Murfreesboro Tennessee Tornado - April 10, 2009

[Uday Verma]

Hi

First of all please excuse me if this question doesn't seems to be valid but just trying to understand storms(tornado patterns especially).Just a newbie question.

My question is this was if I am not wrong the only EF4 of this year .I went back and looked at the forecast thread for this day and saw many not optimistic views because of lack of or some of the other factor affecting this day.But still we had an EF4 this day at Murfreesboro,Tennessee.We had very promising days like june7,june9 when potential was big but still not much happened(I happened to chase both of these days with James Seitz,Eric Flescher).

So my understanding would be EF3,4,5 can happen on days when weather conditions doesn't look very promising and nothing can happen when potential is highest(though probability would be highest)?

 

[Adam Lucio]

Um, yes. Welcome to weather facts 101.

The weather does what it wants, not what our forecast models say it will do.

The best forecast is still an educated guess. Thus we have things like V2 and the reasons for on going research. If the weather were that easy to predict, none of us here would be needed.

 

[Danny Neal]

Lone Grove, Oklahoma, Feb 10th this year was an EF4

 

[Ben Holcomb]

If I remember correctly, the April 10th tornado day was a HIGH risk, and no doubt after seeing the 12Z JAN sounding that morning. The reason why the forecast thread wasn't so high on that day is that everyone on stormtrack seems to hate chasing in Tennessee, and with good reason because of the terrain and far proximity from chaser alley.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

yes it's very hilly here in Tennessee and it makes tornadoes very difficult to locate and see, but the SPC had issued a Special Weather Statement the night before, saying there was a very high chance of tornadic activity in Middle Tennessee.

stupid me disregarded it and ended up running for my life the next day when the power went out and I heard the telltale "swoosh". thankfully our house emerged unscathed.

 

[Jason McClintock]

Wasn't the a PDS Tornado Watch on this one?

 

[Clarence Bennett]

Yes it was a PDS. I remember this day quite well as myself and Randy Bowers made the fatal mistake of jumping on an early cell coming out of Benton and Humphreys County, going against our better judgment and missed the storm of the year in the Mid-South :-(

 

[Ben Holcomb]

To be fair, that cell you and Randy were on looked the best out of any of them. I would have done the same thing!

The Murfressboro cell blew up ahead of the line later on in the day, and went tornadic very quickly.

 

[Randy Bowers]

Part of our strategy was to focus on the initial development west and northwest of Nashville to start, and then work our way southeast to the area which looked more promising. The Benton/Humphreys/Houston County cell was early in the day and the idea was as it worked its way northeastward toward Clarksville, we could observe it and then work our way southeast on I-24 through Nashville to the Murfreesboro/Manchester area which looked primed for more significant action later in the day. Unfortunately, storm #1 turned significantly rightward and we ended up much further south than we had anticipated thus messing up our I-24 option. As convection quickly developed to our east, we realized we were out of the game for the more robust action that we had hoped to reach southeast of Nashville. Nevertheless, it was still an interesting day.

As far as Uday's question, one factor to consider when comparing this event to others is the fact that our area is considerably more populated than the traditional tornado alley is. It's much easier to obtain a high-end rating here just for the simple fact that there's more stuff for tornadoes to hit. In the case of Murfreesboro, there were lots of opportunities for an EF-4 rating to be obtained since the tornado passed through such a populated area and hit many structures. That's not to say that the setup on 4/10 wasn't conducive for strong tornadoes -- indeed it was.

Some other notable events that happened during the 4/10 outbreak include:

EF-3 tornado in Mannington, KY
EF-3 tornado in Jackson County, AL
4 1/4" hail in Decatur, AL
3 1/4" diameter hail in Perry County, TN
3" diameter hail on the west side of Huntsville, AL

 

[S. Goodwin]

How is the clean-up coming along in Murfreesboro? I'm from STL but have always felt a connection to that area. I have been wanting to come done and help with whatever I could. The week it happened I had just got offered a new job, after being unemployed for a while. It was either go help clean or take the new job.... Do they still need volunteers?

 

[Paul Austin]

Some other notable events that happened during the 4/10 outbreak include:

EF-3 tornado in Mannington, KY
EF-3 tornado in Jackson County, AL
4 1/4" hail in Decatur, AL
3 1/4" diameter hail in Perry County, TN
3" diameter hail on the west side of Huntsville, AL

At least one Georgia tornado received an EF-3 rating as well. I chased a couple of smaller cells up west and southwest of Atlanta before intercepting the nice isolated nocturnal cells that eventually moved through and south of Columbus, GA (west central/southwest GA) on my way home. I was held up for quite some time due to a debris-filled US 27 south of Columbus. That delay actually placed me in perfect position to intercept a cell passing just to the south of Cusseta, GA. Pictured here is a video capture of my lone successful tornado intercept of this day's chase a couple miles south of Cusseta. It received an EF-1 rating based on damage surveys, but I found these late nocturnal cells quite interesting as they seemed to occur along the southern periphery of the moderate portion of the SPC risk and very late.