5/25/08 DISC: TX/OK/KS/NE/AR/MO/IL/IA/MN/WI/CA

[John Peters]

The appearance of this tornado and the fact that it was produced by an "HPish" supercell reminds me of descriptions i've read of the tristate tornado. Watch Quintin Erdman's video in the Reports thread; the giant meso hangs nearly to the ground and the tornado is partially shrouded in fog and rain. Many tri-state tornado survivors discribed the tornado as a "rolling fog" as well. Extend the path of this tornado another 150 miles or so, and you have a nearly identical event to that which produced the tri-state tornado.

 

[Van DeWald]

QRT has been activated. Rod Donovan is a LMET at DMX, he indicated this in one of his posts yesterday. DMX just confirmed that a QRT is in place.

 

[Rod Donavon]

As Van mentioned, a QRT is taking place today and I think you all know what the minimum rating is going to be. Someone from the QRT and a Iowa State Structural Engineer will be up there today along with our SOO. The "potentially greater than EF3" wording has really confused the media who are all reporting it was an EF3 with 165 mph winds.

The tornado went through new housing areas in both Parkersburg and north of New Hartford. Some of the clean slabs were not anchored well if at all. However, others were anchored with bolts or rebar which were snapped off. Areas of interest today are in Parkersburg obviously where it is hard to distinguish because of the debris loading that took place and later deposited everywhere and a location Northeast of New Hartford where basically only a few pieces of wood remained on the property, not sure where the rest ended up. As Jim mentioned, very difficult to get an EF5 rating. Either way, absolutely devastating.

 

[Van DeWald]

Essentially that's what a QRT is, i.e. representives from other NWS offices or divisions who have expertise in this area. QRT members could be from other NWS offices, or from regional or national headquarters, etc. Just depends on the situation. Basically, it's just getting a group of experts together to get more eyes on the damage, developing a consensus on the final determination, rather than having just one person make the final rating.

 

[rdale]

Gotcha - I thought it involved having experts in the construction / wind / etc. fields rather than just local mets. Maybe those are just the "more publicized" events because I do recall some high profile names being part of QRT's in the past.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Gotcha - I thought it involved having experts in the construction / wind / etc. fields rather than just local mets. Maybe those are just the "more publicized" events because I do recall some high profile names being part of QRT's in the past.

Actually, the QRT started out in 2003 as a list of 20 national experts in meteorology, wind engineering, and damage surveys (I was one of the 20, along with Marshall, Doswell, Burgess, etc.) after the La Plata MD tornado. Since then, the national QRT funding has been discontinued, and the "QRT"'s you hear about now are comprised members of neighboring WFOs and NWS regional HQs.

 

[rdale]

That clarifies it... Another great decision by NWS HQ

 

[Derek Weston]

Quad Cities NWS has put up information on the storm as it continued into counties in its jurisdiction.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=dvn&storyid=14898&source=0

32 more miles. High end EF3. (160mph)

Sounds like it lifted briefly after the first 43 miles while crossing county lines into Buchanan. Almost a 75 mile path here... wow.

 

[Derek Weston]

Parkersburg Tornado press conference at 4:00 pm (central) today.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=dmx&storyid=14908&source=0

 

[Van DeWald]

DMX press conference bumped to 430 pm.

 

[Joel Wright]

Would they take the fact that the tornado was so large and had more time to do damage at one location into consideration when rating this? Obviously the longer a tornado is over a certain location the more time it has to sweep debris away.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

That is just one of the flaws that the current system has, if a tornado is stationary and can just grind away at things, or if the tornado is just so large like this one obviously is, then there is just no way of identifying that it could have been a 'weaker' tornado that had time to do a higher damage. To put it simply, you can't really take something like that into consideration when doing a damage survey; at least not in the sense of giving it a different rating based on that information.

 

[Joel Wright]

Well, it was rated an EF-5. First one in Iowa since 1976.

 

[Bob Hartig]

The appearance of this tornado and the fact that it was produced by an "HPish" supercell reminds me of descriptions i've read of the tristate tornado. Watch Quintin Erdman's video in the Reports thread; the giant meso hangs nearly to the ground and the tornado is partially shrouded in fog and rain. Many tri-state tornado survivors discribed the tornado as a "rolling fog" as well. Extend the path of this tornado another 150 miles or so, and you have a nearly identical event to that which produced the tri-state tornado.

Exactly my own thought and that of my fellow chasers, as we discussed what we had witnessed between Fairbank and Hazleton. Having had a chance to review my video, I've been able to more clearly make out a roiling wedge, but the definition is easily lost in the dust, precip, haze, and the extremely low wall cloud. I prefer to be cautious in my assessments, since it's tempting to overdramatize with something as compelling as a tornado, but this sucker had to have been a good mile wide, maybe more. And I can easily see how the average citizen in its path might not have recognized it for what it was.

 

[Heidi Farrar]

Here's the link to the NWS summary:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_story.php?wfo=dmx&storyid=14909&source=0