4/28/08 DISC: VA

[Bill Hark]

I recently talked with Virginia chaser Bill Coyle who nowcasted for Virginia chaser Jesse Bass who intercepted a stovepipe tornado that moved over the James River in SE Virgina. Also, WVEC is showing a still of a wedge that was e-mailed to them.

From a different storm, there was some damage and injuries in Petersburg Virginia near where a tornado hit in 1993.

Bill Hark

 

[Eddie Natenberg]

A picture of a major wedge on the ground (that was taken earlier) was just shown on WVEC news. Kind of surprising.

Will post a link or screen cap when i can.

Eddie

EDIT: More pictures now online at http://www.wvec.com/news/topstories/stories/wvec_local_042808_wx_damage.abc5c485.html

 

[Mike Umscheid]

This is absolutely incredible. This is exactly the area I was invited to give a Greensburg tornado presentation at the Virginia Emergency Management Conference last month... in Hampton Roads!! The theme of the VEMC: "It could happen here". Wow. It sure did, just a month later!

 

[Bob Hartig]

Wow! I was following this and a couple other storms on my brand-new GR2AE, and while I don't have a clue what I'm doing with the volume scans, I had a hunch I was seeing something pretty interesting. I saved an image, or at least tried to save one, but I basically just let the program select my location for me--kind of an impulse snap-and-shoot. I'll look for the image, and if I can find it, I'll post it.

Update: Found it. Here it is...

 

[Bill Hark]

WAVY out of the Norfolk/Hampton Roads area now has a nice collection of tornado images. Check out this link:
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=8239672

I am really bummed I didn't take the afternoon off to chase. Even as late as around noon, I didn't have high expectations for the day. By the time things were looking interesting in SE Virginia, it was too late to try and move patients and chase. Thus event caught me off guard.

Bill Hark

 

[Chris Hayes]

I'm watching live video on CNN.com and there deffinately appears at least EF3 damage in some of the shots. One confirmed fatality as well

 

[Mark Sudduth]

Jesse did indeed capture it on video and will have it posted online as soon as he can. He called me and was quite excited, as you can imagine. Tornadoes in SE VA are rare enough and to catch one is even rare-er. And, he did it mostly with instinct and having his VX-2100 with him- which he does all the time anyway. Coyle was of great help as well. Looking forward to seeing it! Good job there Bass!

 

[Bill Hark]

Here are some more tornado images:
http://wavy.lintvmix.com/photos-browse.php?what=categories&for=1459

http://www.wtkr.com/Global/story.asp?S=8239350

I expect to eventually see some nice tornado video. This was a rather unexpected group of tornadoes and the analysis should be interesting.



Here are the MCD's leading up to this event:

12:50PM EDT
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0751.html

4:28PM EDT
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0753.html

16:30Z Day1
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk_1630.html


Bill Hark
Looking forward to seeing Jesse's video.

 

[Paul Goodman]

Hampton Roads (VA) tornado (4/28/08)

The Virginian-Pilot online article.

(Thank you mods for moving this to the correct forum. My mistake.)

 

[Eddie Natenberg]

Oh I could resist myself in seeing why this happened and I think I know why.

I took a MHX sounding and modified it for the 21z sfc obs and the 0-3 km CAPE is pretty impressive, couple that with 0-3 KM SREH in the 400 m^2/s^2 range via the VWP and thats calls for intense low level mesocyclogenesis in the lowest 1km of a relatively weak thunderstorm. This may be why radar presentation was poor when low level visual observations were impressive.

Enjoy!

EDIT: SORRY FOR THE DUPLICATE THREAD. MODS PLEASE DELETE MY OTHER THREAD.

 

[Brian Stertz]

My brother is an editor for the Newport News Daily Press and has heard that the tornado may be rated EF3 in Suffolk and Driver. Here is the Daily Press link:

http://www.dailypress.com/

 

[beaudodson]

200 injured - that is a pretty high number.

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

Hey folks, we just got this up on the web. I'm still working on the website for bnvn so I put it up on my blog for now. Jesse Bass was on this in VA today.

http://www.lightningboy.net/content/042808bnvnchesapeakevatornadoflv

 

[John Olexa]

They are rating it an EF3

 

[Angie Norris]

From what I've seen on CNN, EF-3 is pretty right on. Have they already finished the survey? They're still saying 200 injured, still some people trapped, but no fatalities yet. I think I heard 15 minutes lead time on the warnings...the guys at the WFO were really on top of the situation.