Data from 21 April 2007 (Tulia tornado) published

Donald Giuliano

EF3
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Apr 4, 2005
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It seems a new EJSSM (http://ejssm.org) article written by Scott Blair, Derek Deroche, and Albert Pietrycha about the observations of the 21 April 2007 Tulia tornado inadvertently collected by Eric Nguyen and Amos Maggliocco is now online. Evidently the 194 mb pressure deficit and 50 m/s wind sampled by their sensors held up to scientific scrutiny, and the graphs depicting these data are a must-see. I definitely recommend checking out their paper, and kudos to Blair et al. for getting the data published!
 
It's great to see this up. I was one of many chasers there that day, although not seeing the tornado 'til it left Tulia. We accualy drove through the South part of Tulia not knowing it was hit. It wasn't until we saw the debris falling east of town that we had realised what happened.

After seeing the pictures of Amos' vehicle and noting the instuments the next day, I've been wondering what kind of data they collected, if any. I'm going to skim through the article tonight and read it fully tomorrow. I can already see it's going to be an interesting read.

-Eric
 
Very interesting read! I'm struck by how a visually unremarkable tornado such as the Tulia tornado had a pressure drop so much larger than the Manchester wedge. It goes to show you that you can't judge a tornadoes intensity very well visually.
 
I'm grateful to Scott Blair for all the hard work and patience he put into this analysis. He stuck with the project through difficult circumstances last year, and, along with his co-authors, crafted a solid article.

I'm not qualified to comment on the implications of these data, but, from a personal standpoint, it's gratifying to see the publication for several reasons. First and foremost is that Eric took instrumentation very seriously---it was as important to him as photography---and now he has the data equivalent of his Mulvane shot. Second, I'm glad that something positive and substantial can emerge from that unhappy accident in Tulia. It's a testament to the technology we use in chasing today that the entire event can be recreated, between the instrument logs and the GPS file, to a degree of precision that a scientific paper is possible where nothing of the sort was planned in advance.

My hat is off to Scott, Derek, and Al.
 
Verne Carlson said:
Very interesting read! I'm struck by how a visually unremarkable tornado such as the Tulia tornado had a pressure drop so much larger than the Manchester wedge. It goes to show you that you can't judge a tornadoes intensity very well visually.
Click to expand...

If you judge a tornado's intensity by wind (a la 3 sec 10 m peak wind), there is likely not a good relationship with minimum pressure either. Nevertheless, a fantastic read. They set a good standard for everyone to follow when documenting an event. BTW, Eric Nguyen's and Amos' attention to instrument quality made this possible too.
 
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