• While Stormtrack has discontinued its hosting of SpotterNetwork support on the forums, keep in mind that support for SpotterNetwork issues is available by emailing [email protected].

5/10/08 DISC: KS/OK/MO/AR/TX/MS/GA/AL

  • Thread starter Thread starter Doug_Kiesling
  • Start date Start date
Thank you! ... That tells me just what I was wanting to know about the northern cell east of Oswego. That slippery sucker was producing a hook echo at the same time as the southern cell. Amazing that the core of the Picher storm was not doing more damage to the northern storm. When I took my video of that storm, my position was actually behind the backside of the storms, about 10 miles west of that group of SN chasers you see just northeast of Columbus. I wonder if any of them had a better viewing angle to the north? ... They were all probably too busy doing the same thing I was - trying to catch up to the southern storm.
 
Mike's radar link he posted is the same one I watched from RAP. If you watch the isolated cell trailing the first two storms, when it collapses is pretty well timed with when the lead storms should have hit the backed surface winds. I was going off of XM winds and surface stations at the time, so it may have been a bit off, but not by much. I just thought it was pretty cool how as soon as those storms hit the backed surface winds they developed hooks and went tornadic.
This is kind of off topic, but it is a similiar situation. I was driving through Iowa several years ago. It was well after dark and I was heading to Minnesota to chase the next day. I had radar running in my car for the hell of it and there were two supercells ahead of me that were approaching a warm front. The storms were probably 40 miles apart, but were directly East-West of one another so they were going to hit the front at the same time. I wasn't chasing the storms because I was still 50 miles or so away and my plan was just to hit the target area to spend the night in Minnesota for the next day's chase. Anyways, all of a sudden both storms turned right and hooked up at the same time as they hit the warm front. It was pretty sweet since they were virtually mirror images of each other. They both got rooted in the warm front and right turned at exactly the same time. I always wished I had a picture of the radar image. It would make a great picture for my apartment (if you're a dork that likes storms).
 
It looks like Jim Bishop and Simon Brewer may have been the only people that actually foresaw the northern target being better than the southern, so I may have to take back what I said ealier. They would have to answer that question themselves though. I wouldn't be surprised by this because I've always thought Jim and Simon were solidly in the top 5 forecasters of tornadoes from a chasing perspective. They are extremely good and always seem to hit the best tornadoes on big days, which IMO is a huge part of being a great storm chaser.
 
Mikey Gribble said:
It looks like Jim Bishop and Simon Brewer may have been the only people that actually foresaw the northern target being better than the southern, so I may have to take back what I said ealier. They would have to answer that question themselves though. I wouldn't be surprised by this because I've always thought Jim and Simon were solidly in the top 5 forecasters of tornadoes from a chasing perspective. They are extremely good and always seem to hit the best tornadoes on big days, which IMO is a huge part of being a great storm chaser.
Click to expand...

If you could put those up, I'd appreciate seeing them, since I'm still struggling to even understand the basics of all of this forecasting stuff. I know the three guys riding with me were looking at the area because it was closer to home, and we all were still crossing our fingers while expecting to have to adjust a rough-area chase. They solidified Tulsa when we were in Missouri. I hope I didn't mean to imply they were 100% sure of it in any way, or especially that they thought the southern part was bad (they thought it was fantastic, they just didn't like the danger in the mountains down there) - it was just a lucky shot, and they were persistent enough to stay on all the data they could get. And even given all of that, they had no idea about tornado potential whatsoever, only that the severe potential would be higher over Tulsa than expected, and thus that it was a good chase target.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A rundown of the Newton Co. event can be found here:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/sgf/?n=may10,2008description

I grew up in Neosho and my family still lives there. I have some family that lives on Iris Rd., but their house was spared. I know several people who did lose their homes, barns, etc.

One thing I would like to do is to read the warning texts again. I was tracking this storm as my wife and I were getting ready to go to a movie and remember thinking that given the storm motion and the warning text that Neosho was going to be ok. Then the storm made a right turn and things went nuts. When I saw the updated warning and radar I immediately called my parents who had taken cover in the basement. There were sirens and enough lead time for my mom to get my great grandma from up the street and get her back. I think the NWS did the best they could given the way the storm was acting before the right turn but I wonder if that had anything to do with the fatalities. Like I said before, when I read the "towns in the path" it didn't raise my concern at all because they were all north of Neosho in an west to east line. Picher-->Seneca-->4 mi north of Neosho-->Granby-->Purdy is not a normal sequence for that area. Connect the dots and you can see.

Actually here is the warning text at 5:35pm:
THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...
IRON GATES BY 600 PM CDT.
SAGINAW...LEAWOOD...SHOAL CREEK DRIVE AND SILVER CREEK BY 605 PM
CDT.
6 MILES SOUTH OF DUQUESNE AND 7 MILES SOUTH OF DUENWEG BY 610 PM
CDT.
DIAMOND AND 8 MILES NORTHWEST OF GRANBY BY 615 PM CDT.

THE TOWNS OF CLIFF VILLAGE...REDINGS MILL...DENNIS ACRES AND SHOAL
CREEK ESTATES ARE ALSO IN THE PATH OF THIS TORNADIC STORM. THIS ALSO
INCLUDES INTERSTATE 44 BETWEEN MILE MARKERS 1 AND 31.

And here it is at 6:07pm

* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...
NEOSHO BY 615 PM CDT.
FAIRVIEW BY 620 PM CDT.

THE TOWNS OF NEOSHO...STARK CITY...NEWTONIA...STELLA AND ROCKY COMFORT ARE
ALSO IN THE PATH OF THIS TORNADIC STORM.

Seneca is SW of Neosho. I just wonder how much lead time they have. Again, not dogging the NWS at all. This is just one of those things that can't be predicted that well.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those who lost life and property.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What exactly did you want me to post Darrin? Are you talking about who I think the top 5 forecasters are from a chasing perspective? You are going to get me in trouble lol. I don't think you can really rate people since there are so many things that go into it, but I can list who I think is at the top if that is what you are asking. If that is what you wanted let me know and give me a little time to put some thought into it.
Did they not come out with a map showing the tracks yet? I'll go check out the NWS Springfield page and see what I can find, but I'd really like to know the exact track of the Picher tornado.
edit - here is the link to what the NWS has up so far. No map unfortunately. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/sgf/?n=may10_2008_tornadoes
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Darrin Rasberry said:
If you could put those up, I'd appreciate seeing them, since I'm still struggling to even understand the basics of all of this forecasting stuff. I know the three guys riding with me were looking at the area because it was closer to home, and we all were still crossing our fingers while expecting to have to adjust a rough-area chase. They solidified Tulsa when we were in Missouri. I hope I didn't mean to imply they were 100% sure of it in any way, or especially that they thought the southern part was bad (they thought it was fantastic, they just didn't like the danger in the mountains down there) - it was just a lucky shot, and they were persistent enough to stay on all the data they could get. And even given all of that, they had no idea about tornado potential whatsoever, only that the severe potential would be higher over Tulsa than expected, and thus that it was a good chase target.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliments Mikey:

I pretty much started 'eyeballing' the SE KS/SW MO/NE OK region friday night after the 0z GFS and NAM came out. By Saturday morning that area (referring to the area surrounding Joplin, MO) looked like the 'Emerald City', if I were stuck in the Land of Oz, because of a combination of parameters:

1. nose of deep moisture advecting into the area and a very well-defined moisture axis over the region, and NAM, GFS, and RUC continued to forecast the moist axis into the afternoon

2. well-defined quasi-warm front across MO/AR border in the morning was going to lift over the area

3. SFC low and 850mb low progressing NNE over KS throughout the day would keep the low-level wind field backed significantly: important to note; not just the SFC winds were backed, but also the 850mb winds over the Joplin, MO area

4. region was to the left of the mid-level jet streak axis (lots of good things associated with this)

5. storm motion would be more condusive to 'insane' 0-1km storm-relative helicity values (which the models did an exellent job of forecasting on this particular day)

6. I knew the 12z model runs were underforecasting the CAPE over the area; due to lack of morning convection and incredible clear slot

Summary: basically, it looked like there would be a good shot of tornadic supercells over all of AR, eastern OK, etc., but the insane shear parameters combined with high CAPE appeared favorable for a violent EF4 or stronger tornado near the Joplin, MO area. That region, as far as shear and instability was concerned almost mirrored the Girard, KS area on May 4th, 2003. It appeared as one of those environments condusive for a serious tornado.

So, I had to be at my graduation convocation in Norman, or my family would have killed me. Jim Bishop (a great friend and stormgasm.com partner) came up from Houston, TX to see me graduate. He didn't have a camera, a map, absolutely nothing! I told him at ~1pm on Saturday, "Dude, take my video camera and my maps, and get your a** up to Joplin, MO."

Jim's reply, "Are you sure, I came here for your graduation. You won't be upset?"

My reply, "Hell no, I would skip your graduation for this, there is going to be at least an F3 tornado up there, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was an F4 or F5." He took my camera and maps, and hauled it to Joplin, MO; I called him a few times to inform him of supercells heading for his location, because he had no data at all.
Just a note: when I told Jim there would be an F3 I basically meant EF3, also, the F or EF scale is based on damage, so a tornado could have EF5 potential and hit nothing to get an F0 or F1 rating, but Jim knew what I meant: it appeared conditions were heavily favorable for a violent tornado in the Joplin, MO area.
 
Congratulations to those who caught that massive tornado. I have enjoyed seeing your pictures and video. I was trying to punch through the northern side of the hook and missed it by a matter of minutes. It is almost hopeless trying to chase a storm that way when it is moving at 50mph to the ESE!!! My thoughts are with the victims and their families of this weekend's tragic storm system.
 
Originally Posted by Bill Hark
Myself and a number of other chasers picked SW Oklahoma or areas in AR. I am asking from a meteorological viewpoint since some may have picked NW Oklahoma because of better roads or it was close to their house.
Bill--I'm just guessing, but I think you may have your easts and wests switched. Was your question about SE OK and that you picked NE OK? Or was the SW and NW correct?
Click to expand...

Jason, yes I made a typo. I meant that I picked SE Oklahoma ( Broken Bow) and I was curious about the northern target of NE Oklahoma/SE Kansas. Thanks to everyone with their reasons why they picked the northern target.

Bill Hark
 
Congrats to all who bagged some tubes--especially Jim & Mary who made the long trip up here for graduation!

One thing to note regarding the backed surface winds discussion--I'm simply not seeing them. All surface wind observations ahead of the dryline in northeast OK/southeast KS were consistently veered to the SSW until you got on the north side of the warm front, where it was stable anyway (e.g., Springfield, MO, which had a mid-upper 50s dewpoint). See the following link for a WxScope animation of Saturday's events in that region:

http://americium.gcn.ou.edu/picher.mov
 
Don,

The Joplin, MO ASOS station at 2243 UTC was 73/64 with SSE wind (tornado reported over Picher at 2242 UTC on SPC storm reports), but I don't see that on the WeatherScope loop... I used WeatherScope for data in my cold-core tornado project and found some inconsistencies with other sources using what is supposedly the same data.

I mentioned backed surface winds above (should not have), but the backed 850mb winds further north (from the Springfield 18 and 00 UTC hodographs) appeared more important for 0-1km shear given the easterly storm motion. Every event is different, but I usually focus more attention on 850mb winds than surface winds.
'backed-surface winds' does not imply better shear (I'm guilty; I mention 'backed winds' all the time). It's really all about the storm-relative winds, and depending on the environment and storm motion in some cases veered surface winds may yield better shear for a particular storm over backed surface winds.

Example: southeast storm motion at 25kts, southeast surface wind at 10kts, southeast 850winds at 25kts: not only is there 15kts of speed shear between 850mb and the surface, but the storm motion is parallel to the 0-1km shear vector giving zero 0-1km SREH for that storm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

2023-04-04 EVENT: KS/OK/TX/MO/IL/AR
2
Replies
16
Views
3K
cdcollura
cdcollura
Cody Dunkle
2023-01-02 REPORTS: OK
Replies
0
Views
934
Cody Dunkle
Cody Dunkle
2021-03-17 EVENT: AR/LA/MS/TN/AL/GA
2 3
Replies
41
Views
12K
Mike Smith
Ethan Schisler
2021-05-03 REPORTS: IL/MO/OK/TX/AR/IN
Replies
2
Views
2K
Paul Hadfield
Paul Hadfield
Quincy Vagell
2020-04-08 REPORTS: AR/IA/MO/IL/IN
Replies
3
Views
2K
L Kimbrel
L Kimbrel
Back
Top