Mike Smith of meteorological musings writes:
Brown Gashes on an Otherwise Green Earth
You’ll want to click to enlarge this image.
This from the AQUA earth-monitoring satellite. These tornadoes were so large they left visible brown gashes on the Alabama countryside. To help you find the gashes, storm chaser Aaron Kennedy put yellow lines parallel to the tornado’s tracks. I have added the arrows. The city of Tuscaloosa is between the “a” and my first arrow. The path across Birmingham was largely covered by clouds when the satellite passed over.
Mike also poses an important question.
I’m changing planes at O’Hare at the moment and just saw that the death toll is up to 250 per The Wall Street Journal and 272 per CNN. It is difficult to write this due to the shock that so many were killed when the forecasts and warnings were so good. That dichotomy is the question of the day.
Read his answer here
From http://www.rmets.org/weather/phenomena/tornadoes.php
“The UK has around 35-40 tornadoes a year and experiences more than any other European country.
Many tornadoes last for only a few minutes, but in 1950 a tornado swept across southern England with a path that was at least 66 miles long and lasted for more than two and half hours.”
Two people died in the latter – both were struck by lightening while running for cover.
Ralph says:
April 29, 2011 at 7:17 am
As a retired civil engineer who’s specialty was in building construction, I can assure Ralph that the light wood frame platform style construction that he decries is actually very strong and can be very wind resistant if properly detailed with consideration for wind uplift and racking resistance. The construction that he lauds, traditional unreinforced masonry, does not perform particularly well under seismic and wind loading. The code required insulation values in masonry construction are not as easily and practically achieved as in the typical stud framed walls of the “plasterboard shacks”. Britain doesn’t have significant seismic problems and the climate is more moderate than the North American climate meaning that the masonry construction that works well in Britain does not necessarily work well in North America.
As for my experiences, I have witnessed the swathes of destruction of some tornadoes in our region and observed that stud framed houses even without detailing for wind loading withstood damage much better than masonry commercial/industrial buildings with roofs constructed of open web steel joists and corrugated steel roofing. These were F2 tornadoes. No practical building is going to stand up to an F5 tornado.
It very well may be that one of these tornadoes will be designated the largest , energy wise, ever recorded in history.
Our local cartoonist sees vindication for his prophetic faith in these deadly tornadoes:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/51715584-82/bagley-cartoon-lake-salt.html.csp
The prophets predicted big storms, and here they are. Such is the media intellect.
–AGF
The 03 May 1999 tornado in the OKC metro (Moore and Eastern OKC/Del City were hit hardest here) split the distance between my house and my work. I lived about 1.5 miles from work, and the tornado was over a half-mile wide as it tracked through. We were fortunate, with no damage and power out for less than a day. The tornado was at F4 level near us. It had been F5 earlier. It was over a mile wide for a while. Seeing the images of Alabama brings back memories. It is hard to tell the difference. That tornado was the strongest recorded. Theoretically, it will remain, as it was (approximately) as strong as possible (highest winds). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Oklahoma_tornado_outbreak
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/
I recall Gary England (mentioned above) exclaiming “Get below ground” and indicating survival was unlikely if you were stuck above ground. The neighborhoods were swept clean. Only below-ground structure was left. It is unimaginable until you see it yourself.
We were across town at the time. It was surreal. We drove home in the dark. Everyone was polite and cooperative at intersections. Tempers were a little less mild starting the next day, but everyone pulled together. We made it through.
Being from the general area . . . I will tell you my opinion on why so many casualties . . . When the new technologies arrived during the dot.bomb era . . . All old technologies like a boob tube with antenna reception disappeared . . . and so did the communication that went along with it . . . I have elderly relatives that live in an area where there is no television at all anymore . . . unless they want to spring for a dish or pay for dial up service . . . . they are in an area so remote that there are no towers . . .
They now have only limited radio service and a land line phone they have had since phone service arrived out there . . .
The economy has crashed for many . . . including me . . . . I go to my public library to use a computer as that is the only way I could even be online . . . we no longer have television at all as the cable and dish is too expensive and so there is no such thing as basic communications any longer . . . Many people I know . . . in my little world are in the same situation . . .
And many of the elderly and young that are out in “the country” are now isolated communications wise as even cell phone service is not cheap, and the learning curve for the old is large . . .
They say it is bad because of 12% unemployment . . . but I tell you true . . . it is a whole lot worse than the stats indicate . . .
and that has been the situation in the “deep south” for a very long time . . .
Here in Illinois where basements are the norm we strongly recommend to our builder clients that they design and build the front stoops on new homes as storm shelters. Added costs for taller concrete foundation walls, a little extra basement floor, a sturdy steel door, and a reinforced suspended concrete cap typically ranges between $2K and $3.5K. About 1 in 5 new homes here have this feature. It’s a very small price to pay for peace of mind.
As an added bonus they also make great wine cellars, safe rooms and vaults for valuables.
Apparently these poor folks were just getting what they deserved, at least according to the donk at Think Progress.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/28/tornado-global-warming/
“Storms Kill Over 250 Americans In States Represented By Climate Pollution Deniers”
…
““Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”
The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists.”
BTW, the only above-ground structures I am confident can withstand full F5 tornadoes are the ones we build around our PWRs.
Had the opportunity to fly over southern Alabama and Mississippi in late 1979 after Hurricane Frederick passed thru. The pine forests rode out the storm winds fine. But the tornadoes in the storm lawn mowed lots of trees. From the air, it looked like a bunch of drunks with lawn mowers went thru the forests. There were no straight lines. And this went on for miles and miles. Prayers for everyone involved in this.
Since some are talking about rememberings . . . . It used to be when there was a natural disaster the “hucksters” would move in . . . .stuff like ice suddenly cost 300% more . . . etc . . . Florida now has a law and consumers report these people to law enforcement now. . . This activity was considered smart and enterprising by many who profited from it. . .
But, many got kicked to the curb. . . after they were already down . . . so you can see why catastrophic predicting was/is so important . . . when it comes to “carpet bagging” and every other activity of this nature . . .
It’s what I call . . . a behavioral cycle . . . by some . . .
>>cheapsmack says: April 29, 2011 at 8:14 am
>>to compare the “hurricane of 1987 with an f-5 tornado is laughable.
>>A hurricane has 74 mile an hour sustained winds … in south-east England
>>>gusts of 70 knots or more were recorded continually for three or four
>>consecutive hours.
Those 70kt winds in the UK equate to 80mph for several hours, and the winds were strong enough to fell 15 million trees, but no houses. A comparison with an F5 may be unfair, but we always see similar widespread damage to USA housing in the wake of hurricanes too. And why are there no cable-ties on these plywood houses in the US, to stop the roof from lifting?
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>>Robert Austin says: April 29, 2011 at 9:00 am
>>I can assure Ralph that the light wood frame platform style construction
>>that he decries is actually very strong … The construction that he lauds,
>>traditional unreinforced masonry, does not perform particularly well
>>under seismic and wind loading.
If you look at the Fujita scale, it definitely places the destruction of timber frame houses before brick houses. And a concrete house would be better still at resisting lateral loads and therefore tornadoes. Here are two images of concrete reinforced houses that survived a tornado, while all the others were wiped of the face of the Earth. You call then ICF over there, apparently.
http://www.skippersmotherman.com/Site/Integraspec_ICF_of_Middle_TN_files/Stoughton_Tornado_ICF_house.jpg
http://correctgcd.com/sterl/ster.h2.jpg
If you had a whole town of ICF houses (or the Israeli houses, where the concrete is external, rather than internal) you would not only have survivable housing, but you would also prevent tonnes of debris from battering everything in sight. Now that makes a storm much more survivable for humans, and it makes it more survivable for houses downwind too.
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It wouldn’t seem to be much of a stretch to add a tornado/sever storm tracking application to cell phone networking software that interfaces with NWS radar feeds to warn cell phones within a given warning area of an impending situation.
Additionally, if the phone network could somehow be given the speed and direction of a tornado, it could warn individual cell phone users who are located along that path and even advise them which way to move to avoid it.
Ralph says: “And a concrete house would be better still at resisting lateral loads and therefore tornadoes.”
Not to mention a bigger problem with wooden houses down south that costs over $2 billion a year to repair/defend against – termites.
Mike M . . .
The “experts” are/were trying to do exactly that here . . . in my neck of the woods . . . but because of “capitalistic competitions” . . . there is no co-operations . . . . In my research of this years ago I found out there is not enough co-ordinations . . .
We had a better EmergencyBroadcastSystem in WWII than we do now . . . . Now it’s how much $$$$ can we squeeze out of our citizens . . . that’s “capitalizm” you know!!! Right!!!
I can get a weather alert over my phone . . . but look how much more expensive a phone is now . . . . and quite frankly it’s not always appropriate . . . to many “bugs” in the systems . . . .
I understand why there where National TV Networks and then Local Affiliates that carried the National Network . . . You bought your box your antenna and advertising paid for the rest.
Now, I spend half my time reading terms of service for “huckster” minimization . . . even WordPress is not SAFE!!! You have fake phone calls, fake web sites, etc . . .
Erecting your share of straw-man args today Ralph?
Are you familiar with Mr. Tim P. Marshall’s work by any chance?
Tim Marshall – civil engineer and meteorologist concentrating on damage analysis, particularly that from wind .. . He is also a pioneering storm chaser and was editor of Storm Track magazine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_P._Marshall
Tim has done work in the area of ‘beefing up’ home construction through improved joining, anchoring and attaching sections together between ‘pad’ (foundation) and roof trusses. The general category of his work being http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_engineering
Some of his work is embodied here: http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=1423
(Click on: View/Download /Print (pdf 4245K) link in the above page to download a document showing some of the analysis and recommendations for improving wood-stick/frame structures to withstand some amount of ‘wind’)
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I’ve just heard on Australian ABC radio, a morning presenter permit a climate scare monger called Morantz? to rave for ten minutes on the basis that the recent tornadoes are directly the result of ‘Carbon’ emissions.
No historical context, no balancing scientific views, even from ‘their own side’ such as the statement issued by the NOAA scientist distancing the event from what they still call ‘climate change’.
Pure filthy exploitation of the tragedy for their own purposes.
At the end she even plugged his book…published of course by ‘Footprint Press’.
I keep vowing never to tune in again…but in a country where the news media is thin on the ground and of fairly poor quality it’s hard to avoid the ABC and its embedded greenies.
Ralph says: “And a concrete house would be better still at resisting lateral loads and therefore tornadoes.”
Not to mention a bigger problem with wooden houses down south that costs over $2 billion a year to repair/defend against – termites.
One word ends this discussion about concrete construction in homes in the American south.
Mold.
Concrete encourages the growth thereof.
Nice idea, but, not all tornado warnings originate via RADAR identification; man is still ‘in the loop’ taking input from spotters and LE agencies (and the public) …
Still, nice idea. One that *will* come to pass (come to fruition, be realized) no doubt.
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Speaking of the AQUA satellite, what’s up with the temperature data from that satellite? The past few days, I have not been able to get the main temperature site at http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ or the channel 5 ascii data at http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/data/amsu_daily_85N85S_ch05.r002.txt
Those 70kt winds in the UK equate to 80mph for several hours, and the winds were strong enough to fell 15 million trees, but no houses.
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15 million trees. Big deal.
80 MPH for three hours.
Big deal.
We’ve been there, done that….many times over
What about 260 MPH in 30 seconds?
OK City. Xenia. Jarrell. Tuscaloosa. [Go Crimson Tide!]
Kind of changes the equation, no?
Kind of doubt your side of the pond has ever seen anything so violent, no?
You have no (not even rudimentary) understanding of the extreme violence and INSTANTANEOUS destruction of the most violent atmospheric phenomenon on Earth.
And EF5 is, no doubt, the atmospheric equivalent to the ocean’s more widespread destructive tsunami…in the sense that they both obliterate in seconds.
Next time, I would advise you to hold your fire in the wake of such a tragedy.
To quote the book of Proverbs: “Even a fool, when he is silent, is considered wise.”
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Ralph says:
If you had a whole town of ICF houses (or the Israeli houses, where the concrete is external, rather than internal) you would not only have survivable housing, but you would also prevent tonnes of debris from battering everything in sight. Now that makes a storm much more survivable for humans, and it makes it more survivable for houses downwind too.
================
The United states is 3.75 Million square miles and the chances to be hit by an EF5 are geographically limited….to many, many orders of magnitude below that.
The chances of being hit by one are so low, they are almost non existent.
When a disaster like this happens everybody notices…but few notice the other 99.999% of the time when it doesn’t happen.
The point being…your suggesting that we engineer against the ephemeral and extremely rare EF5 winds which produce not only winds up to 300 MPH but extreme turbulence which rips everything apart in seconds…is like the how the Japanese thought they were tsunami-ready with the 10 meter walls.
But then the earth fell a meter and the displaced ocean rushed in.
Point is…you have no good frame of reference of understanding…to the extreme and instantaneous, and unavoidable [if you are in its path] of an EF5 tornado.
It is complete, and absolute destruction of everything recognizable…including shearing of structures from their slab, and removal of topsoil and slab and pavement itself, in some cases.
80 MPH for three hours and 15 million trees.
Oh…the apocalypse! Give me a break.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“Walter Dnes says:
April 29, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Speaking of the AQUA satellite, what’s up with the temperature data from that satellite?”
See:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/04/tornado-update-from-alabama/
>>Savethesharks
>>The point being…your suggesting that we engineer against the
>>ephemeral and extremely rare EF5
Not at all. I’m suggesting you engineer against F3s and tornados, which are relatively common and cause a great deal of destruction. If you look at the pics in this site, you will see that concrete homes are not only safer in F3s but better insulated too – saving all that energy and CO2 … 😉
http://correctgcd.com/ster.htm
And no, I do not work for ‘Big Concrete’. However, I do travel a lot and I have noticed that each nation adapts its housing to meet local needs.
Eastern European housing has fences on the roofs to stop avalanches, and triple glazing against the cold.
Nordic housing is often wood, as wood is plentiful there and a great insulator. But these are not like US plywood houses, these use huge great timbers and are well suited to large snow-falls and cold temperatures. Our B&B in Norway had quadruple glazing.
An alternative European design has very steep roofs, to prevent the snow from settling in the first place.
Swiss housing has thick brick walls and massive roof timbers and great eaves, that allows the snow to settle but stops the snow falling around the base of the house.
Mediterranean housing is white and built around courtyards, for maximum cooling, with a flat roof for sitting out in the evening.
Eastern Mediterranean housing is concrete, because concrete resists seismic activity (if built correctly), is cool in the summer and resists rot (the bane of wood houses). Also, wood is limited as a resource in the eastern Med.
British housing does not have a flat roof, because to do so would be crazy. We go in for rain deflectors and draught proofing – although in the 1960s to 80s we got very lazy about such things.
Australian housing has a tin roof, because tin was very cheap and the climate is dry and the tin does not rust, and there are no great winds to rip this lightweight roof off. (Not talking about Darwin here.)
The only place that bucks this trend, in my experience, is the US. The US can be very cold and very windy, but they still build flimsy wooden shacks and insulation is minimal. The porch is a nice adaption, but results in a very spread out town that does not have the community feel and vibrancy of a densely packed Mediterranean town. How do you meet the neighbours, when you are always in the car to go to the shops?
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And by the way, if you look at the Fujita scale, the UK’s 1987 hurricane was an F3 equivalent. The ‘most trees felled in a forest’ category does not come until the F3 mark, and that is exactly what we had in 1987.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujita_scale
I think the difference in wind speeds was caused by the gusts and the bernoulli effect of our rolling hills. When flying over the destruction the next day, you could see the downdraught blast patterns in the forests, where a huge gust had ripped every tree down, and the trees fanned out from the gust’s central point (in a fan shape). One large forest had a dozen fan-shapes in it, which comprised 80% of the forest. These gusts were not necessarily recorded anywhere – our airport’s anemometer, for instance, gave up and died at 70kts. The clubhouse, which was timber frame, was completely demolished.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli's_principle
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The Native American tribes, (and many early European pioneers who adopted the same), had the right idea. They built a heavy wooden structure then made a dirt revetment around and over it to defend themselves against nature. It protected them against extreme temperatures, wild fires and tornadoes, (and maybe they grew flowers on top of them?). Probably not a good place to be in an earthquake but we should consider adopting such ancient ideas and improving on them…