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5/4/07 DISC: KS

Jeff, great post! I also remember commenting to folks while it was occuring that is not that often to such rapid and intense RFD surges, a hallmark of cyclic tornadic supercells that usually have very very intense tornadoes.

I've attached some GRLevel3 imagery from Greensburg; one from SSW of the city (BREF1, SREV1, and BREF4 showing the BWER), and one of the hook NE of the city.
 

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Dick McGowan said:
Darin Brunin, Derek Shaffer and I witnessed at least 6 tornadoes, the Greensburg one formed about 300 yards in front of us. A survivor ran out onto the road on 183, and we took him to his family down the road after moving power lines (not hot) off of the road and went into Greensburg before emergency personnel arrived. I can't even describe the smell. This has changed storm chasing perspective for me. Sean Wilson helped rescue a lady out of her basement, hiding in her bathroom under a pile of rubble. Anywhere else in her house, and she would not have survived. Here is the picture of the Greensville wedge. There were several other tornadoes on the ground at the same time, in different shapes. On zero sleep, and ready to head west.

Thanks to Dan Robinson and Fabian Guerra for stopping to help out on 183 south of Greensburg.
Click to expand...

To Dick and everyone who stopped to help: God bless you!

Please see Richard Crowson's editorial cartoon at: http://kansas.com/599/image_media/62856.html Richard intended it for you and all of the people who have helped out in this emergency.


Mike
 
from what i could see, when the tornado took a more northerly turn through town, it started to become wrapped, and then the rain disappeared and the tornado started moving east again. i was about 5 miles south of it. looking at the radar loop, it looks like it occluded, and a new tornado formed, but i was right there, and it stayed on the ground while it cycled. i have never seen a tornado stay on the ground through the cycling process. which isnt saying much seeing as i've only seen 10 tornadoes, all of them were this year. im not sure what i'm adding to this disc. thread. i just think that those who werent there may look at the radar images and think that it cycled through different tornadoes.

as we came upon the storm, there was a cone to the west, and the wedge was just barely wedging out, and then there were at least 2 satellite tornadoes east of the wedge. i talked to randy hicks, who was very close to the wedge, and he says he saw at least 4 satellites around the wedge at one time. maybe more. it would have been monumental to have a dow close to this storm. i cant even imagine how big of a deal that would have been. its weird to think about how far this science has come in the past 35+ years, and then think about what happened friday. we know so much but are so far from having it figured out. i also am excited to have witnessed it first hand, but am also completely sympathetic for those effected by this tornado.
 
mike scantlin said:
i talked to randy hicks, who was very close to the wedge, and he says he saw at least 4 satellites around the wedge at one time. maybe more. it would have been monumental to have a dow close to this storm. i cant even imagine how big of a deal that would have been. its weird to think about how far this science has come in the past 35+ years, and then think about what happened friday. we know so much but are so far from having it figured out. i also am excited to have witnessed it first hand, but am also completely sympathetic for those effected by this tornado.
Click to expand...

We talked with Randy and Lanny Dean south of Coldwater as the three initial cells went up and were kind of bummed we missed the tornado in Oklahoma.
When Darin, Derek and I went north out of Protection, we hit a very muddy road where the "Greensburg" tornado formed, and after it morphed into a stovepipe, Randy passed us (my car has too much torque and we couldn't go fast at all). He had to be extremely close to the wedge, it was a wedge minutes after it had first turned into a stovepipe.

We could see 3 seperate tornadoes to the right of the wedge. It was totally unbelievable. A police officer also FLEW past us on the muddy road, and there was a farm on this road that had taken a hit, he turned back around and we tried flashing him to alert him of the powerlines and he drove right into them. The smell of gas was everywhere, and some sort of tank was lying in a field across from the farm. Numerous times on 183, there was gas spraying into the road from something, so much that it looked like fog shooting across the highway.
 
Jason, I've got GR2AE radar Z and SRV images at:

http://vansvault.org/weather/pictures/070504/

Look in the Z (reflectivity) and SRM (storm relative velocity) directories. There are individual images from 0130Z through 0500Z (0830pm through 1200am). Filenames are Z time. I've also got animated gifs for that duration there too, although they are huge files (4 to 6 megs). These stills cover the southern half of Stafford county.
 
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Quick observation about Greensburg...

Since the first pictures came out of there on the night of the 4th it was remarkable to me that the streets seemed to have little to no debris on them...they looked completely clear. Did anyone else make this observation? Maybe it's due to the streets being a flat surface so nothing can really get stuck on them...especially in high wind. Or...did some sort of "plow" come through immediately after the tornado to clear debris aside and aid in getting emergency vehicles around?

Of course I wasn't there so maybe it was just a few of the streets shown by CNN etc but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.
 
I took this photo as we entered into Greensburg. This is also a photo of what the storm looked like prior to the first tornado. It was shot at 10 mm, so we were actually closer. It had the craziest inflow band I have ever seen.
sitka3.jpg

greensburg3.jpg


Video of the first stovepipe, then the beginning of the Greensburg tornado is here. You can see multiple power flashes towards the end. I have over 3 hours of footage, and will be posting more eventually. I heard they found a survivor, that's amazing...but I wonder how many family members were let down after finding out it wasn't one of their loved ones.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU3iqkDEpKw
 
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UPDATE: further closer inspection of the radar loops, a strong case is made that a mesolow developed Friday evening and that this concentrated outbreak of strong-violent tornadoes was enhanced by this feature IMO.

By the look of the orientation of the tornadic supercells once they got deeper into Kansas...it looked like they seemed to be in good "phase" storm motion-wise with the lifting warm front. They seemed to have passed into a less capped...stronger shear...lower lcl environment on the boundary. This holds true also for the later action up towards the Great Bend-Ellinwood area. This dryline to warm front supercell transition I observed on April 8, 1999 in SW Iowa near Carbon, and would certainly believe this is what happened in this case as well. The theta ridge poking into the Protection/Greensburg/Pratt area Friday was very impressive.
 
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Interesting to see, that the grain bins/elevators are still standing and not heavily damaged? Is this due to them being on the edge of the most intense tornadic circulation or are those things really that sturdy. Its amazing to see that the water tower has been toppled. It will be very interesting to see where other than the obvious place(school and/or water tower) will be the areas F(EF)5 damage. Very sad. Been through that town numerous times from 00-02.
 
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