Bogus storm report in SW Missouri Sunday night

[John Robinson]

After 11 PM CDT Sunday night, someone from the public posted a bogus picture of a funnel cloud at Gainesville, MO, and a HAM radio operator relayed it to NWS. The picture was altogether false. A media met soon discovered it was a picture that had appeared on The Weather Channel website in March 2022. Unfortunately, by then, the SGF NWS office had issued a tornado warning, based on tightening rotation on radar plus the picture.

During that same time frame, an emergency manager reported that 911 had received a report of "a confirmed tornado on the ground" at Camdenton, MO. While there was some tree damage in that area, no storm survey was apparently done. So it's impossible to be sure if that report was also false (or if someone saw trees fall and assumed it was a tornado).

Let's hope we don't have another spell of bad storm reports.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I'm not sure much will top this:



The tornado reports on this day were based on some ignorant idiot out there reporting a tail cloud from an HP supercell as a massive wedge tornado that wound up causing the Little Rock WFO to issue several Tornado Emergencies for a tornado that never even occurred.

ARC075-121-135-160100-
/O.CON.KLZK.TO.W.0049.000000T0000Z-220416T0100Z/
Randolph AR-Lawrence AR-Sharp AR-
748 PM CDT Fri Apr 15 2022

...TORNADO EMERGENCY FOR IMBODEN...BLACK ROCK AND WALNUT RIDGE...

...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 800 PM CDT FOR SOUTH
CENTRAL RANDOLPH...NORTHWESTERN LAWRENCE AND EAST CENTRAL SHARP
COUNTIES...

At 747 PM CDT, a confirmed large and destructive tornado was located
near Ravenden, or 11 miles northwest of Black Rock, moving east at 50
mph.

TORNADO EMERGENCY for IMBODEN...BLACK ROCK AND WALNUT RIDGE. This is
a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. TAKE COVER NOW!

HAZARD...Deadly tornado.

SOURCE...Weather spotters confirmed tornado.

327
NOUS44 KLZK 162236
PNSLZK
ARZ004>008-014>017-024-025-031>034-039-042>047-052>057-062>069-
103-112-113-121>123-130-137-138-140-141-203-212-213-221>223-230-
237-238-240-241-313-340-341-171045-

Public Information Statement
National Weather Service Little Rock AR
536 PM CDT Sat Apr 16 2022

...Storm Survey Results From The Northeast Arkansas Supercell
That Occurred Friday, April 15, 2022...

A storm survey team from NWS Little Rock assessed damage across
portions of Fulton, Sharp and Lawrence Counties today. After
surveying the affected areas, it was determined that straight line
winds and large wind blown hail caused the damage.

Reports of tornadoes occurring across these areas yesterday could
not be verified. An earlier report of vehicles being flipped over
near Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County) was determined to have been
caused by those vehicles crashing after encountering significant
amounts of accumulated hail on the roadway.

$$

67

The environment was marginally supportive of significant tornadoes, but some of the typical ingredients, such as substantial SBCAPE and 3-km CAPE, were not present:

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/ma_archive/images_s4/20220416/01_sbcp.gif

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/ma_archive/images_s4/20220416/01_lr3c.gif

Shear was pretty good, but then again, just having good low-level shear does not guarantee a violent tornado:

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/ma_archive/images_s4/20220416/01_shr1.gif

Radar imagery made it hard to believe that a storm with the signatures it was showing was somehow producing a huge tornado doing massive damage. Say what you want about beam height (~11 kft AGL in the action area), but this is not what radar signatures look like on storms that are producing long-track, major tornadoes. I have to believe that a well-trained NWS meteorologist watching the radar would know this. However, given it was after dark and they were getting spotter reports, I don't 100% fault them for continuing the intense warning category and messaging. What other choice did they have (even if they didn't believe it)? The penalty for missing a tornado is far more severe than the penalty for falsely warning a storm (the so-called asymmetric penalty function).




Quite the blemish on the storm spotter record, if you ask me.

 

[John Robinson]

The 4/15/22 episode was the one I was referring to when I said "Let's hope we don't have another spell of bad storm reports," especially since the reports in southwest Missouri weren't all that far away from those that occurred in Arkansas.