Mary Knapp, Kansas State Climatologist, sent me an announcement for a seminar on the Tri-State Tornado Reanalysis by Bob Maddox. For those of you nearby to Manhattan KS and interested in this event, you may want to check it out. Mary's e-mail announcement and the abstract are below. Those of you who were at the last NWA Annual Meeting may have seen this.
Bob Maddux will be presenting a seminar at K-State in late April on a
reanalysis of the Tri-State Tornado and I wanted to pass the word to
the National Weather Service community.
The seminar is April 28th at 8:30 in Seaton 132.
It is open anyone interested, so please forward the notice to anyone
who might be interested.
Attached is a copy of the abstract.
Sincerely,
Mary Knapp
THE GREAT TRI-STATE TORNADO DISASTER OF MARCH 18, 1925 - PRELIMINARY RE-ANALYSES
By Bob Maddox
The Tri-State tornadic storm of March 18, 1925, was one of the most notable severe storm disasters of the past century. The Tri-State event remains the most singular tornado ever documented having the longest track (219 miles) for a tornado (was it just one tornado?) and producing the most deaths (695) associated with a single tornado.
This presentation provides an overview of the event and the synoptic and mesoscale conditions across the United States for the period encompassing the tornado occurrence. Re-analysis studies of this event draw upon a number of sources of data that remain available for weather research, e.g., hard copies of weather observation forms, barograph and thermograph traces, and even data from Weather Bureau kite flights.
The track of the Tri-State tornado, and general synoptic surface conditions associated with it, have been previously reported both in Monthly Weather Review (April 1925) and also in Weatherwise (April 1966). The only formal publication of conditions associated with this singular event was that of April 1925! There are a number of puzzling aspects of the analyses shown in these papers that are being re-examined, e.g., the tornado is believed to have developed in a very unusual location about 100 miles west of the surface low in very cold air. A little known aspect of the event is that the first severe storms of the day occurred during pre-dawn hours over southeastern Kansas. This presentation focuses on re-analyzed surface charts spanning the period from noon to 5 pm CST on the afternoon of March 18th, when the extremely destructive tornado moved from southeastern Missouri to southwestern Indiana. Efforts to reconstruct a detailed damage survey 80 years after the event are also discussed.
Bob Maddux will be presenting a seminar at K-State in late April on a
reanalysis of the Tri-State Tornado and I wanted to pass the word to
the National Weather Service community.
The seminar is April 28th at 8:30 in Seaton 132.
It is open anyone interested, so please forward the notice to anyone
who might be interested.
Attached is a copy of the abstract.
Sincerely,
Mary Knapp
THE GREAT TRI-STATE TORNADO DISASTER OF MARCH 18, 1925 - PRELIMINARY RE-ANALYSES
By Bob Maddox
The Tri-State tornadic storm of March 18, 1925, was one of the most notable severe storm disasters of the past century. The Tri-State event remains the most singular tornado ever documented having the longest track (219 miles) for a tornado (was it just one tornado?) and producing the most deaths (695) associated with a single tornado.
This presentation provides an overview of the event and the synoptic and mesoscale conditions across the United States for the period encompassing the tornado occurrence. Re-analysis studies of this event draw upon a number of sources of data that remain available for weather research, e.g., hard copies of weather observation forms, barograph and thermograph traces, and even data from Weather Bureau kite flights.
The track of the Tri-State tornado, and general synoptic surface conditions associated with it, have been previously reported both in Monthly Weather Review (April 1925) and also in Weatherwise (April 1966). The only formal publication of conditions associated with this singular event was that of April 1925! There are a number of puzzling aspects of the analyses shown in these papers that are being re-examined, e.g., the tornado is believed to have developed in a very unusual location about 100 miles west of the surface low in very cold air. A little known aspect of the event is that the first severe storms of the day occurred during pre-dawn hours over southeastern Kansas. This presentation focuses on re-analyzed surface charts spanning the period from noon to 5 pm CST on the afternoon of March 18th, when the extremely destructive tornado moved from southeastern Missouri to southwestern Indiana. Efforts to reconstruct a detailed damage survey 80 years after the event are also discussed.
