Elie, Manitoba F5 tornado windspeeds

[STurner]

I am not sure about this but I read an article in Wikipedia about the Elie, Manitoba being the second strongest winds ever observed on the planet right behind Bridge Creek, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. Doppler on wheels supposedly clocked windspeeds of 316mph in the Elie, Manitoba tornado on June 22, 2007 and 318mph winds near Bridge Creek, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. Now I know these measurements were taken several meters above the ground and probably were somewhat lower at the surface. Also the damage is what got them rated F5 and not the windspeeds or size. If this true that was one small wicked little devil of a tornado to be so ferocious. Watched a video on you tube and the winds inside that tornado were screaming beyond unimaginable. Now I read that some tornadoes such as Greensburg and Red Rock had windspeeds clocked as high as 250+ mph but dont believe they ever reached 300mph. Are there any other tornadoes that had extremely high windspeeds as well or even more recent events such as Parkersburg or Lone Grove? I was also wanting to know how often are windspeeds observed inside of tornadoes through a DOW or from NWS radar.

 

[STurner]

This is the article posted from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie,_Manitoba_Tornado

 

[jladue]

I am not sure about this but I read an article in Wikipedia about the Elie, Manitoba being the second strongest winds ever observed on the planet right behind Bridge Creek, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. Doppler on wheels supposedly clocked windspeeds of 316mph in the Elie, Manitoba tornado on June 22, 2007 and 318mph winds near Bridge Creek, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. ......

Are there any other tornadoes that had extremely high windspeeds as well or even more recent events such as Parkersburg or Lone Grove? I was also wanting to know how often are windspeeds observed inside of tornadoes through a DOW or from NWS radar.

I'm not aware of any mobile Doppler radar sampling this tornado. So I seriously doubt the precision of the quoted winds in the wikipedia article. Perhaps somebody photogrammetrically estimated the wind speeds with the tornado. More likely the estimate came from someone needing to quote a value that was based on the range of wind speeds with F5 rating.

More importantly, It's an exercise in futility to rank tornadoes by splitting hairs of a couple mph, especially when the uncertainties are often one F- or EF-scale rating apart.

 

[Wes Carter]

I don't know if there is another entity that used a Doppler On Wheels setup besides Josh Wurman but if there is I've never heard of them. But I know that Josh and his bunch missed the Greensburg event because they were up in Hays when it occurred. So the 'measurement' of 250mph winds for the Greensburg event is very questionable in my opinion. Do you know who was supposed to have measured those wind speeds?

 

[STurner]

I wonder too how credlble the windspeeds clocked inside these tornadoes. I believe Dave Carlsen from Environment Canada along with many other experts originally rated this tornado an F4 but upgraded it to an F5 on September 18, 2007 because a video showed a very-built home was thrown thrown through the air for hundreds of yards before disintegrating a van loaded with drywall was lofted through the air and found over a mile away. As far as where the wikipedia article goes I dont know where they got 316mph but Dave Carlsen or another person from EC might know if windspeeds were ever clocked inside this tornado. Now the Greensburg tornado had windspeeds estimated near 250mph because Mike Umscheid with NWS in Dodge City was like radaring so many kts inbound and outbound in which these numbers were crazy and it prompted him to issue a Tornado Emergency several minutes before it destroyed Greensburg. I am uncertain about these windspeeds on these tornadoes but somebody might be able to clear up these estimates.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Wasn't there a talk at one of the storm chaser conventions in Denver where a guy showed some radar grabs of the greenburg storm from a mobile radar? If I remember there was some university group that had just taken their mobile radar out for the first time. I could be wrong... Anyone know? Am I mistaking this with something else?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I don't know if there is another entity that used a Doppler On Wheels setup besides Josh Wurman but if there is I've never heard of them. But I know that Josh and his bunch missed the Greensburg event because they were up in Hays when it occurred. So the 'measurement' of 250mph winds for the Greensburg event is very questionable in my opinion. Do you know who was supposed to have measured those wind speeds?

There are at least a couple other radar groups from other institutions (other being other than Josh's CSWR). The group of which I am a part (headed by Howie Bluestein at OU, Steve Frasier at UMass, and others) has been using 3 mobile Doppler radars for the past several years (and 2 mobile radars for many yrs before then) - the UMass dual-polarization, X-band; the UMass W-band; and a CIRPAS mobile X-band phased array.There is also the SMART-R radar group; SMART-R radars are C-band, and one is getting an upgrade to dual-pol. This upcoming year, NSSL will be using a mobile X-band, dual-polarimetric radar, and Texas Tech has a mobile Ka radar. This is a bit off-topic, but I figured I'd mention it since there are other radar groups that have been chasing in the Plains the past 5-10 years. Dr. Wurman's DOWs are the most recognizable because they've been around for quite a long time, Josh and his group have chased with the DOWs full-time in May and parts of June for a decade or so (that I know of!), and, of course, the DOWs have been involved in the popular Discovery Channel show. VORTEX-2 will feature 9 Doppler radar, if I'm counting correctly.

Wasn't there a talk at one of the storm chaser conventions in Denver where a guy showed some radar grabs of the greenburg storm from a mobile radar? If I remember there was some university group that had just taken there mobile radar out for the first time. I could be wrong... Anyone know? Am I mistaking this with something else?

I wasn't at the convection, but I assume that it was Howie Bluestein's presentation... The UMass dual-pol X-band scanned the Greensburg supercell from Protection, KS, and data from it are being used in at least a couple of upcoming publications (and STer Robin Tanamachi's PhD dissertation). I haven't looked at those data too closely since my focus has been on some other datasets; but perhaps Robin Tanamachi can comment (since she and fellow grad student Jana Houser unfolded a ridiculous number of sector scans from that dataset). FWIW, that radar has been around for more than several years, though the UMass MIRSL folks do make changes and upgrades to it each year. I believe May 4th was our first time out with that radar that year.

Specific to this topic... I'm unaware of any mobile radar observations of the Elie tornado. Remember that the majority of even mobile radar observations are quite a way above the surface, and the relationship of the wind profile at radar level and the surface is not really known (if it even can be -- it seems that the "reduction" from several hundred meters AGL to the surface / e.g. 2 m AGL / may be drastically different between tornadoes and between different times in the same tornado).

 

[Lanny Dean]

Wasn't there a talk at one of the storm chaser conventions in Denver where a guy showed some radar grabs of the greenburg storm from a mobile radar? If I remember there was some university group that had just taken their mobile radar out for the first time. I could be wrong... Anyone know? Am I mistaking this with something else?

I was not at the convention this year however, as already noted, it is correct that Howie had the Dual-pol down by Protection.
I passed him as we were racing towards Protection/Sitka and then doubled back after we saw them looking at a flat tire. Realizing we were no help to them, I left and raced west towards Protection.
Howie did get much data from the cell but did not get full data as the tornado "hit" Greensburg or the occlusion phase. I believe they had battery issues (please correct me if I am wrong)

Now the Greensburg tornado had windspeeds estimated near 250mph because Mike Umscheid with NWS in Dodge City was like radaring so many kts inbound and outbound in which these numbers were crazy and it prompted him to issue a Tornado Emergency several minutes before it destroyed Greensburg

Where is this information coming from? I am unaware of 250mph estimated(or otherwise) from the Greensburg event. If you are refering to the gate to gate (and I think you might be) AKA inbound/outbound, of course the velocities were insane but unless I have missed something: I do not ever remember talk of wind speeds that high from anyone out of DDC.
As far as the Tornado Emergency, It was directly related not only to the radar signature but also ground truth reports from various chasers, spotters, EM people and of course media people of a VERY LARGE tornado headed in the direction of Greensburg.

Maybe Mike U. will be better able to answer your questions or reply to your comments if he has time.

 

[STurner]

Lanny I talked to a guy named Eric which I believe is one of your chasing partners on Reed Timmer's site about the Greensburg tornado and probably should not have been so debatable about it. He mentioned 248mph to me when it moved through the town. Now I have heard winds on the Greensburg tornado ranging from 220-250mph. Now Greensburg was given an EF5 rating with winds of appx. 205mph but that is just an estimate in reference to the EF-scale. Now there is reason to believe winds were somewhat stronger than 205mph. I also am not sure if you know anything on the Elie, Manitoba tornado but find it highly unusual that a tornado this narrow could have winds of 300+mph as stated in some sources. Now I am not saying its impossible for this to happen for size does not necessarily mean intensity, but have not heard of this until recently and this tornado occured about a month and a half after the Greensburg tornado, nearly two years ago.

 

[John Hudson]

I'm not aware of any mobile Doppler radar sampling this tornado.

There were no mobile Doppler units of any kind in operation in southern Manitoba at the time of the Elie tornado.

As for the F5 rating, the original EC press release is located here : http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=714D9AAE-1&news=4B3DE57E-4967-4B09-98D6-EF974B32D6B5

John
VE4 JTH

 

[Dave Gallaher]

I don't know if there is another entity that used a Doppler On Wheels setup besides Josh Wurman but if there is I've never heard of them. But I know that Josh and his bunch missed the Greensburg event because they were up in Hays when it occurred. So the 'measurement' of 250mph winds for the Greensburg event is very questionable in my opinion. Do you know who was supposed to have measured those wind speeds?

I doubt it has any bearing on the case in point here, but I've see a Baron Services mobile radar parked on the UAH campus, so they have one as well.

 

[Tony Cook]

UAH Mobile X Band

I doubt it has any bearing on the case in point here, but I've see a Baron Services mobile radar parked on the UAH campus, so they have one as well.

Yes, Dave is correct, UAH (U Alabama in Huntsville) has a Mobile X Band radar, also:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/mips/max/

This is a relatively new component of their MIPS (Mobile Integrated Profiling System) suite of instruments:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/mips/

Back in the late 90's I went on a couple of hurricane intercepts with a very early incarnation of this system. It has come a long way since then...

Just to keep it on topic, I am 100% certain they weren't in Manitoba on the Elie tornado.

TonyC

 

[STurner]

It looks like the wikipedia article took the 316mph windspeeds out of the article in regards to the Elie, Manitoba F5 tornado being the second strongest winds on the planet. It must have been some error or something. I was just surprised to see that even though it was an error.

 

[Patrick McCarthy]

Yeah, that Wiki was in error. I think people look at the range of the wind speeds on the scale and head straight to the top.

The extreme narrow funnel winds in this case have sparked some interest in the modeling of tornado votices community. Apparently there has been some thought that winds may reach extreme speeds (briefly) during certain phases of the tornado's evolution. I have no references handy, though.

A short paper on the damage survey of Elie is available at:

http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/141718.pdf

Pat

 

[Wes Carter]

I doubt it has any bearing on the case in point here, but I've see a Baron Services mobile radar parked on the UAH campus, so they have one as well.

Have you ever bought a car then you start to notice how many other cars like yours are on the road? Well, I don't know if it is Karma or what but I saw a Doppler radar on the back of a truck this past week on I-65. So not only do I get to eat crow, I'm getting reminded of how it tastes when I drive around Middle Tennessee.

I thought I would try to be funny and say, "Well, there is only one tornado intercept vehicle!" But then I saw the thread on the Timmermobile. I give up. My head hangs in shame.