Fall..... otherwise known as 2nd season!

[Tim Paitz]

Fall is the time when severe weather (normally) begins to ramp up again. Though it's not exactly like spring storms, fall severe weather outbreaks can still produce violent tornadoes (like in November of 2013). While there wasn't that much severe weather last fall, 2013 was a different story.

The 2 that stood out were in early October (where there were multiple tornadoes in one part of South Dakota while there was a blizzard on the other side of the state, that's fall for you) and November 17th.


The early October 2013 storm complex was remarkable in where there were a couple rain-wrapped wedge tornadoes and despite this, no one died in these tornadoes. This outbreak was a result of an upper level low over Colorado with a couple shortwaves moving around it while a surface low was over Nebraska with an attendant cold front. Given the vertical shear and backed surface winds, the early storm mode was supercellular. This resulted in a couple storms producing about a dozen tornadoes, including an EF4 in Wayne, Nebraska as well as another near Macy, Sloan and Moville (which ended up being a mile wide at times).



Then there was November 17th. Given a strong cold front with very fast shear of 80 knots, these storms were pretty strong. Despite there not being much instability, there was a lot of surface heating (which explained the 80 degree temperatures) and with strong forcing, storms rapidly fired. It was one of the largest and (unfortunately deadliest) November tornado outbreaks in Illinois with EF-4 tornadoes hitting both Washington, IL and New Minden, IL. However, what made these kind of storms difficult to chase was the speed in which they were moving. More often that not, November-March outbreaks feature storms moving at highway speeds, and unless you have a good road network or a highway possibly paralleling the storms, it'll be hard to catch up.


I know there aren't many people that chase in the fall, but if you do, good luck and stay safe!

 

[Mike Marz]

I'll never forget the Wayne day. That was my first time ever coming across fresh tornado damage just minutes after the tornado ripped through the industrial park on the east side of Wayne. As you said Tim, it is pretty incredible that nobody was killed by that tornado. If you look at Wayne on Google maps you will see that the industrial park that sustained the brunt of the tornado damage is no more than a mile or so east of solid neighborhood blocks with a ton of homes... I think it is almost a certainty that if this tornado had tracked just a mile further west than it did, Wayne would have been a deadly, much more infamous tornado.

 

[Dan Rupnow]

Then there was November 17th. Given a strong cold front with very fast shear of 80 knots, these storms were pretty strong. Despite there not being much instability, there was a lot of surface heating (which explained the 80 degree temperatures) and with strong forcing, storms rapidly fired

Instability that day was actually very high by November standards. I believe there was over 2,000 j/kg CAPE in IL. Way more than what is needed with that kind of insane shear.

 

[Tim Paitz]

Instability that day was actually very high by November standards. I believe there was over 2,000 j/kg CAPE in IL. Way more than what is needed with that kind of insane shear.

Yep. I didn't realize 2000 J/KG is high for fall and winter though those storms are more shear-driven. To me, high CAPE is 3500+ and 5000+ is insane.

 

[Tim Paitz]

I'll never forget the Wayne day. That was my first time ever coming across fresh tornado damage just minutes after the tornado ripped through the industrial park on the east side of Wayne. As you said Tim, it is pretty incredible that nobody was killed by that tornado. If you look at Wayne on Google maps you will see that the industrial park that sustained the brunt of the tornado damage is no more than a mile or so east of solid neighborhood blocks with a ton of homes... I think it is almost a certainty that if this tornado had tracked just a mile further west than it did, Wayne would have been a deadly, much more infamous tornado.

It's crazy how close it was to being worst-case scenario.

 

[James Wilson]

I'll never forget the Wayne day. That was my first time ever coming across fresh tornado damage just minutes after the tornado ripped through the industrial park on the east side of Wayne.As you said Tim, it is pretty incredible that nobody was killed by that tornado.

Did you run into the guy asking for help from his friend that was in the ditch? The guy in the ditch was John Dunning ... he has gone through extensive rehab to learn to walk again after the dumpster hit him. Very lucky no one was killed as stated and it looks like the injured are about all fixed up.

 

[Mike Marz]

Did you run into the guy asking for help from his friend that was in the ditch? The guy in the ditch was John Dunning ... he has gone through extensive rehab to learn to walk again after the dumpster hit him. Very lucky no one was killed as stated and it looks like the injured are about all fixed up.

When we first came into the industrial park we saw a little girl running towards our car from a ditch. We stopped and called 911 for an ambulance as she requested, and then her mom came from the ditch and thanked us. We continued down the road right after that and pulled over next to the downed John Deere sign, where there was also a massive tractor flipped onto the road. I walked across the street and to my right down in the ditch was a guy laying in the grass on the slope being looked at by a few people along with a dumpster not too far away from him. On my left there was a red pickup truck down in the ditch that was in very rough shape. I went and checked on the truck, but I am sure that the man you are talking about, John Dunning, was likely the one I saw being helped. You can see all of this here... www.youtube.com/watch?v=At_arjaxY5U

 

[James Wilson]

Yeah we were a bit ahead of you I think that is us behind the white large truck … we followed directly behind the tornado and met the man in the yellow shirt seen in your video and called 911 for him. He seemed a bit hazy as you can expect. A red truck shown in your video with the flashing lights we thought was EMS but it was not.

At 0:04 you can see our chase partners Rob Hurkes and James Seitz and you can see the man in yellow who seems to be coming back out to flag people down.

I did not upload the damage video but here is our video of the beginning and along 15 close up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNJk0mf_oe4

 

[James Wilson]

I walked across the street and to my right down in the ditch was a guy laying in the grass on the slope being looked at by a few people along with a dumpster not too far away from him. On my left there was a red pickup truck down in the ditch that was in very rough shape. I went and checked on the truck, but I am sure that the man you are talking about, John Dunning, was likely the one I saw being helped.

Since you were one of the ones that stopped too I thought you may appreciate this from John on my Facebook.

 

[Mike Marz]

here is our video of the beginning and along 15 close up.

This video of the tornado is awesome, and I have seen it on youtube multiple times before, I love it! It just shows how fast that updraft turned violently tornadic with multiple vortexes ripping up the ground underneath, and then of course the transition into the beast wedge that it was. Such an awesome display that I regret I didn't see. The only view of Wayne I got was the picture at the bottom of this post, after it did the damage. I completely botched this chase, which is a story I posted in the reports thread for 10-4-2013. I am also very happy to read that post from John and I am thrilled to hear that he is doing OK and is on the side of us chasers. I know I didn't directly do anything to help him, but who knows maybe the ambulance I called aided in his rescue.

 

[James Wilson]

Yes we got a bit lucky to actually see the start with the flag man in the construction holding us up for what seemed like forever ... sometimes you get lucky other times you don't that is just the way it is. Cool photo btw.

 

[Shane Adams]

Though a quick glance through this thread shows the original topic was quickly bottle-necked down to a conversation regarding a single event, with regards to the original post.....

 

[JamesCaruso]

Though a quick glance through this thread shows the original topic was quickly bottle-necked down to a conversation regarding a single event, with regards to the original post.....

Shane, I only had a chance to watch about half of your video, but you captured the issue quite succinctly when you said (and I'm paraphrasing), if there was a "fall season," people would be scheduling chase vacations in September or October, but NOBODY does that!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dan Robinson]

Although I've been on at least one fall chase since 1999, there has only been, on average, one big event per September-November 'season' - usually in the Midwest. They are either "one-and-done" outbreaks that you just take a single day off to chase (11/10/2002, 10/24/2001, 10/18/2007, 11/15/2005, 9/22/2006, 11/17/2013 etc), or they are "sleepers" that you can score on if you live in the area and can jump on them when the opportunity arises (9/25/2012). But, as far as the 'sleepers' go, those can happen any time of the year - such a 'season' never really ends here. For the single-day outbreaks, you simply keep open the possibility to take a day off when they happen. In the fall, sure, there's a 'season' in the sense that I keep an eye on the long range models for signs of a big outbreak, but I don't expect more than one of those in any given year. It's nothing like spring when you can count on a half dozen or more of those type of events.

 

[Pete Kustra]

Interesting that there hasn't been a single tornado or even a marginal risk of severe thunderstorms on the SPC all month. Looks like this season may not produce anything much