Lars Lowinski
EF0
Hi,
there´s more and more evidence that a significant tornado hit the town of Wittenberg during the severe, larger-scale storm "Kyrill" on Thursday evening. Wittenberg lies about 80 km southwest of Berlin in the ern part of Germany. A few weather enthusiasts and storm chasers from the area have made a survey of the damage in that area as there are no official surveys from the weather service as in the US. The damage path has a length of about 7 km and a width of approximately 200 to 500 meters. Immediately outside this path, there´s only minor damage to buildings and trees or they are even totally intact. According to the reports of eyewitnesses and due to the damage patterns the photographers have found in that area, there´s growing evidence that is has indeed been a strong tornado that hit the area when strong, predominantly linear convection moved through this part of the country. Remember that most of the buildings here are brick structures with wooden roof tiles and frames. We are estimating the damage to be in the upper F2/lower F3 range. Friends of mine are currently examining high-resolution doppler radar data to see if it´s revealing any signs of strong low-level rotation. The storms moved extremely rapidly in an environment of incredible shear and low instability. Wind profiles are mainly hinting at a bow echo and high wind threat and not necessarily a tornado threat. There seem to be other cases where it is unclear if damage has been caused by strong downbursts or tornadoes, either along the gust front or in connection with shallow, embedded mesocyclones.
Check out the pictures from Wittenberg, courtesy Andreas Kämmer
http://www.wetter-zentrale.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/wzconfig.pl?read=1064662
Best regards,
Lars
there´s more and more evidence that a significant tornado hit the town of Wittenberg during the severe, larger-scale storm "Kyrill" on Thursday evening. Wittenberg lies about 80 km southwest of Berlin in the ern part of Germany. A few weather enthusiasts and storm chasers from the area have made a survey of the damage in that area as there are no official surveys from the weather service as in the US. The damage path has a length of about 7 km and a width of approximately 200 to 500 meters. Immediately outside this path, there´s only minor damage to buildings and trees or they are even totally intact. According to the reports of eyewitnesses and due to the damage patterns the photographers have found in that area, there´s growing evidence that is has indeed been a strong tornado that hit the area when strong, predominantly linear convection moved through this part of the country. Remember that most of the buildings here are brick structures with wooden roof tiles and frames. We are estimating the damage to be in the upper F2/lower F3 range. Friends of mine are currently examining high-resolution doppler radar data to see if it´s revealing any signs of strong low-level rotation. The storms moved extremely rapidly in an environment of incredible shear and low instability. Wind profiles are mainly hinting at a bow echo and high wind threat and not necessarily a tornado threat. There seem to be other cases where it is unclear if damage has been caused by strong downbursts or tornadoes, either along the gust front or in connection with shallow, embedded mesocyclones.
Check out the pictures from Wittenberg, courtesy Andreas Kämmer
http://www.wetter-zentrale.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/wzconfig.pl?read=1064662
Best regards,
Lars
