I’ve been watching this with concern, and NOAA just had a press briefing on the issue today. It seems we are headed for the “perfect storm”. The convective outlook from SPC yesterday showed strong potential for Friday/Saturday. Today’s SPC forecast for Friday-Saturday (US Time) is even worse:
Mile Smith (Pres/CEO of Weatherdata) writes at his blog, Meteorological Musings:
Well, we’ve gone from bad to worse with the addition of maxed-out probabilities in eastern Nebraska and the extension of the hatching farther east.
Sixty percent is the highest the numbers can go. If you live in the hatched areas keep up on the weather tomorrow and tomorrow night! Hatched areas are where violent tornadoes may occur along with winds of 75 mph or higher and/or hail 2″ in diameter or larger.
Now, I want to show you an index that can help discern where the strongest tornadoes might be:
A value of “1” is generally considered sufficient for adequate for “significant” (defined by meteorologists as a tornado of F-2 intensity or greater) tornadoes. In this case, values max out at 5 just southwest of Wichita at 7pm Saturday. Do not consider these exact locations. I’m simply trying to establish that both the computer values and the human forecasters consider tomorrow to be a dangerous day.
My advice for tomorrow if you live in one of the moderate or high risk areas? Go about your routine checking the weather every hour or so unless thunderstorms start to approach. At that point, pay continuous attention. Use good sense and you’ll be fine.
Here are the most current tornado safety rules.
If you live in these areas and have hatches, batten them.
BTW Mike has a great book about severe weather:
I recommend his book Warnings: The true story of how science tamed the weather.
I’ve read it, and I’ve lived and experienced much of what he’s written about in the quest to make forecasting, especially severe weather forecasting, more accurate, timely, and specific. For those of us that prefer practical approaches over the rampant speculation on mere wisps of connections to climate, this book is for you.
He says he has another book coming on what went wrong with the Joplin tornado.
For those that want to track storms, may I also suggest this program: StormPredator, which uses the free NWS NEXRAD network to give you alerts and up to date imagery.
As a resident of Joplin Missouri, I just want to say that we really have had our quota of tornadoes for awhile…
I was in the tornado that struck Raleigh,NC on April 16th last year, and our building barely averted disaster, because for some reason that I don’t understand, the tornado was generally headed in a NE direction, and was headed straight for our building, but for some reason it took a sudden jog to the right and barely missed us. Thank god it missed us, because our building had an extremely weak structure and no safe area inside, there were over 100 people inside who weren’t bunkering down, and most were watching the tornado unfold in front of them, it could have been much worse.
Worse to come
Ma3,
The two I use are keeping an eye on the color and smell of the air.
Yes, these signs are unmistakable to anybody who spends time outdoors, working or farming, with an eye to the weather. To me a pea green sky spells ‘danger, danger, danger’. The smell for me is ozony.
Re the weird light colour – I have read that when Katrina was coming in to New Orleans, people observed a similar effect – a sort of greenish tinge. Does anyone know what causes it?
My best wishes to those of you in the danger zone in the US – keep safe.
johanna says:
April 13, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Don’t know but I would suspect a high water vapour content in the air.
DaveE.
Piers speaks of “tornadoe swarma” in the Texas and midwest area especially betweem April 22 -24th. That could be two very rough weekends !
It does have an Ozone smell. The ghostly green sky raises the hair up on my arms. “Is everything tied down?” happens here in Ne. alot.
I do appreciate the knowledge that things might happen like that ahead of time. I’ve got a whole day to prepare for this.
Computer value 3 I believe? Going by the color changes. 🙂
It’s worse than we thought! We’re all doomed!
Alan in Wichita
Your tax dollars at work:
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php
Yea, I have in-laws in Coffeyville KS, right on the edge of the bullseye. I’ve called them to be sure they are on top of this.
Ma3 says:
April 13, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Most of us old-timers in the mid-west (known as the central plains to the rest of the country – Ohio is in the mid-west, really?) have our own very unscientific methods of deciding when to high-tail it to the basement in times of dangerous weather.
The two I use are keeping an eye on the color and smell of the air. Yes, we all know that air has no color, but that doesn’t change the fact that pre-tornado air almost always carries a yellowish, tannish, pea-soup greenish, unworldly tint.
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Yes, green very, very bad. Just dark (and I mean night-at-noon dark) means a lot of rain and maybe a little hail. Bad, bad green…
@Martin457 says:
April 13, 2012 at 4:59 pm
It does have an Ozone smell. The ghostly green sky raises the hair up on my arms.
Electricity!
I have lived in Wichita for over 40 years. When we moved out here from Cincinnati in 1970 my parents were worried about us moving into “tornado alley”. Of course I made sure that we got a house with a full basement! During all this time there have been no direct hits in Wichita, but there have been several tornadoes to hit Cincinnati. There is an old Native American saying out here to the effect that storms avoid the junction of two rivers (Wichita is said to be at the confluence of two rivers.) So far we have been lucky.
In 1991 a strong tornado hit Andover KS about 10 miles to the east of us. I was teaching music composition at a local university and had a graduate student who was doing his thesis composition on computer. He did not have his own computer but kept his score filed on a computer at a church in Andover where he worked. He had logged about 6 months of creative work and many changes that we had made in his weekly lessons. Well, the Andover tornado struck the church and the computer was blown away. Without his thesis it looked as if he would not graduate. But two days after the storm the hard-drive (only!) was found in a tree about 100 yards from the church. My very resourceful student sent the hard drive to a firm in Wisconsin that specialized in data retrieval from aircraft black boxes. For $600 they retrieved his thesis. The composition was printed out and performed, and my student graduated on time. He suffered many jokes about his work being struck down by an “act of God”.
Fortunately we have very good storm coverage and warning system here in Wichita. We all take these storms very seriously.
The Daily Oklahoman has impressive video and reporting on damage in Norman.
http://newsok.com/update-tornado-hits-norman-damage-reported/article/3666125
Sounds like the twister got close to the Severe Storms Center itself, if I’m remembering Norman accurately….
Well, as a Canadian, who has never seen one, sorry about exporting the cold air to you guys that will help this mess…
@ur momisugly
Ma3: Yep, once you’ve seen Tornado Sky you never forget it. In 1973 I spent my first summer east of the Rockies in southern Georgia and had a tornado come within a mile. I didn’t see the tornado but the sky was as you describe it. One of the locals told me "son when you see a hole in the clouds like a cathedral there’s a tornado real close." and so there was. Later that summer in August when I returned home to PDX, a squall line came through with the same eerie looking sky and I remarked to a classmate, "If I were back east I would be looking for a tornado," and what do you know, a tornado touched down less than two miles from the NWS office!
When I was storm chasing, we used that green coloration as a strong hint that big hail was up there some where. The speculation was that the hail stones high in the storm column illuminated by the sun tended to reflect a greenish cast.
Can’t say if that is fact but that is what I was told.
Larry
I just saw about an hour a Nova program about the tornados last year. The formation of the Joplin was caught on video. It went from no tornado to EF4 or 5 in less than ten seconds just outside of Joplin! Hopefully this time around there is more warning (actually more hopeing for a forecast bust-this is the type of forecast that a forecaster really hopes doesn’t pan out)
I did find this explaination that makes sense. Severe thunderstorms are always very tall clouds, this answer implies that the coloration is an artifact of the depth (height) of the storm cloud, and its illumination. Hence very tall powerful thunderstorms would be most likely to take on a green cast in the proper lighting.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_the_sky_green_before_hail
Larry
Greetings from Wichita!
Good God. Right in the middle of +2.
Trained storm spotter. Been through two here. First one jumped my house but settled on Tyler
Rd, but I lost my Greg Norman hat straight up. Worst part was listening to my wife yelling, “Get you dumb arse in here,” from the front door. That storm left the record Kansas hailstone of 7.85″ one half mile south of my house. Crushed my skylights, with +$9,000.00 in a new roof. Second one went through Andale but raised before Maize,Ks.
Green is hail. Tornado is swirling clouds. Wall clouds, etc.
Preparations????
Went and prepared amy well stocked basement bar. Barbecue when the first sign of a front shows. Wind calms down just before. Timing is critical. Just before.
But I guess I have a different view of things. I’ve been closer to death trying to get on Kellogg Av. Storms are somewhat predictable.
Ignorant drivers aren’t.
Will keep you posted, if the Wi-Fi works.
How does this play in again with forcing warm, humid air up from the Gulf again (an important constituent part of this scenario terminologically I might add)?
I’m beginning to think this area of ‘meteorological phrenology’ is open to the wide interpretations of soothsayers and other ‘seers’ of intangibles …
Generally, something with this much linkage between ’cause and effect’ would be written up in all the basic meteorological texts, and would be as notable as Rossby waves and such.
With ALL the meteorological observation instruments, twice-daily rawindsonde soundings, WV imagery and other various wavelength satellite imagery (besides LWIR and visible) you mean to tell us there is ONE big facet to all this we are overlooking?
May I remind you that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”?
Please, can you show us the/your homework, showing us the predictions worked-out a week, nay ten days to two weeks ago that prognosticate this upcoming event? This ‘event’ has been showing up and has appearing at about the 3-day outlook point for over a week now by the folks at NOAA’s SPC (having observed their “Convective Outlook” webpage for the past week; the inference here being they have ‘pushed’ it out from about Monday or Tuesday (prognostication on last Saturday) tomorrow (Saturday the 14th).
Also note the ‘action’ taking place today in Oklahoma; I’m registering a lot of lightning ‘discharges’ on longwave (about 300 kHz) even now as I write this (most activity from about FDR to OKC).
.
usjim
Thank you for your reply.
When I repeat a point it is because I think it is worth re-emphasis.
If the tornado-suppression method you want to use is so much better than a powersat, then why hasn’t it already been proven?
What “ground-level forcing mechanism” do you have in mind anyway, a nuclear detonation?\
The powersat idea, however expensive at first, is hardly impractical,
since it could address much of the hemisphere with phased-arrayed promptness.
Anyway, if we’d kept the Saturn V it would have been a hundred times cheaper than today’s costs.
Every tornado victim is a victim of the Welfare State.
And I won’t stop saying it, since death is permanent.
“In this case, values max out at 5 just southwest of Wichita at 7pm Saturday.”
Ummm.
Three miles south, six miles west of downtown Wichita.
Could you be more specific?
My my … why are cities investing in outdoor sirens and other means of alerting the public (like reverse 911 systems and cell-phone warning systems) then?
Could it be because these (pardon me) ‘old wives tales’ just haven’t panned out?
I don’t recall too many accounts of storm chasers bearing witness to these indicators (), so, I would appreciate any written technical works, cites, literature or even videos please …
Just last week, here in the Dallas area, we (I) was near the end of the RADAR track on one of those twisters too; no ‘odd’ colors and no odd odors either.
Check out #3 here:
http://www.accuweather.com/en/features/severe-weather/top-five-tornado-myths-debunke/61918
“Myth: 3. A green sky is an indicator that a tornado is coming” .. Truth: NOT necessarily …
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