AMA Damage Assessments from 3/28

[Jeff Snyder]

I would give a breakdown of the AMA CWA tornadoes like I usually do for significant tornado events, but their PNS is pretty straightforward and well organized:

http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KAMA/0703302306.nous44.html

The max rating I see is EF3 (at least a few are rated EF3). The max widths are 1mi wide (EF3 west of Kellville) and 0.8mi wide (EF southwest of Canadian). See the PNS for more information.

One interesting observation, in reference to Tornado #1 in Donley Co (s of McLean). Here is a video still from near 8:16pm while we were S of McLean on Hwy 273. As you can see, the tornado is at about the 10:00 position, which would put it SSW or maybe even SW of McLean. For those at NWS AMA (I think we have one or two employees on ST from AMA), does this match up with your observations? EDIT: Per my GPS logs, we were approx 7.5mi S of I40 on Hwy 273 at the time of the 8:15pm video stills (such as the one below).

I have more video stills after dark on my webserver at http://www.tornadocentral.com/chasing/2007/03282007/videostills/. The time stamps are given in the filenames, and they appear to be good within about 45 seconds of my GPS time. I tried to contrast-enhance a couple of the stills, and I can work on more if necessary. I also have a few from 8:55, when we were south of Kellerville (2.5mi S of Kellerville per my GPS log). I think the 8:55pm stills (particularly the first one) show the wedge that was reported northwest of Kellerville (notice that the possible tornado is to the distant northwest of us -- to the right of the bright area on the stills -- as we were driving towards Kellerville on Kellerville Road). The 4th 8:55pm still shows what looks to be the roping stage. I can't be too confident in this, since it was quite distant, but that certainly looks like a very low cloud base and a tornado to me. The time and location match up quite well with the estimated time and location given in the PNS.

EDIT: The more I look at it, the more it does appear that the tornado is closer to the 11 o'clock position relative to the northward-directed roadway. But, if the tornado I'm referring to in the PNS is one single tornado, that would imply that it must have crossed Hwy 273. There were a bunch of chasers around me at this time, including some that were a ways farther north. I'm surprised we don't have more accounts of a close encounter along Hwy 273 south of McLean if this is indeed the case. I was under the impression that this tornado remained west of Hwy 273, before another meso and tornado developed east of 273 and moved north of I40.

 

[Jay McCoy]

Actually Jeff its a miracle that a number of chasers werent part of that tornado as it crossed 273. We shot it from the time it was developing until it had hit McLean and it never lifted. The whole time on the video we are commenting on how many chasers were driving directly under the circulation and into the area of the tornado. I am wondering how many actually even knew it was there and chose to try and outrun it north and how many were just oblivious to its presense. We came across an area that had some limbs down and a ton of leaves. I actually thought it was from the huge hail but now I am not so sure. I never did see any powerflashes on 273 but I dont recall if powerlines ran adjacent to the road.

The one I cant account for is the one 6 miles NE of Hedley. We stayed in close proximity to the area of rotation most of the time. We saw it drop one just SW of hedley by a few miles but never saw the one NE. That was about the time it was transitioning more into an HP'ish storm so it may have been somewhat rainwrapped. Anybody else see that one??


**By the way Jeff that was me talking to you on the ham near Wheeler when your group had to break off due to gas issues and no power. We continued North into Canadian.

 

[Adam Atkins]

Are we to infer the tornadoes that precluded tornado #1 weren't assessed due to the lack of any damage to infrastructure? I'm referring to the photogenic ones west of Memphis/Lakeview that everyone saw

EDIT: OR would these tornadoes be in the LBB CWA...and are not finished?

 

[Jay McCoy]

Are we to infer the tornadoes that precluded tornado #1 weren't assessed due to the lack of any damage to infrastructure? I'm referring to the photogenic ones west of Memphis/Lakeview that everyone saw

EDIT: OR would these tornadoes be in the LBB CWA...and are not finished?

Those are in the LBB NWS CWA. I havent found anything on those yet including the Silverton tornado. The ones near Brice I am sure will get an EF-0 since they hit nothing but brush in the middle of nowhere. Even a powerline or old abandoned farmhouse would have been nice since it was such a beautiful and powerful looking tornado. Going from Multiple vortex to a nice wide trunk.

 

[Gabe Garfield]

To any AMA damage survey members, tornado #1 (tornado E of McLean) was NOT the first significant tornado in Donley County. The video still that Jeff showed was of a different tornado that formed ~4SW of McClean and moved northward. This tornado is different than the tornado that hit the east side of McClean. A new circulation formed just to the east of McLean (produced tornado #1) while the aforementioned tornado was roping out.

The tornado SW of McLean and the tornado E of McLean were from two entirely different circulations. These were separate events.

Gabe