010/
 
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