By Paul Homewood
I have deliberately held off running this post for a day or two, partly because I felt it inappropriate to do so earlier, and also because I wanted to wait until the facts became clearer.
NWS have now officially declared the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma on Monday as an EF-5, the highest category, which is given when wind speeds are estimated to be over 200 mph. The current estimate for this tornado is 200-210 mph.
Latest estimates are that 24 people have died, although this figure may rise.
NOAA’s Environmental Visualisation Laboratory gave an ominous warning, earlier that day, of what was to come :-
May 20, 2013
Converging Air Masses Makes for a Rough Day in the Central Plains
Cold, dry air sweeping down from Canada mixing with warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean are merging in the U.S. Plains today, creating conditions for some very turbulent weather. A tornado outbreak today in the early morning hours caused destruction in Kansas and Oklahoma. This image shows the air temperature at 40,000 Pascals (about 23,000 feet high in the atmosphere) using data outputs from the NOAA North America Model for 2100z on May 20, 2013, combined with an overlay of the winds at the same elevation. Tornadoes typically occur at the convergence of these two different air masses. A distinct boundary of “cold meeting warm” is visible in this temperature data, extending from Texas into Illinois.
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail2.php?MediaID=1349&MediaTypeID=1
Unfortunately, EF-5 tornadoes occur only too frequently. This latest is the 59th recorded since 1950, so on average about one every year.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/f5torns.html
The full list is in Appendix A, but Figure 1 shows that these strongest tornadoes were more common in the colder climate of 1950-80.
Figure 1
Many tornadoes, of course, pass through relatively empty farmland, and don’t lead to the damage and loss of life that this one did. Nevertheless, there have been 27 tornadoes since 1970 that have caused more than 20 fatalities, so, on average, it is, unfortunately, the sort of tragedy we can expect to see nearly every year.
I cannot finish without saying how utterly disgusted I am by those who have chosen to make political capital out of human suffering, such as Senator Boxer. What they have done is pure evil. She and the rest should be ashamed of themselves.
APPENDIX A – F5/EF5 TORNADOES SINCE 1950
================================================= NUMBER DATE LOCATION ====== ===================== =========================== 59 May 20, 2013 Moore OK 58 May 24, 2011 El Reno/Piedmont OK 57 May 22, 2011 Joplin MO 56 April 27, 2011 Rainsville/Sylvania AL 55 April 27, 2011 Preston MS 54 April 27, 2011 Hackleburg/Phil Campbell AL 53 April 27, 2011 Smithville MS 52 May 25, 2008 Parkersburg IA 51 May 4, 2007 Greensburg KS 50 May 3, 1999 Bridge Creek/Moore OK 49 April 16, 1998 Waynesboro TN 48 April 8, 1998 Oak Grove/Pleasant Grove AL 47 May 27, 1997 Jarrell TX 46 July 18, 1996 Oakfield WI 45 June 16, 1992 Chandler MN 44 April 26, 1991 Andover KS 43 August 28, 1990 Plainfield IL 42 March 13, 1990 Goessel KS 41 March 13, 1990 Hesston KS 40 May 31, 1985 Niles OH 39 June 7, 1984 Barneveld WI 38 April 2, 1982 Broken Bow OK 37 April 4, 1977 Birmingham AL 36 June 13, 1976 Jordan IA 35 April 19, 1976 Brownwood TX 34 March 26, 1976 Spiro OK 33 April 3, 1974 Guin AL 32 April 3, 1974 Tanner AL 31 April 3, 1974 Mt. Hope AL 30 April 3, 1974 Sayler Park OH 29 April 3, 1974 Brandenburg KY 28 April 3, 1974 Xenia OH 27 April 3, 1974 Daisy Hill IN 26 May 6, 1973 Valley Mills TX 25 February 21, 1971 Delhi LA 24 May 11, 1970 Lubbock TX 23 June 13, 1968 Tracy MN 22 May 15, 1968 Maynard IA 21 May 15, 1968 Charles City IA 20 April 23, 1968 Gallipolis OH 19 October 14, 1966 Belmond IA 18 June 8, 1966 Topeka KS 17 March 3, 1966 Jackson MS 16 May 8, 1965 Gregory SD 15 May 5, 1964 Bradshaw NE 14 April 3, 1964 Wichita Falls TX 13 May 5, 1960 Prague OK 12 June 4, 1958 Menomonie WI 11 December 18, 1957 Murphysboro IL 10 June 20, 1957 Fargo ND 9 May 20, 1957 Ruskin Heights MO 8 April 3, 1956 Grand Rapids MI 7 May 25, 1955 Udall KS 6 May 25, 1955 Blackwell OK 5 December 5, 1953 Vicksburg MS 4 June 27, 1953 Adair IA 3 June 8, 1953 Flint MI 2 May 29, 1953 Ft. Rice ND 1 May 11, 1953 Waco TX ============================================================
http://media.syracuse.com/news/photo/more-storm-trackspng-47871fa7670de12a.png
Damage paths of 1999 Moore tornado and the 2013.
Stephen Rasey says:
May 22, 2013 at 5:08 pm
________________
Stephen,
I live here in the OKC metro area and was guilty of posting the same mistaken info earlier today. For that, I profusely apologize to the bereaved families in Oklahoma and the readers of WUWT.
The cause of loss of six of the children who perished at Plaza Towers Elementary School was misreported, but now corrected. The State Medical Examiner has listed them differently, now.
God bless the families and friends of all those who perished and all members of the community are suffering mightily from grief.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2-infants-among-10-children-killed-in-okla-tornado-state-positively-identifies-23-of-24-dead/2013/05/22/52379098-c2f6-11e2-9642-a56177f1cdf7_story.html
The EF5 tornado also made a direct hit on Briarwood Elementary School, but all there survived, as did children at a private elementary school, also destroyed.
There were some number of strong tornadoes the day before, May 19 which produced significant damage to several small communities around the greater Oklahoma metropolis and two men perished during an EF4 near Shawnee. Our thoughts and prayers are with those family and friends so sorely affected, as well.
Ok, who wants to play……..
…..open ended ……
Mostly because it would be the worst thing to do short of no warning at all. One of the biggest challenges in emergency management is to warn when it is appropriate (ie the outcome is likely, and protective actions are useful) and to avoid over warning (crying wolf) at every strange sound in the night. The public very quickly suffers warning fatigue if you warn too often and nothing happens, which as pointed out above will be the case for 99.99% of the population in the warning areas. As a result one or both of the following will happen:
The public will start to ignore all warnings
and or
The public will become very angry for the costs and dislocations caused by fruitless warnings.
Major storm warning such as blizzard warnings involve some very real financial impacts to the public in the form of lost wages, lost sales as people lock down, extra expenditures (buying extra food and batteries, etc.) As short sighted as it is, this can literally lead to the destruction of the agency responsible for the warnings if false warnings happen too often. People will put so much pressure on the elected officials that they either shut down or strangle the agency that is causing the false warnings.
We see this in avalanche warnings in the mountains, they only put up high avalanche risk warnings for about 3 days, and even though the conditions still exist they will pull down the warning briefly so they can re-issue the warning again just before the weekend so it gets fresh coverage on the news and people will notice the announcement as they plan their weekend activities.
It sounds good from a pragmatic point of view but in a real world of real people over warning is very bad and can cost a lot of both money and lives in the long run.
Last is that such a warning is physically impossible as the technology simply does not exist yet to predict if a specific storm will generate a strong EF4-EF5 tornado on any given day at any given location. The best we can do is a general warning for an area and then a few minutes warning once the actual circulation begins in the cloud that will eventually form the tornado (maybe).
_Jim says:
May 22, 2013 at 4:36 pm
========
I listen.
Can you please state the ‘benchmark’, Phil, in regards to making this claim?
-First signs of convection taking place (white, puffy cumulus building along the dryline)?
-First T-storm to occur that afternoon? (it would be assumed that ANYTHING appearing would go to severe levels in a SHORT period of time given conditions, the ‘cap’ etc.)
-First appearance of a wall cloud (this is your lowered cloud ‘base’ in the SW quadrant that will exhibit rotation prior to ‘dropping a funnel’)?
-First appearance of a funnel?
-First appearance of a funnel with a debris (dust etc) kicked up on the ground?
-First appearance of a tornado (a ‘funnel’ all the way to the ground; should also be exhibiting a debris ‘cloud’ as well)?
-First appearance of a the stove-pipe shaped tornado (lotsa debris now)?
-First appearance of a (low to the ground ‘grinder’) wedge-shaped tornado (F3 to F5 at this stage)?
Bear this in mind, Phil there were MANY sets of trained eyes watching the skies and various instruments that morning into afternoon, along with multiple radiosonde (met balloons) ‘soundings’ sampling the air mass from ground level up to 50 – 60, 000 ft from which Skew-T diagrams (showing winds, dew points, how much ‘cap’ remained, etc) allowing a trained met to make solid ‘judgement calls’ as to how explosive the situation would be …
And some of those eye-sets were in several different helicopters owned by the TV stations as well, bringing back live imagery for the mets in the studio to observe and interspersed with RADAR imagery overlaid with street-detail-level position. This was a well-observed event by many trained observers and mets as well …
.
Some of this is applicable to (can I use the term?) milder tornadoes occurring from T-storm cells embedded in squall lines where the interaction of winds and supercell growth are a little harder to ascertain, observe and predict, but the *storms* both in OK on Sunday (most ppl have ignored or are unaware of the tornado events on Sunday incl the Shanwee/Edmond tornado) and Monday were individual supercells which developed alone and went tornadic within half an hour (give or take) of T-storm genesis … it was simply then a matter of observing these for the usual signs (wall cloud in the SW quadrant).
Anybody who bothered to tune in KOCO or KFOR on the internet had an arm-chair view of the blow-by-blow ‘happenings’ (complete with almost-full-motion video from spotter’s ‘chase’ cars and good video from the choppers!) from the first wall-cloud formation through to the dissipation of Monday’s EF5 twister via an unexpected transition to the ‘rope’ stage before simply ceasing to exist.
Had these simply ‘sprung’ up from mild, afternoon thundershowers, I would have had to agree with you, but, Larry, such was not the case.
.
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
May 22, 2013 at 8:36 pm
_____________
No lie.
There’s one of those obnoxious warning sirens within two blocks of my home and you don’t want to be outside when they pull the trigger on it, which they do, with every event anywhere in the Metro, which might be for a storm 30 miles away and headed for Kansas. They save lives, but they need to re- think when they blow that damned horn… the “boy who cried wolf” comes to mind.
_Jim says:
May 22, 2013 at 8:49 pm
_____________
The whole thing happened really fast- something like bluesky to final lift in 45 minutes.
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
May 22, 2013 at 8:36 pm
=====
Nice comment.
I’m 50 years old, been there done that, I’ve heard all the stories.
Just a bit miffed, at the current direction of things, so don’t take it personal.
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
May 22, 2013 at 8:36 pm
_________________
Here’s a timeline-
http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/moore-oklahoma-tornado-timeline-20130520
Toll of Terror: Moore tornado by the numbers:
http://www.edmondsun.com/local/x1374698941/Toll-of-Terror-Moore-tornado-by-the-numbers
Jim south london says:
May 22, 2013 at 1:11 pm
————————————-
Wizard of Oz is about monetary reform wrapped up in a child’s story. Not so much about tornadoes per se, unless you extend financial collapses as tornadoes…
http://www.themoneymasters.com/mm/the-wonderful-wizard-of-oz/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
_Jim says:
May 22, 2013 at 9:11 pm
________________
You’ve had some very insightful things to say and it’s really appreciated. It’s likely that there are also other people from the metro running through these threads just trying to make sense of it all- needing to talk our way out of our sorrow.
You keep safe, Luther Wu. All the above calm, cool, post-disaster analysis is useful (and also a way to cope with such a terrible tragedy), but your tender heart comes shining through. You were the first blogger on WUWT (during the Nenana ice classic thread discussion, I believe) who looked out the window of our little WUWT world and cried out, “Oh, … [a terrible thing is happening. Everyone, stop and look!]… .”
I’m so glad you are in the world!
Thanks Janice, ever so much.
According to map, 22 square mile affected.. Not to minimalise it , but how darn unlucky do you have to be to be in its path. Just very unfortunate that it hit a major urban area.
Condolences to all who have suffered
“It’s likely that there are also other people from the metro running through these threads just trying to make sense of it all- needing to talk our way out of our sorrow.” [Luther Wu of Oklahoma City]
Then, I’d like to say that I am praying for you all. You will get through this. God will bring good out of this tragedy (Romans 8:28). Not one thing happened on Monday that God didn’t already know was going to happen. God is, even now, IN CONTROL. This fact will not take away your pain, but it will, if you keep on trusting in Him, give you strength and peace.
“Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side … be still my soul, the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.” [Hymn “Be Still, My Soul” – tune, Finlandia]
**************
Hey, Andy G! How’s it going? I’m still as silly as ever (perpetual 10-year-old in a disguise that gets better every year!). Hope your school year is going well.
You are so welcome, Luther (a “mighty fortress is [your] God”!) Your soul is “… safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.”
hi there wizzards can stop tornados witn magic
Alexander F is absolutely correct.
You could learn a lot from folks like him.
I quite agree about Boxer et al and their political self serving on other people’s tragedy.
Boxer should stand down.
@ur momisugly _Jim says: May 22, 2013 at 8:49 pm
Nothing scientific about it. That was when the Tornado sirens went off. As I do not live there, nor do I (nor did I state I know) what is the criteria that is used to sound the sirens, I suggest you might want to talk to those who run the system.
But that is just what I would do.
Thank you for that confirmation ;^) I was ‘observing’ real-time via the good folks (Gary England and crew including on-the-ground storm observers/’chasers’ w their near real-time mobile video and their helicopter with live TV-quality video) at KOCO and the weather.rap.ucar.edu website for the various meteorological conditions (incl satellite imagery e.g. IR, WV etc, upper-air condx incl individual Skew-T diagrams for each Radiosonde balloon-launch site, and surface condx: dewpoint and temperature).
It’s just that I’m getting the impression from some posters who may be thinking that Oklahomans were totally unaware of the possibilities that day (the Day 1 Convective Outlook from NOAA’s NWS SPC of course detailed the prognosis and synopsis for the ‘set up’ that day), that no one was ‘watching’ for the development of severe storms or weather that day (also including Sunday, which most ppl gloss over too I think).
Unlike the broadcast ‘media’ seen (perhaps) in most areas, the broadcasters in the OKC area have their act together, so maybe posters are basing their ‘experience’ with TV coverage from the (possibly) inadequate coverage from broadcasters in their own markets.
To that end, perhaps ppl don’t realize the broadcasters go with wall-to-wall coverage of this stuff (even here in the DFW area!) in the broadcast media when severe weather is present. It helps to *know* where the heavy stuff is in order to take the necessary action to survive!
In the case of Oklahoma City, several radio stations tie-in with coverage TV station KOCO provides (they may also tying in with another TV station or two given inferences I saw/heard that day but can’t swear to it) and provide *excellent* real-time coverage to the public.
Perhaps ppl don’t realize the conditions under which these particularly strong Twisters formed; It’s a little different when the only ‘player’ on stage (the 1st storm that afternoon) ‘blossoms-up’, hurling out prodigious amounts of lightning (WHICH I might add is easily observable/hear-able in the DFW area on a loopstick-antenna based radio tuned to longwave, ~250 kHz *) with accompanying thunder and then goes tornadic in a relatively short time.
.
* This is the means by which I know that somewhere along the dryline something has popped up and the ‘show’ has begun; thunderstorm genesis has been successful and it’s ‘game on’ for severe weather.
That is really a very poor means of notification; a holdover from the cold war days when those were termed air-raid sirens (and many were, verily, first installed via grant monies for “Civil Defense” infrastructure construction including fallout shelters!)
‘City fathers’ have been known to ‘pull’ the actuation of those sirens out of fear that ‘something’ was happening out there in their city and they feared getting caught with their pants down … this is as juxtaposed against the observing of a tornado, or the NWS issuance of a ‘warning’.
Also figure in the ‘propagation delay’ through the ‘official’ system for siren activation:
1) Storm spotter, law enforcement or ‘the public’ generates a ‘phoned-in’ report (nowadays the NWS forecast offices have ‘chat’ sessions active between the local NWS office mets and TV mets as well as select in-the-field storm spotters)
2) NWS Office personnel receive report, the report is ‘screened’ for validity (weed out false reports, esp. from the public)
3) The report info is formatted into a format suitable for dissemination via teletype (olddays), the internet (today) usually via EMWIN * (the ‘official’ info channel from the NWS that cities should be using: this is the direct line from the NWS, but it’s not always timely) for dissemination to ‘using’ authorities.
4) City pulls switch to activate sirens (IF the siren still has power available; some have battery plants as backup). The city can also pull the switch for any reason under the sun as well, and, in the case of Shanwee 2013 (Sunday) and Moore 2013 (Monday) they may have been viewing the actual ‘live’ coverage of the tornado on KOCO TV and acted to ‘sound’ the sirens ….
.
* EMWIN page:
“Emergency Managers Weather Information Network”
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/emwin/index.htm
@_Jim – then take it up with the local officials. For some unknown reason you take pride in attacking the messenger. I reported. I did not analyze. If you do not like their system, I am sure they would love to hear from you on a better one.
But retro or not, effective or not, the system is still widely used. Even in non-Tornado prone areas as a means to warn nearby residents of issues affecting them. As I do not work for the EMS at any government level, you are wasting your time trying to convince me that you have a superior system.