Deadly tornado hit Riegelwood,NC

Andrea Griffa · Nov 17, 2006

Yesterday November 16 a strong tornado hit the city of Riegelwood and killed at least 8- 10 persons. The monster did appear during the night(6 am) and peaple was killed while sleeping.
Here the aerial footage of the strong damage:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/11/16/southern.storms.ap/index.html

Anyone can give me the link of the preliminary damage survey?

Ed Schoenborn · Nov 17, 2006

Has anyone heard what size the tornado was on the Fujita scale?

Angie Norris · Nov 17, 2006

I think they're sending the survey team out this morning. From that CNN vid, I'd go weak F-2 (at the most) based on that one well built (exterior brick) house...roof gone, interior and exterior walls still standing.
What a tragedy for that community...I would imagine there was literally no warning unless you had NWR or possibly up watching TV. As a rule, that part of the country is rural, few spotters, and no sirens.

Jeff Snyder · Nov 17, 2006

NWS ILM said:
[FONT=lucida sans typewriter, lucida console, courier]A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STORM SURVEY TEAM WENT TO EASTERN
COLUMBUS COUNTY NEAR RIEGELWOOD TO SURVEY TORNADO DAMAGE. THE STORM
SURVEY TEAM DID DETERMINE THAT A STRONG TORNADO AFFECTED THE AREA
BUT HAD NOT YET DETERMINED THE INTENSITY. THE STORM SURVEY TEAM WILL
RETURN TO THE SCENE AGAIN ON FRIDAY TO INVESTIGATE FURTHER AND REACH
AN INTENSITY DETERMINATION. ANOTHER STATEMENT WILL BE ISSUED BY THE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN WILMINGTON LATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON. [/FONT]

[FONT=lucida sans typewriter, lucida console, courier]

[/FONT]ILM Preliminary PNS

Another example of the utility of NWR. Maybe between Evansville last year, and Riegelwood this year, more folks will get an AHR. I'm not holding my breath, however.

Andrea Griffa · Nov 17, 2006

Angie Norris said:
I think they're sending the survey team out this morning. From that CNN vid, I'd go weak F-2 (at the most) based on that one well built (exterior brick) house...roof gone, interior and exterior walls still standing.
What a tragedy for that community...I would imagine there was literally no warning unless you had NWR or possibly up watching TV. As a rule, that part of the country is rural, few spotters, and no sirens.

Mmmm Angie I agree that the major path of the tornado could be of F2 intensity but I saw some well constructed house nearly completely leveled that could enahnce the rating of this monster to F3. However we'll see which will be the rating of the experts team.

Andrea Griffa · Nov 17, 2006

Jeff Snyder said:
ILM Preliminary PNS

Another example of the utility of NWR. Maybe between Evansville last year, and Riegelwood this year, more folks will get an AHR. I'm not holding my breath, however.

Thanks Jeff for informations as usual.

Brandon Clement · Nov 17, 2006

Was this storm produced from the line of thunderstorms or did a cell form out in front of the line?

Looks like a pretty significant tornado, I would guess F-3 but wouldn't be shocked if it was an F-4.

Dan Robinson · Nov 17, 2006

I saw the storm on radar as it was happening, it was a small but intense isolated supercell far separated from any line. Tornado warned across multiple counties at a time for its entire lifespan with very strong circulation signature on radar. I might pull some grabs down from the NCDC archives tonight if I have time.

The extensive debris field in the photos appears to be deceptive as far as the tornado strength is concerned. The damaged structures looked like they were mosty light, fragile and easily obliterated (mostly trailers). Many of the cars still had most of their windows intact even though some were rolled over. Little or no ground scouring or mud caking. Aside from the damage to the one brick facade house, I think this will probably fall in the high end F2 range.

The casualties were surely a result of no warning reception via siren or NWR, the weak structures, the time of year and the time of day of the event. Few people think tornadoes can happen then and much less in North Carolina. A sad story as there was plenty of warning (SPC tornado risk outlined in advance, tornado watch in effect and tornado warning), but nothing in place there for the people to receive it.

beaudodson · Nov 17, 2006

Very little chance that this was an F2. Looks more likely to be an F3 or perhaps F4.

Angie Norris · Nov 17, 2006

Andrea Griffa said:
Mmmm Angie I agree that the major path of the tornado could be of F2 intensity but I saw some well constructed house nearly completely leveled that could enahnce the rating of this monster to F3. However we'll see which will be the rating of the experts team.

Andrea, links to the other damage pics or video, please? I was going solely on the CNN vid. Thanks!!!
Dan is very right...don't be deceived by the damage to the mobile homes...while it makes for more interesting vid as far as the media is concerned (showing "total devestation" as it were), even with F0 vs mobile home, the tornado wins the battle easily.

Brandon Clement · Nov 17, 2006

Dan Robinson said:
I saw the storm on radar as it was happening, it was a small but intense isolated supercell far separated from any line. Tornado warned across multiple counties at a time for its entire lifespan with very strong circulation signature on radar. I might pull some grabs down from the NCDC archives tonight if I have time.

The extensive debris field in the photos appears to be deceptive as far as the tornado strength is concerned. The damaged structures looked like they were mosty light, fragile and easily obliterated (mostly trailers). Many of the cars still had most of their windows intact even though some were rolled over. Little or no ground scouring or mud caking. Aside from the damage to the one brick facade house, I think this will probably fall in the high end F2 range.

The casualties were surely a result of no warning reception via siren or NWR, the weak structures, the time of year and the time of day of the event. Few people think tornadoes can happen then and much less in North Carolina. A sad story as there was plenty of warning (SPC tornado risk outlined in advance, tornado watch in effect and tornado warning), but nothing in place there for the people to receive it.

Thanks Dan, the way the articles were written up it sounded like an embedded cell but the damage looked like it came from an isolated cell. After watching that video again I think your right. I would guess F-3 but wouldn't be surprised if it was rated a F-2. F-4 is just about out of the question.

I was watching this system since Tuesday night but had quit paying attention once it really looked like a straight line event. If you pull those radar grabs please post them because I would like to see them and I am not sure how to get them myself.

Greg Stumpf · Nov 17, 2006

A national Quick Response Team (QRT), led by Don Burgess (CIMMS) was sent out to survey this event, and it is on-going today (Fri 11/17). As of 10am this morning, he had only visited the mobile home/manufactured home area of Holly Tree Rd. Should get a preliminary report from him sometime later today. We are supporting their verification efforts with our experimental WDSSII Rotation Tracks products, and he plans to survey the entire track (not just Riegelwood). Those with Google Earth or some other KML viewer:

http://wdssii.nssl.noaa.gov/geotiff_examples/20061116/RotationTrack180min.kml

.

Kiel Ortega · Nov 17, 2006

Storm was a very nice supercell---isolated and flying north. Lead time for the area with the fatalities looks to be 7-12 minutes. The experimental rotation tracks product showed decent rotation with the storm (though the best rotation was about 1.5 to 2 km up; lots of purple haze when the storm was near KLTX) through it's entire life (which is from the Atlatic Ocean to the northeast corner of Wayne County, NC. Below I have included the rotation tracks (yellows/reds are higher values of rotation) from KMHX and KRAX...the Google Earth link that Greg supplied earlier are tracks from KLTX (closest radar at tornado time). I've also included the low level reflectivity and velocity (storm motion estimate: 015 @ ~40 kts); these snapshots are from 70 sec before tornado warning issuance. Also included are more velocity images from the same volume scan (up to ~1.5 km AGL; tilt and time stamp in lower right corner).

Reflectivity just prior to TOR issuance:
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/priorwarn.png
Velocity
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/priorwarn-vel.png
Velocity up to ~1.5 km AGL:
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/tilt2vel.png
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/tilt3vel.png
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/tilt4vel.png
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/tilt5vel.png
Rotation Tracks--KMHX (shows good rotation with storm from area of tornado through Wayne County):
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/mhxtracks.png
Rotation Tracks--KRAX (best for the Duplin-Wayne County portion):
http://weather.ou.edu/~kortega/RAXtracks.png

(images and rotation tracks from WDSS-II)

Dan Robinson · Nov 17, 2006

Here is the level II data from the NCDC archives, extracted with their Java viewer. This storm was very close to the LTX WSR-88D site when it produced the tornado. The town of Riegelwood is not plotted on these images, but is located halfway between the towns of Bolton and Northwest. The storm passes over the Riegelwood vicinity between the 1132z and 1137z frames.

Thumbnails:

Tony Lyza · Nov 17, 2006

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/ilm//Nov162006tornadoes/

It appears to have been rated strong-F3.

Deadly tornado hit Riegelwood,NC

Andrea Griffa

EF5

Ed Schoenborn

EF1

Angie Norris

EF5

Jeff Snyder

EF5

Andrea Griffa

EF5

Andrea Griffa

EF5

Brandon Clement

EF4

Dan Robinson

beaudodson

EF5

Angie Norris

EF5

Brandon Clement

EF4

Greg Stumpf

EF5

Kiel Ortega

EF4

Dan Robinson

Tony Lyza

EF3

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