Special thread: 3/12/06 Will it go down in history?

[Jason McKittrick]

As far as records go, I just checked the SPC storm reports from yesterday, at last count 113 tornado damage reports from yesterday. Does anyone know what the record is for most tornadoes in a 24 hour period? The Super Outbreak? I know it had 148, but wasn't that was over a 48 hour span. The Palm Sunday outbreak had only 48, The Oklahoma outbreak of 1999 had only 76. This has to have been a top 3 for tornadoes in a 24 hour period.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Super Outbreak had 148 tornadoes over something like 18 hours (it spanned 3rd-4th). I think the highest 2-day total goes to May 29-30 2004. Remember, the tornadoes on the SPC Reports page are just reports... It's quite common to end up with far fewer actual tornadoes than is indicated on Storm Reports. This seems particularly true for long-track tornadoes that affect several towns/cities -- sometimes it seems that LSRs are issued as "progress updates".

In my experience of chasing and armchair chasing, I don't think I've ever seen so many supercells in one day, however. There were several waves of incredibly impressive, "textbook" supercells from extreme eastern KS, ne OK, nw AR, MO, IL, and IN.

 

[Dan Robinson]

There is a difference between the number of tornado reports in the LSRs (SPC storm reports pages) and the number of individual tornadoes in the final count after damage surveys are complete.

Most single tornadoes end up getting multiple reports logged along the length of their tracks, so one long-track tornado might result in 10 to 20 or more reports.

The Super Outbreak had 148 total *tornadoes* after the final count. I can't imagine what the SPC reports map would have looked like from that day.

I think we might see a count of 20 to 30 individual tornadoes from this event after the final surveys are in, which is very impressive given the relatively small area they were concentrated in.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Along with Jeff's comments, what really would have been historic yesterday is if every one of those supercells had actually managed to produce. For a while it seemed like they just might. It would have meant wave after wave of tornadoes moving through the heart of metropolitan Kansas City for one thing, and it would have scared everyone silly, myself included. As it was, it seemed like the area from Emporia to Ottawa was a supercell factory that kept kicking them out and sending them up the conveyor belt to KC. Later, as the entire state filled in, it reminded me of Mike Hollingshead's map of all the different supercells and the dates they occurred. Even 5/4/03 did not look as widespread as yesterday as far as supercell coverage is concerned. In terms of shear numbers of organized, classic supercell signatures on radar, someone will have to show me a grab from a previous day before I believe anything else comes close - -

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Just a sidenote-the 113 tornado reports on the SPC's Preliminary Storm Reports log are a record since the archive began at the start of June , 1999. The previous maximum was 100 on May 30, 2004.

 

[Scott Olson]

No doubt yesterday was a historic outbreak. I think the actual number will be in the 90's as some of the tornadoes were probably reported a second time as they moved on at fast speeds. Still that would easily rank this outbreak in the top 4 and set a record for Missouri. Just from intial assessments showing several F2's and F3's it's already pretty clear that the number of strong tornadoes is much greater than outbreaks like 05/30/04.It was amazing to see supercell after supercell all day long, including a cyclic tornadic supercell that traversed from Kansas, across Missouri, through Illinois and then into N Indiana. From a preliminary look it looks like that supercell moved right along the WF and was producing mayhem for at least 14 hours.

 

[Cstok]

Does anyone know if there will be a radar loop showing the beast supercell from start to finish?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Does anyone know if there will be a radar loop showing the beast supercell from start to finish?
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Bobby Prentice posted this in another thread I think: http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cases/060312/supercell/ ... it has two loops, plus a ton of Level-2 archived data. Pretty nifty!

 

[Jason McKittrick]

I deemed yesterday just a little to dangerous for my liking so I stayed home and watched things evolve on radar. One thing I noticed is that these storms appeared to be more cyclic that steady state as far as their tornadic signatures were concerned. Particularly true for the 5 state storm, watching that storm on radar you could see it's hooks occlude and reform, at least 4 times on its way across Missouri. I also noticed the Bentonville, AR storm did this 3 or 4 times. As for the number of tornadic supercells I don't recall ever seeing so many. I think May 3, 1999 is probably as close to this as I can recall. I don't remember their being anywhere close to as many cells in any of the 2003 or 2004 events. Those storms were more cyclic and that is why they resulted in such high numbers. Yesterday, IMO, was the best/worst of both worlds. There were a large number of supercells and they were cyclic. I personally know of two touchdowns with significant damage, that occurred near family, and still have not shown up on the SPC reports. Obviously, as is usually the case during major outbreaks, there will be multiple damage reports for the same tornado but it is my feeling/opinion, based on how things evolved on radar, that Sunday's final numbers will eclipse the 24 hour totals for any of the 2003 or 2004 events.

By the way does anyone know where to find the final numbers for the 2003 and 2004 events? The SPC log says the numbers are preliminary on the storm report achieve graphics.