Wx predictions for 2005

[Mickey Ptak]

I'd say that also Tony, but damn gas prices are going to be so high this season (as always) and my chase fund is running off fumes as it is. I mean If I were rich like you I'd chase everywhere also. LOL JK. Anyway keep it in OK, TX, and KS (WHERE IT SHOULD BE) and this silly man will be happy.

It's almost here!!!

Mick

 

[Tom Dulong]

2005 Outlook

I think the Colorado high plains will be quite active this May and June,
since our mountain snow pack is above normal. This is a key moisture
source for thunderstorms here, since the deeper gulf moisture has difficulty
getting up the incline from Texas :lol:

 

[Amos Magliocco]

I hope to log more than a few chases in the Texas panhandle or even eastern New Mexico. I love the very flat terrain and excellent road grid, not to mention the orographic boost from the caprock and convergence focus created by the canyons. It's my favorite turf, with the Front Range a close second for some of the same reasons, minus roads.

However I'll go where they send us, like I told MikeH the other day. I was in South Dakota in the first week of May 2004 and still too far south on one chase. You never know.

 

[Charles Kuster]

I think the Colorado high plains will be quite active this May and June,
since our mountain snow pack is above normal. This is a key moisture
source for thunderstorms here, since the deeper gulf moisture has difficulty
getting up the incline from Texas

I hope so. This would greatly cut down on our driving time. I think it will at least be a somewhat active tornado season, but not as active as the last two years. As long as there is something reachable in May and June that I can see, I will be happy!

 

[Jeremy Lemanski]

Originally posted by Andy Wehrle
I However, I do like the whole upper Midwest thing-I say Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan will all be very active this year just because there are a bunch of chasers from that region that will be leaving it for a Plains vacation this year.

I hope so, since i'm stuck here until who knows when.

My pred. is for a quiet spring and a very active summer and early fall for the upper midwest/great lakes in a ring of fire type setup.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Originally posted by Skip Talbot
May 3, '99 was the last F5 right? Im looking at a list of F5's and if we make it to May 3 without an F5, at six years span, this will be the longest period without an F5 since we've been recording them. 194753 comes close but its just under six years by a few weeks. Please correct that bold statement if its wrong.

As for my prediction: Iowa will light up the skies once again, but she is a fierce and fickle mistress, and will elude those inexperienced in her treacherous ways.

I'm not going to attempt to predict what this year will be like. I can say Im hoping for a year of colossal outbreaks of slow moving wedges during the weeks of May 16th, 23rd, and 30th, since I'll be out there at that time :lol: As a response to your question about May 3 being the last F5, yes it was. However on May 4th or 8th of 2003 there was a violent tornado in eastern KS that they were considering rating F5. I forget what town it hit.

 

[Jeremy Lemanski]

Originally posted by Chris Hayes
[ As a response to your question about May 3 being the last F5, yes it was. However on May 4th or 8th of 2003 there was a violent tornado in eastern KS that they were considering rating F5. I forget what town it hit.

That would have been one of the tornados that hit the KC metro area i think.

Also, i thought the harper tornado from this past spring was close to being ranked an F5?

 

[Justin Turcotte]

I suspect the Northern Plains will be more active than last year. The Dakotas and MN were stuck in cool northwest flow for much of the season leaving the bulk of the action further south. Some locations such as Grand Forks and Duluth had record or near record cold months during the summer. From a statistical standpoint this will be hard to replicate. Despite that the cool flow regime, there were some fair to good chase days north of Iowa last year. If the moisture continues to fall in the Southern Plains than it will be easier to get the moisture transport further north. The overall lack of winter in the Plains should allow for a faster green-up which would give a transpiration boost. Further south I anticipate a more active March and April if the current pattern persists. Maybe a solid year for everybody!? If I had to put a dollar down on the map I'd drop it on eastern SD, northern IA, and southern MN for this year's hot spot after the death ridge sets in furthern south.

 

[Justin Turcotte]

[ As a response to your question about May 3 being the last F5, yes it was. However on May 4th or 8th of 2003 there was a violent tornado in eastern KS that they were considering rating F5. I forget what town it hit.

The Hallam Tornado on May 22 was in my mind as close to an F5 as it gets without achieving the mark. There were clean foundations but still some loose debris here and there. The one thing that caught my eye while checking out the damage was some houses were 100% destroyed yet trees were still standing...

Note the foundation "swept clean" less the air conditioner. Also note the tree with leaves still on.

[Broken External Image]:http://snrs.unl.edu/amet898/turcotte/photos/damage22052004/damage16.JPG

More damage photos including a cow that landed in a field. Still in one piece so nice quite M5 on the Moojita scale.

[/img]http://snrs.unl.edu/amet898/turcotte/secondary/damage_hallam/damage1.htm

 

[Gene Rhoden]

Originally posted by Justin Turcotte

The Hallam Tornado on May 22 was in my mind as close to an F5 as it gets without achieving the mark. There were clean foundations but still some loose debris here and there. The one thing that caught my eye while checking out the damage was some houses were 100% destroyed yet trees were still standing...

Note the foundation \"swept clean\" less the air conditioner. Also note the tree with leaves still on.

Just had to butt in here.

Sorry, don't compute on that one. The picture you show me above in no way says F5 damage to me. It says "poorly or not-at-all anchored house gets swept away by F3-ish winds hence the telephone pole and tree still standing". F3 by default. Thats what it says to me.

F5? I want to see scoured ground and denuded stumps. Sorry. Oh - and no telephone poles.

Oh - and it doesn't look like it was "swept away" - there's an awful amount of debris on that slab - including what looks like roof beams.

KR

 

[Robert Dewey]

Originally posted by Gene Rhoden+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Gene Rhoden)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Justin Turcotte

The Hallam Tornado on May 22 was in my mind as close to an F5 as it gets without achieving the mark. There were clean foundations but still some loose debris here and there. The one thing that caught my eye while checking out the damage was some houses were 100% destroyed yet trees were still standing...

Note the foundation \"swept clean\" less the air conditioner. Also note the tree with leaves still on.

Just had to butt in here.

Sorry, don't compute on that one. The picture you show me above in no way says F5 damage to me. It says "poorly or not-at-all anchored house gets swept away by F3-ish winds hence the telephone pole and tree still standing". F3 by default. Thats what it says to me.

F5? I want to see scoured ground and denuded stumps. Sorry. Oh - and no telephone poles.

Oh - and it doesn't look like it was "swept away" - there's an awful amount of debris on that slab - including what looks like roof beams.

KR[/b]

More along the lines of this, Gene? :lol:

 

[Justin Turcotte]

Maybe we need a new thread: "rate the tornado". The house in the pic I posted was not a "slider". Cannot speak for anchoring. Doesn't look much different than the SPC F5 pic Robert posted (both with some vegetation still very well intact). One significant problem with the F-scale is the subjective nature of its application. One persons' F4 is anothers' F3. (I'd label the damage in the pic I posted as F4). It gets worse when no homes are hit. Then we have damage versus wind speed. Are we measuring the actual damage to a home or are we trying to guess the wind speed in the tornado? And yes, not all homes are built equal. I think if you try and get too big of a picture (ie. did the tornado take out the trees across the street) than you miss the smaller features like a suction vortex hitting just the home.

How strong of a tornado does it take to deposit these cows a good quarter to half mile from the "source"?

[Broken External Image]:http://snrs.unl.edu/amet898/turcotte/photos/cow1.jpg[Broken External Image]:http://snrs.unl.edu/amet898/turcotte/photos/cow2.jpg

 

[Jeff Lawson]

Gene makes an excellent point: a tree of that size and telephone pole generally wouldn't survive an F5 tornado. As for the house, I see a lot of cinder blocks scattered around, so I'm assuming there wasn't any anchoring to the foundation. For that matter, what was this house constructed of? I see more cinder blocks than wood.

As for the cow, just because a cow ends up a half mile from where it started doesn't mean the wind deposited it there. They can run, you know.

Hallam was clearly a violent tornado (F4 damage is nothing to sneeze at!), but I haven't seen any photos that indicate F5 damage at all. As for the house in the example, it would be nice to have a wider view in order to 1) See what the house was constructed of, and 2) See where it all ended up in relation to the foundation.

 

[Amos Magliocco]

I thought I heard that damage surveys for anything considered above F3 damage are now done by a centralized Quick Response Team dispatched to any CWA in the US, and that there has not been an F5 ranking since the formation of that unit. Is any of that correct?

 

[George Tincher]

Rating damage can be difficult, but less so if all the standards are applied.

I honestly can't see enough of that scene in the pic to make any sort of accurate determination regarding the damage. To be honest, I can't even say for certain whether that is a concrete slab foundation or whether it is a pier and beam foundation.

If it's a pier and beam, then I would not be able to assign anything above an F3 rating. If it was a solid slab and if the bottom plate of the house was well anchored to it, then a violent rating would be more appropriate. But I'm still not sure I would give it an F5 rating.

Again, you must look at everything. The foundation is one thing. What type of foundation is used? How is the home secured to said foundation? Is it bolted down? Nailed? Is it secured at all?

The main two things I like to look at when trying to determine damage are the roof to wall connection strength, then the bottom plate to foundation connection strength. Often, variations witnessed in these connection strengths make all the difference between an F1 and a F2 when it comes to roof damage....and the floor/foundation connection strength when it comes to determining F4 to F5 damage.

And one other important thing I remember reading in an old issue of Stormtrack Magazine (a Tim Marshall article regarding damage at Jarrell, TX in 1997) pertaining to damage is not only the construction of the home in question, but also the construction of homes nearby. For example, a very well built house that might have otherwise only lost it's roof may be severely damaged or completely destroyed if hit by debris from a poorly constructed, poorly anchored home that gets blown apart and swept away. As Tim put it....."your house is only as strong as the weakest one in your neighborhood".

Needless to say, tornado damage ratings are complicated. The only way we can get any meaningful data from such ratings is if every possible effort is made to apply every known principle regarding damage to each rating. As has been previously pointed out, that involves tons of information that must be gathered from the home in question....and even sometimes from other things not even related to the home in question.

Anyway, I'm just rambling and getting off-topic. But F-Scale intensity and damage ratings has long been an interest of mine.

-George