One Year Anniversary of Parkersburg Tornado

[Bob Hartig]

One year ago on May 25, an enormous tornado took out the southern third of Parkersburg, Iowa, killing ten people and becoming the second tornado in history to be rated an EF5 on the new Enhanced Fujita Scale.

While most chasers were out west, my crew and I had opted for the action to the east on our way back to Michigan. So we were fortunate to catch the supercell that produced the Parkersburg tornado.

Here is a GR3 radar grab of the storm shortly after it had hit the town. You can see the LSR, just minutes old, marking the location of Parkersburg. Our position is shown by the circular GPS cursor at the northeast edge of the storm.

See my blog for a more detailed writeup, including a video link from our interception of the ensuing Hazleton tornado.

Who else was on this storm? What are your recollections of it, and what are your thoughts a year later?

 

[Derek Weston]

The day caught me off guard a bit. I had thought flow looked a bit too veered at 850 and worried about storm mode. However, it because quite apparent something big might happen after the warm front passed through Eastern Iowa.

I saw that we got a PDS and stepped outside to bathe in some (near?) extreme instability. People that have grown up in the midwest/plains tend to know 'tornado weather' when they feel it, chaser or not -- and what I felt just screamed 'tornado weather.' The instability was almost palpable.

Anyhow, I was happy to sit in my location in Cedar Rapids, waiting to see if anything fired. I didn't have any mobile data anyway, so no use in getting way out of position before anything fires.

Took off with my Dad and a brother and sister when I saw the two cells fire up north -- west of Waterloo. They were only severe warned at the time, but I made the decision that if we were to head up towards Independence Iowa (bout half an hour north) that we might be able to intercept the dominant cell should it keep its track roughly.

The ride up was crazy -- my mother had the local news on and reports of utter destruction came pouring in... I heard her say 'wedge' -- the adrenaline was flowing.

Got ahold of a chasing buddy who had radar -- seemed it should pass around Hazelton, about 10 miles or so north of Independence. Headed north on the highway out of Independence... and met up with a cop who was spotting the storm looking towards Hazelton... bout 4-5 miles out probably. Big mean looking beast of a storm, obviously HP -- I was a bit intimidated, honestly, given the history on the storm. Stayed put at about that distance...seemed the storm was pushing SE just a bit, some rotation on the fringes I was noticing also. Could have gone closer, but I was bothered by not knowing exactly where the monster lurked back in the muck.

Even without being up close and personal, witnessed a great ground scraping meso -- became really apparent in photos post storm. Was honestly kind of hard to pick out all the detail given its HP nature. Unfortunately didn't get any lightning that would've illuminated the tornado... but I saw a few shots that did, and I was certainly looking at a big fat wedge as it crossed down the highway near Hazelton.

Storm really drove home the thought that extremely favorable conditions -- conditions for violent tornadoes -- might come together at the last second as we realize them from a forecasting perspective. May 22-23 looked huge -- May 25? Not so much.

Also drove home the fact that Kansas wasn't any more dangerous than Iowa, despite my familiarity with one over the other.... you've got to be on edge at all times.

 

[John Wetter]

Although obviously no EF-5, don't forget about the Hugo, MN EF-3 tornado of the same day and almost the same time. A fairly strong tornado going through a highly developed suburb of the Twin Cities Metro area.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mpx/?n=2008may25

 

[Kevin Walters]

I first observed broad rotation SW of Aplington at 4:40PM. I relayed my information to KDSM. At 4:45PM rapid rotation was noted as the entire base of the storm appeared to reach the ground. Again I relayed information to DSM. Surface winds were howling out of the SE at 40+mph, just tremendous inflow. I shot about one minute of video of the tornado before my camcorder froze. I quickly drove East on county road 57 all the time watching this enormous tornado. It was obvious to me this was a violent tornado, the storm motions were incredible. The cloud base was almost on the ground, it looked like the entire updraft was in contact with the ground. At this time the storm was moving NE, and I made the decision to take a county road to the North. This was a bad choice as the storm turned hard to the right and moved almost due East. I drove East into the rain and decided to try and get ahead of the tornado. I knew the tornado was five miles to my South moving due East. As I cleared the heavy rain I noticed some debris on the road, then I noticed things floating down out of the sky. A large piece of sheet metal fell in the field to my South. There were shingles, insulation, and other debris falling on the road and nearby fields. I was concerned at this point, this was the first time I had ever been showered by debris. I continued East and photographed a tube tornado SW of Oelwein and a cone tornado West of Hazelton. The road East of Hazelton was blocked by snapped power poles and trees. My chase ended there. As I drove back to Hazelton the road South of town was blocked by destroyed houses. Amazing storm, intense and scary chase.

 

[STurner]

First off I cant believe it has already been over a year since the Parkersburg/New Hartford EF5 tornado. I spent all day on the computer tracking storms on May 25, 2008. This tornado is the most impressive of all tornadoes as far as the EF5 damage it created. Cleaning homes built better than codes off their foundations/slabs, snapping rebar, and amazing scouring of the ground is nothing short of incredible. Some of the homes in New Hartford were swept so clean and no visible trace of debris within several hundreds of yards from the property was also amazing. It would be interesting to attend a conference on this tornado as well as the Greensburg tornado for they are only tornadoes that have been rated EF5.

 

[Brad Goddard]

This was a particuraly significant event for me. One that really got my interest going in storm chasing. I was headed back home after a backpacking trip in northern MN and had passed thru the areas to be effected by the Hugo storms a couple hours earlyer. I slight wrong turn leaving the Twin Cities had me running down Hwy 63 rather than on 218 that I usually take. I started to notice the dark clouds ahead just as I was passing into iowa. I got into the really heavy precip around New Hampton. About this time I was starting to get a little woried and gave a friend a call to check the radar for me. As he was getting it pulled up I was passed by someone in a white suburban and I could see several laptops lit up. they were moving at a pretty good clip and even being my first time seeing anyone chasing storms I knew exactly what they were up too. Now I knew I was in somthing serious. I wasnt sure what to do at the time so i just kept pressing south. after a short bit the rain let up and then the hail started coming down with the bigest I saw being in the 2" range. Shortly after the hail started I began seeing debris coming down as well. At this point I really knew I was in a bad situation. At around the same time I see the craziest thing of the whole event. I get passed by a guy on a motorcycle! 2" hail and debris falling from the sky and this guy is tucked down on the tank and going like his life depends on it. at least he had a helmet on. Right after this guy gets around me which I recall being just north of denver we came accross a iowa state trooper who has the road blocked. we hung out there for no more than 2 min before he went tearing off to the east. I came upon the damage path a mile or so south of denver just as emergency crews were arriving on the scene. I stopped to see if I could assist at all but it quickly became apparent I would only be getting in the way so I left the area and headed south. Later that evening and the next day I was seeing all the news reports and fully began to comprehend what I had just seen.

Shortly after this day and a couple other notable severe weather events that occured last summer I really got a hunger to understand the inner workings of what was going on in what I witnessed. Ever since then I havent been able to quit reading and learning everything I can about severe wx and weather in general. One thing I learned while at skywarn training that was particuarly moving was what It meant to be traveling south thru a storm and come upon an area of lighter precip containing large hail. as near as I can tell I was in the "bears cage" with the tornado directly in front of me about a mile down the road. Good thing that trooper had the road blocked.

 

[Bob Hartig]

I was passed by someone in a white suburban and I could see several laptops lit up. they were moving at a pretty good clip and even being my first time seeing anyone chasing storms I knew exactly what they were up too.

That could have been my buddies and me. We were driving a white Suburban.

 

[Ben McMillan]

I was up in Parkersburg for the 1 year anniversary events. We were greeted by a Parkersburg firefighter, whom my chase team from that day and I met. He said this about the visit.

"Thanks for coming up, it really meant alot to me and some of the other fire fighters. I really enjoyed showing you and your friends the rebuilding and the path of the tornado to New Hartford. I hope you liked the memorial service, it was truely amazing how the rain started when the bells started to chime and it quit when the stopped and the brezze felt warm afterwards. I have to believe that there was some divine intervention at that moment. Thanks again and talk to you soon."

It's a neat example of how chasers and emergency crews can form good relationships when faced with extraordinary circumstances. We were very touched by the caliber of the people in Parkersburg and how the rebuidling effort has gone.

 

[Brad Goddard]

That could have been my buddies and me. We were driving a white Suburban.

Thats very likley, your position on your GR3 screen grab had to be pretty close to me at the time.

 

[Jerry Funfsinn]

Someone recently helped me find the location of the video still I took of the Hazleton tornado last year. The power flash illuminated the wedge buried in the intense ground circulation which confirmed what I thought I was seeing. The still
was taken at the intersection of 140 Street and Kentucky Avenue SE of Hazleton. I was a lot closer than I previously thought. The power lines that are visible in my video might be the same ones that are in Bob's video, I am unsure of his
location whether it was east or west of me. The second video capture I believe was somewhere near Dunkerton well before the Hazleton tornado. It snaked around for less than 30 seconds but I believe it was a satellite from the larger
circulation. You can find a brief chase account and video of this event on my website.