The tornadic microfossils of the Pilbara Craton are the latest example.
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"This morning, it didn&apost look like tornadic supercells were possible," Krull said.
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So far, much of this tornadic activity has been focused across the Gulf Coast states, especially Georgia.
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India loved MAC brand makeup, and she applied it with such tornadic enthusiasm that it coated bathroom sinks and walls.
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With the way things are going this week at the Capitol, tornadic supercells would have likely spun through the South Lawn.
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InstaSweep Hard Floor Surface Sweeper Cleaning hard floors will no longer feel like a chore with this sweeper equipped with three-way, tornadic triple sweep technology.
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The tornadic microfossils lay in the Pilbara Craton for 23.9 billion years before being separated from their natal rock, packed up in a box and shipped to California.
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With their tornadic, abstract figures — influenced in part by carnivals remembered from his childhood — and dreamlike Surrealist imagery, Seligmann's paintings remain powerful and strange, although not well known.
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Scientists don't know as much about tornadic storms in the Southeast as they want to, so we are going out to sample the atmosphere around a tornado and study it.
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There is no Musial, and there is no Julio Franco, who aimed his bat at the pitcher from over his head before unwinding with tornadic gusto as the pitch approached.
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The simulation revealed several structures that make up a fully-formed tornado, including the streamwise vorticity current (SVC), thought to be a main driver of the tornadic activity (seen in yellow).
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Most fire or volcanic eruption induced whirlwinds are not tornadic vortices, however, on rare occasion circulations with large wildfires, conflagrations, or ejecta do reach an ambient cloud base, and in extremely rare cases pyrocumulonimbus with tornadic mesocyclones have been observed.
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In certain atmospheric environments, wind profilers may also provide detection capabilities for tornadic activity.
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Tornadic waterspout on 15 July 2005 off the coast of Punta Gorda, Florida, caused by a severe thunderstorm. "Tornadic waterspouts", also accurately referred to as "tornadoes over water", are formed from mesocyclones in a manner essentially identical to land-based tornadoes in connection with severe thunderstorms, but simply occurring over water. A tornado which travels from land to a body of water would also be considered a tornadic waterspout. Since the vast majority of mesocyclonic thunderstorms occur in land-locked areas of the United States, true tornadic waterspouts are correspondingly rarer than their fair-weather counterparts in that country.
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The development of NEXRAD (Next Generation Radar) has contributed greatly to the ability of meteorologists to recognize tornadic activity. Whereas previous generations of radar could show only reflectivity data and no direct information on air flows, although tornadic supercells and tornadic signatures such as the hook echo and bounded weak echo region (BWER) were identifiable, NEXRAD contained the ability to detect the wind speed and direction inside the storm. The ability to see rotation inside a storm on both the microscale (tornadic) and mesoscale (supercellular) measurements has allowed forecasters to issue severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings in more timely fashion and with a higher probability of detection.
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Outside of tornadic activity, hundreds of damaging wind reports and a multitude of severe hail reports were documented.
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SSR is primarily dedicated to in-field research surrounding Deep Moist Convective events (Severe Thunderstorms) and Cold-core tornadic events.
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Five geotracked golden-winged warblers in Tennessee were observed migrating hundreds of miles south, presumably avoiding tornadic storms, in April 2014. Individuals left prior to the arrival of the storm, perhaps after detecting it due to infrasound.Henry M. Streby et al. (2015) "Tornadic Storm Avoidance Behavior in Breeding Songbirds"Current Biology, 25(1), pp.
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Another 50 tornadoes touched down on this day. The multi-day outbreak culminated on April 27 with the most violent day of tornadic activity since the 1974 Super Outbreak. Multiple episodes of tornadic activity ensued with two waves of mesoscale convective systems in the morning hours followed by a widespread outbreak of supercells from Mississippi to North Carolina during the afternoon into the evening. Tornadic activity on April 27 was precipitated by a 995 mbar (hPa; 29.39 inHg) surface low situated over Kentucky and a deep, negatively tilted (aligned northwest to southeast) trough over Arkansas and Louisiana.
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Tornadic storms developed from 5:00-6:00 PM local time and while storm motions were to the NE, the prevalence of tornadic storms moved southward with the dryline/cold front intersection, lasting until 8:00 PM local in NW Missouri. A serial derecho then formed and moved across Iowa and Illinois through the nighttime hours, hitting Chicago in the early morning.
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In addition to the deaths, 38 people were injured by tornadoes and an additional 30 were injured by non- tornadic impacts, mainly by fallen trees.
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The storm tracked two miles southwest of Lakin at about 5:10 pm and was spotted again six miles northwest of Deerfield at approximately 5:40 pm. A tornadic storm in Kearny County uprooted trees and caused power outages at residences west of Lakin. No injuries were reported from it. In Finney County, no damage or injuries were reported from tornadic activity that traveled mostly above open farmland.
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Tornadoes emit on the electromagnetic spectrum, with sferics and E-field effects detected. There are observed correlations between tornadoes and patterns of lightning. Tornadic storms do not contain more lightning than other storms and some tornadic cells never produce lightning at all. More often than not, overall cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning activity decreases as a tornado touches the surface and returns to the baseline level when the tornado dissipates.
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April 22nd Tornadic Supercell Greater St. Louis Metropolitan Area, National Weather Service, St. Louis, Missouri. (April 23, 2011). No deaths resulted from the tornado, and injuries were relatively few.
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Five scattered tornadoes touched down across the Great Plains and Midwest on June 19, 1951. The event was highlighted by a large, violent F4 tornado that tracked for over through the western and northern suburbs of Minneapolis causing all the tornadic casualties from the outbreak. In all, one person was killed, 20 others were injured, and damage was estimated at $5.030 million (1951 USD). There were additional casualties from non-tornadic events as well.
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Conversely, another microburst seems to have caused the tornado to intensify on the eastern side of Canton and coincided with the two deaths. The most intense pure tornadic damage width was .
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When It Rains Animals: The Science of True Weather Weirdness. Alasdair Wilkins, iO9. 21 March 2012. Under this hypothesis, a tornadic waterspout transports animals to relatively high altitudes, carrying them over large distances.
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Non- tornadic waterspouts seen from the beach at Kijkduin near The Hague, the Netherlands on 27 August 2006. Waterspouts that are not associated with a rotating updraft of a supercell thunderstorm are known as "non-tornadic" or "fair-weather waterspouts", and are by far the most common type. Fair-weather waterspouts occur in coastal waters and are associated with dark, flat- bottomed, developing convective cumulus towers. Waterspouts of this type rapidly develop and dissipate, having life cycles shorter than 20 minutes.
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In total, 400 houses sustained damage from flooding. 1,575 houses were damaged from the flooding or tornadic damage, 23 severely, amounting to $4.5 million (2002 USD) in damage. No deaths are attributed to Fay.
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Network operations were directed from the NCAR CP-3 radar site while US National Weather Service local bureau notified the team of significant downburst and/or tornadic events, and even assisted in damage surveys.
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However, in some areas, such as the Adriatic, Aegean and Ionian seas,Rare: Waterspout tornado came ashore in Palermo, Sicily, Italy - August 6, 2020 tornadic waterspouts can make up half of the total number.
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A tornadic waterspout touched down at the Auckland waterfront, damaging boats and businesses, and causing a container to fall on a car, injuring a person inside. Large hail, lightning and torrential rain accompanied the tornadoes.
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The show debuted on the Discovery Channel on January 26, 2015 in Canada. Filmed during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, crashes, mechanical problems, and tornadic weather hamper the pilots' and performers' ability to take to the sky.
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An unusual tornadic event affected Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota. 26 tornadoes touched down, with five of them rated F2. It turned out to be a record breaking late-season tornado outbreak, although there were no fatalities.
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A waterspout near the Florida Keys in 1969. A waterspout is defined by the National Weather Service as a tornado over water. However, researchers typically distinguish "fair weather" waterspouts from tornadic (i.e. associated with a mesocyclone) waterspouts.
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A supercell is characterized by a mesocyclone, which is usually first observed in velocity data as a tight, cyclonic structure in the middle levels of the thunderstorm. If it meets certain requirements of strength, duration, and vorticity, it may trip the mesocyclone detection algorithm (MDA). Tornadic signatures are indicated by a cyclonic inbound-outbound velocity couplet, where strong winds flowing in one direction and strong winds flowing in the opposite direction are occurring in very close proximity. The algorithm for this is the tornadic vortex signature (TVS) or the tornado detection algorithm (TDA).
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During the evening and overnight hours of May 19, tornadic activity became more sparse, with a few tornadoes reported in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. At least two tornadoes were confirmed in Iowa, one near Huxley and another near Earlham.
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The tornado was officially classified an F3,Storm Data, p. 156 though meteorologist Thomas P. Grazulis determined it to have caused damage consistent with an F2 rating. A non-tornadic wind gust destroyed a nearby trailer home.Storm Data, p.
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Along with the tornadic storms, heavy rainfall resulted in widespread flooding also occurred throughout the southern states. Total economic losses from the event exceeded $925 million. Overall, this outbreak produced a total of 37 tornadoes, and resulted in one fatality.
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"Weather Star Robo." Created by Pinchernone. The infected human was a weathergirl constantly criticized for inaccurate reports. As a typhoon swept over G-Island City, the Zonder was deduced as residing within a series of five tornadic waterspouts off the coast.
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CDT south of Jackson, Mississippi. Traveling briskly to the northeast, it became severe within 25 minutes and potentially tornadic by 1:36 p.m. CDT. A tornado finally touched down at 2:30 p.m. CDT just east of the Philadelphia Municipal Airport.
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Two of the TWISTEX mesonet vehicles, M1 and M2. While there are abundant kinematic datasets gathered by mobile radar of the tornadic region of supercells, the number of quality mobile mesonet or sticknet thermodynamic datasets of the flow field proximate to the tornadic region, generally within the supercell rear-flank downdraft (RFD) outflow, are comparatively rare. Even rarer are mesonet datasets reaching within about 1.5 km of tornadoes and datasets sampling the thermodynamic evolution of the RFD outflow. Each of the participating TWISTEX vehicles will have a mobile mesonet (MM) station mounted on the roof including the probe deployment truck.
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The China Meteorological Association assigned the tornado a rating of EF4. July saw near-average tornadic activity throughout the United States, with 104 tornadoes being reported over the course of the month, though no significant outbreaks occurred. Tornadic activity in August was near-average in the United States, with 92 tornadoes having been reported as of August 27. In the evening of August 24, a rare outbreak of tornadoes impacted the states of Indiana and Ohio, along with the Canadian province of Ontario, with significant damage occurring in and around Kokomo, Indiana, Woodburn, Indiana, and Windsor, Ontario.
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The tornado outbreak developed along a cold front alongside an area of low pressure while situated north of the United States–Canada border. Near the High Plains, a dry line began to coalesce as wind shear started climbing to levels favorable for tornadoes. In addition, moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was advected northwards into the country. Not long afterwards, tornadic supercell thunderstorms began developing late on May 7. Tornadic activity started with a large multiple-vortex EF2 tornado that tossed several RVs into the air and injured two people near Wiggins, Colorado on May 7.
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Another 50 tornadoes touched down on that day. The multi-day outbreak culminated on April 27 with the most violent recorded day of tornadic activity since the 1974 Super Outbreak. Multiple episodes of tornadic activity ensued with two waves of mesoscale convective systems in the morning hours, followed by a widespread outbreak of supercells from Mississippi to North Carolina during the afternoon into the evening. Activity on April 27 was precipitated by a 995 mbar (hPa; 29.39 inHg) surface low situated over Kentucky and a deep, negatively tilted (aligned northwest to southeast) trough over Arkansas and Louisiana.
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Strong mesocyclone on a thunderstorm near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that was analyzed as fitting the characteristics of a TVS. It was associated with a tornado. A tornadic vortex signature, abbreviated TVS, is a Pulse-Doppler radar weather radar detected rotation algorithm that indicates the likely presence of a strong mesocyclone that is in some stage of tornadogenesis.WSR-88D Distance Learning Operations Course, slides 3 & 4 It may give meteorologists the ability to pinpoint and track the location of tornadic rotation within a larger storm, but it is not an important feature in the National Weather Service's warning operations.
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Another 50 tornadoes touched down on this day. The multi-day outbreak culminated on April 27 with the most violent day of tornadic activity since the 1974 Super Outbreak. Multiple episodes of tornadic activity ensued with two waves of mesoscale convective systems in the morning hours followed by a widespread outbreak of supercells from Mississippi to North Carolina during the afternoon into the evening. Activity on April 27 was precipitated by a 995 mbar (hPa; 29.39 inHg) surface low situated over Kentucky and a deep, negatively tilted (aligned northwest to southeast) trough over Arkansas and Louisiana.
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This can allow the mesovortices to descend to the surface, causing tornadoes. These tornadic circulations in the boundary layer may be prevalent in the inner eyewalls of intense tropical cyclones but with short duration and small size they are not frequently observed.
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At 6:03 p.m. CDT (2303 UTC), a large tornadic wall cloud formed and touched down, initially in the form of several smaller sub-vortices, west-southwest of El Reno. The tornado ultimately attained EF3 intensity during its existence, according to ground surveys.
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The Late-October 1996 tornado outbreak was an unusual tornadic event that affected Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota on October 26, 1996. A total of 26 tornadoes would touched down on what turned out to be a record breaking late-season tornado outbreak.
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Damaging winds, possibly related to tornadic activity impacted the island early in the morning on February 19, 1993. The storms effects were felt hardest in Sandy's Parish and along North Shore. One person was injured and 100 customers lost electricity in the storms.
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More recently, a review conducted by WMO confirmed a reported gust of 408 km/h on Barrow Island on 10 April 1996, at the peak of the storm, making it the highest gust ever recorded on earth during a non-tornadic storm.
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Some tornadic activity appeared possible overnight given an increase in low-level winds. At 5:20 p.m. CST, the first tornado watch was issued from northern Arkansas northeastward into southern Indiana and western Kentucky as discrete storms began to develop. By 11:00 p.m.
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Extreme levels of tornadic activity took place in January. There were 142 preliminary reports of tornadoes in the United States in January, of which 135 were confirmed. This is nearly 4 times the monthly average of 35, and the most active January since 1999.
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Aurora Center is located at (43.862198, -98.353642). According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , all land. Aurora's location is more prone to tornadic activity than elsewhere in South Dakota.Aurora Center, South Dakota (SD) Detailed Profile, City-Data.
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Thunderstorms are frequent during summer afternoons. Windsor typically experience between 6 and 12 hail days per year and one of the highest concentrations of tornadic activity anywhere. The area where Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming meet receives the most hail of any location in the United States.UCAR: Hail.
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Hook echoes are thus a relatively reliable indicator of tornadic activity; however, they merely indicate the presence of a larger mesocyclone structure in the tornadic storm rather than directly detecting a tornado. During some destructive tornadoes, debris lofted from the surface may be detected as a "debris ball" on the end of the hook structure. Not all thunderstorms exhibiting hook echoes produce tornadoes, and not all tornado- producing supercells contain hook echoes. The use of Doppler weather radar systems, such as NEXRAD, allows for the detection of strong, low-level mesocyclones that produce tornadoes even when the hook echo is not present and also grant greater certainty when a hook echo is present.
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CST (01:05 UTC), the Arlington tornado touched down on South Cooper Street, causing initial damage to a restaurant; the tornado's touchdown coincided with the appearance of a tornado vortex signature on radar imagery. Well-built homes within a residential area along Embercrest Drive sustained widespread damage, with some houses experiencing up to F3-rated damage; such damage occurred after garage doors failed, allowing tornadic winds to unroof homes and push out exterior walls. As a consequence, homes that faced the tornadic winds sustained more damage than homes whose attached garages were sheltered from the strong winds. After crossing Matlock Road, the tornado did additional damage to one- and two-story homes in another subdivision, producing F3 damage.
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Worldwide, 45 fatalities were caused by tornadoes; 22 in the United States, 20 in India, eight in the Philippines, four in Canada, two in Greece and one each in Serbia and Russia. Tornadic activity in 2009 began with the development an EF1 tornado near Stringer, Mississippi on January 3 and ended with the dissipation of an EF0 tornado near Vancleave, Mississippi on December 24\. During the year the two strongest tornadoes were both assessed as an EF4 – one occurred in Oklahoma on February 10 and the second occurred in Tennessee on April 10\. During the early months of the year tornadic activity remained mostly below average in contrast to an active trend of tornadoes in 2008.
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If a funnel cloud touches the surface the feature is considered a tornado, although ground level circulations begin before the visible condensation cloud appears. Most tornadoes begin as funnel clouds, but some funnel clouds do not make surface contact and these cannot be counted as tornadoes from the perspective of a naked eye observer, even as tornadic circulations of some intensity almost always are detectable when low-level radar observations are available. Also, tornadoes occur with some frequency without an associated condensation funnel. The term condensation funnel may refer to either a tornadic cloud or a funnel cloud aloft, but the term funnel cloud exclusively refers to a rotating condensation funnel not reaching the surface.
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Due to a 20-minute warning time, no fatalities took place and only 14 to 16 people were injured. Officials blocked off the town and Governor Terry Branstad issued a disaster proclamation for the town. Additional tornadic activity developed on April 10 across Wisconsin with several more tornadoes reported there.
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On December 30 only marginally conductive conditions were present for a severe weather to form. Later on an approaching cold front induced supercells to form in the evening hours. The storm had spawned up to 5 EF3 tornadoes. The highest recorded non tornadic winds were 80 mph (130 km/h).
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The Tornado Season of 2002 was a below average season with only 934 tornadoes touching down, However, this season had its two largest outbreaks occurring early in the year and late in the year because of cold fronts being able to create favorable conditions for tornadic activity in the United States.
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Southern Europe is hot and dry during the summer months. The heaviest precipitation occurs downwind of water bodies due to the prevailing westerlies, with higher amounts also seen in the Alps. Tornadoes occur within Europe, but tend to be weak. The Netherlands experiences a disproportionately high number of tornadic events.
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An unusually intense fall outbreak of tornadoes caused considerable damage to the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. One person was killed, 35 others were injured, and damages reached $4.665 million (1955 USD). A total of 13 other people were killed and over 32 others were injured by non-tornadic events as well.
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These phenomena have been documented observationally, experimentally, and theoretically. Eyewall mesovortices are a significant factor in the formation of tornadoes after tropical cyclone landfall. Mesovortices can spawn rotation in individual thunderstorms (a mesocyclone), which leads to tornadic activity. At landfall, friction is generated between the circulation of the tropical cyclone and land.
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The tornado was a part of a small outbreak of 11 otherwise weak tornadoes and tornadic waterspouts that impacted several countries in Europe that day. An F0 tornado caused roof and chimney damage in the Klagstorp, Sweden area, while another weak tornado caused damage to trees and vehicles in Jönköping County Sweden.
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Vertical velocity at the surface is 13.6 m s −1, indicating strong rising motion. Severe supercell thunderstorms developed rapidly during the afternoon and evening hours. The first tornadic supercell developed over southeastern Ohio and spawned the first tornado at 2:50 EDT near Gallipolis, where many trees were downed and large hail accumulated.
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These phenomena have been documented observationally, experimentally, and theoretically. Eyewall mesovortices are a significant factor in the formation of tornadoes after tropical cyclone landfall. Mesovortices can spawn rotation in individual convective cells or updrafts (a mesocyclone), which leads to tornadic activity. At landfall, friction is generated between the circulation of the tropical cyclone and land.
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The tornado then tracked north-northeast to Bennet, where some houses received F3 tornadic damage. At Bennet, the twister turned east-northeast and began to thin out. Damage east- northeast of Bennet was within the F0/1 scale. The tornado finally dissipated a mile west-southwest of Palmyra at 9:10 pm Central Daylight Time.
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Continuing eastward, the system entered an environment favoring tornadic development. Two tornadoes were reported in Kentucky during the early afternoon, both rated EF2 and resulting in injuries. Near Hopkinsville, a tornado, confirmed by local emergency services, caused significant damage to a manufacturing plant. Numerous buildings were reported to be destroyed, trapping residents within debris.
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A below-sea-level surface pressure record of was set on 21 February 1961. The lowest non-tornadic atmospheric pressure ever measured was 870 hPa (0.858 atm; 25.69 inHg), set on 12 October 1979, during Typhoon Tip in the western Pacific Ocean. The measurement was based on an instrumental observation made from a reconnaissance aircraft.
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This explanation also accounts for the prevalence of reports that only a single species or type of animal is ever reported raining from the sky. A current scientific hypothesis involves tornadic waterspouts: a tornado that forms over the water.Strange Rain: Why Fish, Frogs and Golf Balls Fall From the Skies. Sarah Zielinski, Smithsonian Magazine.
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Another F1 tornado injured one in rural Cullman County. Tornadic activity became more severe and deadly into the evening hours. An F2 tornado slammed through Pickwick, Cheraw, Natcole, and Columbia, injuring two. A disastrous F2 tornado then hit the Northeastern Birmingham suburbs of Fultondale and Southern Center Point, Alabama, killing one and injuring 35.
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At least three low-pressure systems formed and moved northward over the Great Plains. Adequate moisture and wind shear on the warm side of the system allowed for repeated rounds of severe and tornadic supercells and squall lines over a six day period. The outbreak ended as an surface anti-cyclone pushed through the region.
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Throughout the afternoon, numerous supercell thunderstorms that formed ahead of the squall line produced several significant and damaging tornadoes, including the violent EF4 that struck Beauregard, Alabama. As the squall line moved eastward, embedded circulations and semi-discrete structures within the line produced additional strong tornadoes before tornadic activity waned with eastward progression overnight.
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On November 14th, the National Weather Service issued a slight risk for severe weather across parts of the Midwestern United States. The outlook area included a 10% risk for tornadoes, some of which were predicted to be strong. Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio were expected to be hit hard. However, the storms quickly became linear after initiating, limiting tornadic potential.
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By the evening hours, several squall lines developed across the region. Unstable air over much of Missouri allowed for these storms to maintain themselves as they moved slowly eastward. Around 7:00 p.m. CDT (0000 UTC), a rapidly moving vorticity maximum over Iowa resulted in a significant increase in thunderstorms over the area, some of which were tornadic.
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Most of the tornadoes here happen in the very eastern part of the state. New Mexico's region and the desert landscape of the state help prevent the amount of twisters that happen in Oklahoma and Texas. Arizona and New Mexico experience regular summer thunderstorms during their monsoon season. These are sometimes tornadic but rarely produce violent tornadoes.
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An unusual surge of warm weather entered the Midwest in Early-February with temperatures climbing into the 60s across the region. A low-pressure system entered the area on February 9, spawning multiple clusters of severe thunderstorms over the Southern Great Plains. These storms would remain severe and tornadic throughout the overnight into the next day.
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A tornadic waterspout touched down late in the afternoon over Lake Huron, coming ashore at Goderich, Ontario. The tornado struck the downtown area nearly directly with severe damage. Many buildings were damaged or destroyed in the community by the tornado, the strongest in Ontario since 1996. There are early reports of 2 other tornadoes in the region.
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Tornado damage to human-made structures is a result of the high wind velocity and windblown debris. Tornadic winds have been measured in excess of 300 mph (480 km/h). Tornadoes are a serious hazard to life and limb. As such, people in tornado-prone areas often adopt plans of action in case a tornado approaches.
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While officially rated F1, Grazulis rated this tornado F3 and noted near-F4 damage. Another F3 tornado destroyed trailers, cottages, and small homes in and near Henderson, Arkansas, killing 3 people . Tornadic activity continued past midnight into May 16. An F3 tornado traveled on a long, skipping path from near Wabash, Indiana to New Haven, killing 1 person.
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Music critic Nick DeRiso describes Rick Danko's bass guitar playing as having "thunderous funk" and Garth Hudson's keyboard playing as having an "appropriate slur". He also described Robertson's lead guitar playing towards the end of the song as pushing "the song ever onward via a tornadic riff". Hinton describes Hudson's keyboard playing as sounding like a "defrocked church organist".
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Dozens of cars were totaled by downed trees along its path and thousands were left without power. According to Consolidated Edison (ConEd), 1,700 customers in Riverdale and 3,000 in Bronxside were without power due to the tornado. Additionally, there was also a microburst during the thunderstorm, associated with straight-line wind damage. Non-tornadic damage was estimated at $46,000.
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The lightning shows that there was a strong peak during the F2 tornadoes, dominated by the positive cloud-to-ground strikes. Studies have shown that this is often the case in tornadic storms. It was followed by a sharp drop and then another peak, but this one dominated by negative lightning during the flooding phase of the storm.
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Continuing eastward, the system entered an environment favoring tornadic development. Two tornadoes were reported in Kentucky during the early afternoon, both rated EF2 and resulting in injuries. Near Hopkinsville, a tornado, confirmed by local emergency services, caused significant damage to a manufacturing plant and injured several people. Numerous buildings were reported to be destroyed, trapping residents within debris.
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DOW data led to the discovery of sub-kilometer hurricane boundary layer rolls, which likely modulate wind damage and may play a key role in hurricane intensification. DOW data revealed the most intense winds ever recorded (Bridge Creek tornado, 3 May 1999), and the largest tornadic circulation ever documented (also 3 May 1999 in Mulhall, OK), and made the first 3D maps of tornado winds and sub-tornadic vortex winds, and documented intense vortices within lake-effect snow bands. About 70 peer reviewed scientific publications have used DOW data. The DOW fleet, PODS, and mobile mesonets have been featured on television, including Discovery Channel's reality series Storm Chasers, National Geographic Channel's specials Tornado Intercept and The True Face of Hurricanes, and PBS's Nova episode "The Hunt for the Supertwister," and others.
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Upper-level wind shear values were even stronger on this day, reaching as high as 65 knots. Temperatures were in upper 70s to upper 80s with dewpoints in the mid 60s to mid 70s. This allowed for a line of violent tornadic supercells to form across Eastern Lower Michigan into Northwestern Ohio. These storms marched eastward throughout the afternoon before weakening that evening.
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Tornadic activity was expected to be relatively limited at first, though a strengthening low- level jet along with increasing relative humidity along the boundary layer would provide more favorable conditions for development. During the evening of May 18, tornadoes touched down in parts of Kansas and Nebraska. However, most remained in open country, causing little damage. Around 5:30 p.m.
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A second tornado spawned by the same storm, rated as an EF1, touched down near Lake Amon G. Carter, damaging four homes and destroying one. As forecasters realized that conditions now favored tornadic activity, the SPC issued a tornado watch from far southern Oklahoma into central Texas at 6 p.m. CDT, replacing parts of the original severe thunderstorm watch. At 7:13 p.m.
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An outbreak produced 59 tornadoes across the Great Plains. On May 31, two significant tornadoes, rated F2 and F3, struck Lincoln County, Colorado, while a photogenic tornado formed over Sitka, Kansas. More intense tornadic activity occurred on June 1. An F3 tornado killed two people in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, while another person was killed by an F3 tornado in Zanesville, Illinois.
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Numerous weak tornadoes were also confirmed, along with numerous reports of hail and damaging straight line winds. A total of nine people were killed during this outbreak of severe weather. Three fatalities occurred as a result of the tornadoes that struck Alto, Texas and Hamilton, Mississippi. In addition, six other non-tornadic fatalities were also associated with this storm event.
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Note the clearly visible hook echo. On the afternoon of September 21, 2018, a localized outbreak of tornadoes impacted eastern Ontario and southern Quebec. During the event, Environment Canada issued numerous tornado warnings as multiple discrete tornadic supercells moved through the area.Tornado warning issued for Ottawa-Gatineau area, CBC News, September 21, 2018 Between 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
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Regions further away from the center and in cities in the metropolitan area, can reach temperatures next to , or even lower in the winter. Rainfall is abundant, annually averaging . It is especially common in the warmer months averaging and decreases in winter, averaging . Neither São Paulo nor the nearby coast has ever been hit by a tropical cyclone and tornadic activity is uncommon.
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Tornado-related deaths also occurred in Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. Overall, the tornado outbreak resulted in 184 deaths, 6 of those non-tornadic, making it second only to the 2011 Super Outbreak as the deadliest since 1974, and the second costliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history behind that same April 2011 outbreak, with insured damage estimated at $4–7 billion.
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There were 1,059 tornadoes reported in the United States in 2016, of which 976 were confirmed. Worldwide, 130 fatalities were reported: 99 in China, 18 in the United States, five in Uruguay, four in Brazil and two in Italy and Russia each. 2016 was slightly below-average in terms of tornadic activity, but near-record tornado numbers occurred in February.
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CDT (0130 UTC), a squall line began developing over south-central Nebraska and central Kansas. Several corridors of intense winds, possibly associated with brief tornadoes, were observed in Clay and Washington counties in Kansas. Several homes were damaged or destroyed by the winds. Near Milford Lake, a non-tornadic gust of was measured; two people were injured near the lake after their camper tipped over.
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An F0 tornadic waterspout (starts as a tornado) reported near Lake Okeechobee, Florida created a surreal nighttime sight of a tornado and lightning while only doing minor damage. A famous photo of the event, which includes a mixture of brown and black color of the tornado accompanied with a lightning strike, was taken by Fred Smith, who was photographing the tornado from his backyard.
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Later that afternoon and evening, a tornado outbreak occurred across parts of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina as numerous tornadic supercell thunderstorms overspread the region. A violent, long-tracked EF4 tornado killed 23 people as it decimated the rural community of Beauregard in Lee County, Alabama. Well-built homes were leveled, trees were debarked, and vehicles were lofted and mangled beyond recognition by this violent tornado.
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More than 300 people, possibly as many as 330, were killed by tornadoes during this outbreak. However, this record was later broken during the 2011 Super Outbreak, which resulted in 360 tornadoes and 324 tornadic fatalities. However, the most tornadoes spawned in the shortest amount of time is 104 over 5 hours and 26 minutes, during the 1981 United Kingdom tornado outbreak on 23 November 1981.
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A widespread, destructive, and deadly tornado outbreak sequence affected the Southeastern United States from April 28 to May 2, 1953, producing 26 tornadoes, including five violent F4 tornadoes. In all, 36 people were killed, 361 others were injured, and total damages reached $26.713 million (1953 USD). There were additional casualties from non-tornadic events as well, including a washout which caused a train derailment that injured 10.
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A widespread and deadly tornado outbreak affected the Great Plains, Mississippi Valley, and Southeast between. At least 23 tornadoes were confirmed with the strongest one reaching F4 intensity and striking O'Brien, Texas on Friday the 13th. Overall, 21 people were killed, 72 others were injured, and damages were estimated at $6.835 million (1953 USD). There were additional casualties from non-tornadic events as well.
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A low-pressure system formed over Nevada on November 14 and moved quickly eastward into Nebraska by the next day. It slowed down and rapidly deepened as it moved through Northwestern Iowa into Wisconsin by November 16. Favorable conditions led to huge blow up of thunderstorms across the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. These storms quickly became severe and tornadic as they moved generally eastward.
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Usually, the funnel cloud begins causing damage on the ground (becoming a tornado) within a few minutes of the RFD reaching the ground. Field studies have shown that in order for a supercell to produce a tornado the RFD needs to be no more than a few Kelvin cooler than the updraft. Also the FFD (forward flank downdraft) seems to be warmer within tornadic supercells than in non-tornadic supercells. Although many envision a top-down process in which a mid-level mesocyclone first forms and couples with a low- level mesocyclone or tornadocyclone and a vortex then forms below the cloud base and becomes a concentrated vortex due to convergence upon reaching the surface, it has long been observed and there is now more rapidly growing evidence that many tornadoes form first near the surface or simultaneously from the surface to low and mid levels aloft.
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The homes in the neighborhood were mostly small, wood- framed structures on pier or beam foundations, making them highly vulnerable to the tornadic winds and resulting in widespread structural failure. A survey conducted by the Wind Damage and Engineering Program at Texas Tech University later concluded that many of the buildings that suffered total structural failure did so due to structural deficiencies rather than the strong winds associated with the tornado.
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A series of destructive tornadoes struck North Dakota and Iowa as part of a much larger severe weather event that took place on June 27, 1953. The worst tornado was a violent F5 tornado that obliterated farmlands east of Anita, Iowa. In all, five tornadoes touched down, killing one, injuring five, and causing $305,000 (1953 USD). Several other casualties also occurred from non- tornadic events that day as well.
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In 2009, tornadic activity was generally near average. Each year, tornadoes and tornado outbreaks occur worldwide primarily under conductive conditions, though a majority of tornadoes form in the United States. Tornadoes also occur to a less frequent extent in Europe, Asia, and Australia. In the U.S., there were 1,304 reports of tornadoes received by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), and 1,159 tornadoes were confirmed to have taken place.
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The severe storms that produced the tornadoes were accompanied by extremely heavy rainfall. The town of Zelienople, Pennsylvania received more than four inches of rain in 24 hours during May 28 and 29. On May 21, two people were killed in a traffic accident in Missouri when their vehicle lost traction in heavy rain. Most of the tornadic storms were accompanied by strong straight-line winds and large hail.
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Note the severe ground scouring in the foreground. A moderate risk of severe weather was issued for much of the Midwest south to Oklahoma for May 22. The first tornadic supercell that day developed in the mid-afternoon hours over the western Twin Cities with a swath of damage, especially in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota. An intense tornado also tracked towards Harmony, Minnesota that afternoon and a tornado emergency was issued.
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In total, at least 30 tornadoes have been reported so far on October 18 and at least 18 have been confirmed. The hardest-hit state has been Kentucky, where many tornadic supercells formed between Paducah and Louisville, and WFIE has reported many injuries and possible fatalities in numerous communities. At least one person was confirmed dead in Owensboro, Kentucky. However, the National Weather Service has only confirmed minor injuries.
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A localized, but destructive and deadly tornado outbreak impacted Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia on Leap Day in 1952. Thanks in part to unseasonably strong jet stream winds and a strong cold front, eight tornadoes left trails of damage and casualties. The outbreak killed five, injured 336, and caused $3.1 million (1952 USD) in damage. Four more fatalities and 14 more injuries occurred from other non-tornadic events as well.
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A large, deadly outbreak of 20 tornadoes hit the Southeastern United States. It started in Louisiana on November 7, when an F2 tornado hit Southeastern Shreveport and Western Haughton. Later, an F3 tornado injured five northwest of Red River Landing. Tornadic activity then picked tremendously that evening and overnight with catastrophic results. An F3 tornado struck Boyce, the England Air Force Base and Southwestern Alexandria, killing three and injuring 16.
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In Deep East Texas, a series of supercell thunderstorms developed ahead of a squall line. As thunderstorms approached the area, a Severe thunderstorm warning was issued at 1:27 a.m. CST for northern Caddo and Bossier Parishes. The supercell which spawned the tornado tracked over the town of Deadwood, Texas, before moving over Southwood High School, Pierremont Mall, and the VA Hospital in Shreveport with no reports of tornadic activity.
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56 people were killed in the immediate storm, and another 105 were injured, five of whom later died, and many homes were swept away.Mason, Angela. p. 264. 33 of the deaths were students that were killed in the partial collapse of the De Soto School, the worst tornadic death toll at a single school in U.S. history. Also killed at De Soto was Jackson County Deputy Sheriff George Boland.
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The tornadic vortex signature was first identified by Donald W. Burgess, Leslie R. Lemon, and Rodger A. Brown in the 1970s using experimental Doppler radar at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma. The National Weather Service (NWS) now uses an updated algorithm developed by NSSL, the tornado detection algorithm (TDA) based on data from its WSR-88D system of radars. NSSL also developed the mesocyclone detection algorithm (MDA).
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It was the second most active year on record, with only 2004 having more confirmed tornadoes. 2011 was an exceptionally destructive and deadly year for tornadoes; worldwide, at least 571 people perished due to tornadoes: 12 in Bangladesh, two in South Africa, one each in New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia and Canada, and 553 in the United States (compared to 564 deaths in the prior ten years combined). Due mostly to several extremely large tornado outbreaks in the middle and end of April and in late May, the year finished well above average in almost every category, with six EF5 tornadoes and nearly enough total tornado reports to eclipse the mark of 1,817 tornadoes recorded in 2004, the current record year for total number of tornadoes. The 553 confirmed fatalities marks the second-most tornadic deaths in a single year in U.S. history, behind only 1925 in terms of fatalities attributed to tornadic activity.
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Tornadogenesis is most likely when the wall cloud is persistent with rapid ascent and rotation. The wall cloud typically precedes tornadogenesis by ten to twenty minutes but may be as little as one minute or more than an hour. Often, the degree of ascent and rotation increase markedly shortly before tornadogenesis, and sometimes the wall cloud will descend and "bulk" or "tighten". Tornadic wall clouds tend to have strong, persistent, and warm inflow air.
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They also mention that some people are not even warned that a tornadic storm is coming, while others get a warning but do not believe that a tornado will hit their area. In 2012, 68 people were killed by tornadoes in the United States. Kentucky had the most fatalities, 22. Kentucky was followed by Indiana (13), Illinois (9), Missouri and Oklahoma (6), Ohio (4), Alabama and Tennessee (3), and Florida and Kansas (1).
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The Plainfield Tornado challenged both meteorologists and citizens in terms of tornado preparedness. Substantial safety measures have been enacted in the years following the tornado; among the improvements are frequent and regular tornado drills performed in schools. After the tornado, meteorologists studying tornadic patterns in the area found that a major tornado (F3 or higher) strikes Will County about every 12 to 15 years. There have been no major tornadoes in the county since 1990.
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Photographs suggest what appears to be a re-organization of the tornadic circulation; initially a wedge like appearance, the funnel quickly became tall and narrow. The most significant damage was done in this stage, however. The tornado plowed into the town of Hesston, just northwest of Newton on I-135. A total of 226 homes and 21 businesses were destroyed, and several were swept completely from their foundations with only slabs and empty basements remaining.
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With low-level wind shear and helicity, the possibility of tornadic activity was present. At 2:55 pm NZST, a hook echo was apparent on the weather radar, indicating strong rotation and a likely tornado. Several minutes later, around 3:00 pm NZST, a tornado struck the Auckland suburb of Albany. With winds estimated at , the tornado ranked as a high-end EF2 and caused considerable damage along a long track in the area.
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Reflectivity values also decreased with increasing height. Due to the irregular and variable size, shapes, and tumbling nature of tornadic debris, debris balls typically produce a correlation coefficient (ρhv) less than 0.80. Differential reflectivity (ZDR) values associated with debris balls are normally near or below 0 dB. Debris balls are almost always associated with a strong velocity couplet and the corresponding algorithm based detection, the tornado vortex signature (TVS) or tornado detection algorithm (TDA).
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Wind gusted to 83 km/h in the Sault, yesterday: Environment Canada. Also confirms tornado in Ottawa area and high temperature records broken in areas of southern Ontario, sootoday.com, September 22, 2018 Ottawa International Airport, ON weather historical data for September 21, 2018, Wunderground, September 21, 2018 Tornado watches and warnings were issued by that afternoon. Radar imagery at 2100 UTC (5 pm local) of a tornadic supercell thunderstorm approaching Gatineau, Quebec on September 21.
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What may have been what was described as "one of the most impressive tornadic events of the 20th century" by meteorologist and researcher Thomas Grazulis also occurred during this outbreak.Grazulis, Thomas P. 2001. The Tornado. Norman; University of Oklahoma Press; p. 203 Later rated at F4, this massive tornado tracked over 69 miles (110 kilometers) of mainly dense forest and wilderness in central Pennsylvania (some outbuildings were either damaged or destroyed early in its life).
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Harold Lee "Rock" Royer (c. 1938 – November 22, 1973) was an American football coach best known for his role as the father of Liberty University football. He was the school's first ever head coach before dying in a plane crash while caught up in tornadic winds in his Cherokee 6 on November 20, 1973. He also was a noted Baptist evangelist and was known in collegiate football circles as "Coach Born Again".
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Later that same day, another tornado touched down over downtown Leesburg, with much less damage. In nearby Marion County, tornadic activity destroyed six mobile homes, compromised another 50 residences, and inflicted as much as $500,000 in total losses, though only minor injuries were reported. At Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 in Cape Canaveral, a weak tornado struck two vehicles near the location where Space Shuttle Atlantis was being prepared for its first flight.Barnes, p.
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The tornado outbreak of May 26–31, 2013 was a prolonged and widespread tornadic event that affected a large portion of the United States. The outbreak was the result of a slow-moving but powerful storm system that produced several strong tornadoes across the Great Plains states, especially in Kansas and Oklahoma. Other strong tornadoes caused severe damage in Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan. The outbreak extended as far east as Upstate New York.
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The Burlington area supercell was the first of what would turn out to be many multi-tornado, long-track supercells, producing additional tornadoes near Roxboro and South Hill, Virginia. Moving rapidly to the east, the squall line entered areas that had experienced sunnier weather earlier in the day, and the squall line began to rapidly fragment into powerful discrete supercells by early afternoon. Explosive wind shear also made the atmosphere extremely prime for tornadic development.
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To this storm's west, another tornadic cell developed and ultimately produced the most damaging tornadoes in an urban area of Ontario since The "Barrie" Tornado Outbreak of 1985. Although originally thought to be a single tornado, two separate F2 tornadoes struck the city of Vaughan. The first hit the Woodbridge neighbourhood in the city's southwest, traveling for . The second struck the Maple neighbourhood in the city's northeast, causing a path of damage.
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In Bangladesh and India, exact populations of towns were often not known, so most death figures are approximate. Individual tornado descriptions go into more detail on these uncertainties. Officials in some areas, for example in Russia (and the USSR) and parts of Europe, until recent years denied that tornadoes occur in those areas thus fatalities may not be counted as tornadic. There is also meteorological uncertainty with the nature of many tornadoes on this list.
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In 2005, a change in local laws enabled Fort Payne to become the only location in the county to allow the legal sale of alcohol."Alcohol laws are changed," The Times-Journal, December 17, 2004 Collinsville and Henagar later allowed alcohol sales. DeKalb County saw one of the highest death tolls in Alabama during a massive tornadic system in April 2011, the 2011 Super Outbreak, with 31 deaths reported in the county.
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Church services had been dismissed just minutes before, saving the lives of parishioners and preventing more deaths in Elgin. As the tornado left downtown Elgin, it destroyed numerous trees along with 25 homes and damaged 200 other residences. Thereafter, the tornado probably dissipated, only to develop into a new tornado. Both isolated tornado and widespread non-tornadic downburst damage was reported as far as Wauconda, killing cattle, damaging farms, and destroying many buildings.
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In contrast, tornadic waterspouts are stronger tornadoes over water. They form over water similarly to mesocyclonic tornadoes, or are stronger tornadoes which cross over water. Since they form from severe thunderstorms and can be far more intense, faster, and longer- lived than fair weather waterspouts, they are more dangerous. In official tornado statistics, waterspouts are generally not counted unless they affect land, though some European weather agencies count waterspouts and tornadoes together.
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As of February 1, 2007, tornadoes in the United States are rated using the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which replaced the Fujita scale in order to more accurately correlate tornadic intensity with damage indicators and to augment and refine damage descriptors. No earlier tornadoes will be reclassified on the Enhanced Fujita scale, and no new tornadoes in the United States will be rated on the original Fujita scale. France and Canada also adopted the EF- Scale in subsequent years.
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A second F0 occurred later in the evening in the Maniago area, where it damaged trees and roofs, as well as flattened crops. The strongest tornado of the day occurred in Spain, where a large, wedge-shaped tornadic waterspout off the coast of Mallorca moved ashore near Banyalbufar, becoming an F2 tornado. After moving ashore, the tornado passed through a densely forested area, flattening a large swath of trees. A few homes were damaged by the tornado as well.
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CDT that night. The NSSFC predicted a derecho-type event for later that night as rapidly developing thunderstorms along a cold front in Wisconsin would be carried by the steering flow into the Chicago area. One of these storms developed supercellular characteristics south of Rockford, steering 30 to 40 degrees to the right of prevailing steering winds. By now, mid-level steering winds had begun to veer, causing a wind profile slightly more favorable for tornadic development.
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The following day, atmospheric conditions across Oklahoma became significantly more favorable for an outbreak of severe weather. Wind profiles across the region strongly favored tornadic activity, with the Storm Prediction Center stating, "it became more obvious something major was looming" by the afternoon hours. Numerous supercell thunderstorms developed across the state as well as bordering areas in Kansas and Texas. Over the following 48 hours, May 3–4, 116 tornadoes touched down across the Central United States.
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This supercell crossed the Ohio River into West Virginia, where tornado damage continued. The second tornadic supercell dropped its first tornado in extreme western Pennsylvania near Shippingport. This storm later caused major damage and 50 injuries in the Pittsburgh metro area before moving southeast through Somerset County, where many residents were still without power after the deadly May 31 Salisbury tornado. The majority of the June 2 tornadoes formed between 5:30 pm and 11 pm EDT.
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This gust surpassed the previous non-tornadic wind speed of 372 km/h (231 mph) on Mount Washington in the United States in April 1934. The long delay was partly due to the anemometer not being owned by the BoM, and as a result the agency did not enact a follow-up investigation. Despite the high winds, the anemometer and a nearby building were not damaged due to the winds occurring over a very short time.
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A rain of fish was recorded in Singapore in 1861, when during three days of torrential rain numerous fish were found in puddles Raining snakes, 1680. A rain of animals is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals fall from the sky. Such occurrences have been reported in many countries throughout history. One hypothesis is that tornadic waterspouts sometimes pick up creatures such as fish or frogs, and carry them for up to several kilometres.
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Bill caused four direct deaths along its path, as well as minor to moderate damage. Damage estimates totaled to over $50 million (2003 USD, $ USD), primarily as a result of flooding or tornadic damage. Throughout its path, Bill spawned 34 tornadoes, ranking it fourteenth in the list of North Atlantic hurricanes generating the most tornadoes. The tornado outbreak was caused by wind shear, moist air from the storm, and cool air from an approaching cold front.
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Dozens of storm cells populated the line, two of them developing into tornadic supercells. At their worst, the tornadoes reached the F2 level, with gusts between . Severe thunderstorm warnings were sent, mentioning the possibility of tornadoes in view of the radar output and the potential analysis. The main storm, later dubbed the Toronto Supercell, spawned a first tornado tracking through Milverton () to Conestogo Lake () (west of Elmira) from 12:40 to 1:20 pm local time.
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A High Risk had never before been issued for the Northeastern United States, and hasn't been since this event. This indicated an abnormally dangerous weather situation for this region of the country, a situation more common in the Plains States and Midwest. Around 1 pm, the Michigan derecho was moving into New York from Ontario and rapidly weakening. The decaying squall line broke apart into discrete convection over New York and Pennsylvania, which quickly re-intensified into tornadic supercells.
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Because it is drier than the environment, it is less dense and sinks down behind the cloud and forms the rear flank downdraft, drying the mid-level portion of the back of the cloud. The two currents form a vertical windshear, which then develops rotation and can further interact to form a mesocyclone. Tightening of the rotation near the surface may create a tornado. A Doppler on Wheels image of a tornadic thunderstorm near La Grange, Wyoming (USA) captured during the VORTEX2 project.
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Throughout the month, tornadoes caused at least $150 million of damage. February 2012 was slightly less active, with 55 tornadoes, but was still above average. Similar to January, temperatures in the United States were anomalously warm, and the month ranked as the fifteenth-warmest February on record. However, tornadic activity was sparse throughout much of the month, before a large multi-day tornado outbreak took place across the Great Plains and the Ohio River Valley towards the end of the month.
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The second tornadic supercell produced seven tornadoes. The first two tornadoes touched down near El Reno and caused no damage, earning ratings of F0. The third tornado touched down near Yukon but, as with the other two, caused no damage and was rated F0. A fourth tornado touched down over Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City, eventually causing damage to boats in a dry dock at the Oklahoma City Boat Club. Damage to club facilities and nearby boats was estimated at $250,000.
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During the afternoon of April 9, supercells developed along the warm front and tracked through parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, generating softball sized hail and eight more tornadoes. During the evening of April 9, several severe thunderstorms developed across Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa. A single supercell became tornadic over extreme western Iowa, producing a family of ten tornadoes over the course of five hours. The first was wide and struck Mapleton, Iowa, destroying about 100 homes.
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On April 19, the event spread eastward. North Carolina recorded 12 tornadoes, the state's sixth largest outbreak in a single day, while Virginia recorded 16 tornadoes, its third-most in a 24-hour period. Overall, 96 tornadoes were confirmed, the strongest of which was a high-end EF3 that heavily damaged homes and outbuildings north of Oak Level, Virginia. There were no fatalities recorded in association with tornadic activity, but four people were killed by fallen trees in strong straight-line winds.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2019. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Bangladesh, and Eastern India, but can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, Argentina, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied by other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
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The severe and tornadic thunderstorms across the region brought numerous other impacts aside from the tornadoes. In Kentucky, golf-ball sized hail fell in Paducah during the afternoon of March 2. Later a microburst, with winds near , caused major damage to a marina on Lake Barkley in Kuttawa. A dock had its metal flooring beams bent, while also sustaining damage to its many metal vertical supports and the metal roof, including a relatively small portion of it that was blown off.
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254 A tornado in New Port Richey tore parts of the roof off at least one building and brought down trees, and tornadic activity was also identified in Sumter County. The hurricane took one life in the state and indirectly contributed to two additional deaths. In Daytona Beach, a tree struck a parked vehicle, killing a person inside. The exact cause of the tree's uprooting was unknown, although it may have been hit by lightning or a short-lived tornado.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2008. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
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On April 8, four tornadoes were reported with an EF1 tornado confirmed in Allegan County, Michigan, where it damaged a horse barn and a trailer. Reflectivity image of the Breckenridge, Texas tornadic supercell that prompted a tornado emergency More cells began to develop across parts of Texas on the afternoon of April 9. An intense supercell in the late afternoon developed near Breckenridge, where a tornado emergency was declared. The tornado hit the southern edge of the town, where 15 people were injured.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2017. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Brazil, Bangladesh, and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, Argentina and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2003. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2001. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2016. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, Brazil and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
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The Mississippi Valley was the target of a two-day outbreak sequence of 24 tornadoes, most of which were caused by the passage of Hurricane Audrey. The first major tornado occurred on June 27 when an F2 tornado tore through Philadelphia, Mississippi, injuring nine. Just after midnight the next morning, a fatal F3 tornado struck Brooksville, Mississippi, killing one and injuring 10. A six-hour lull then followed before tornadic activity ramped up again, starting with an F2 tornado that hit Waynesboro, Mississippi.
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Tornadic activity was less imminent due to lower due points but strong wind shear was able to provide fuel for severe storms. More tornadoes occurred on March 28, as they affected Tennessee and Kentucky during the afternoon. A supercell that tracked through three different counties in western areas of Kentucky produced two tornadoes. One of them was an EF3 tornado that destroyed six homes, caused major damage to 10 homes and minor damage to 60 homes and businesses in Corydon.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2004. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail.
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Although the Kansas City area, which is in Tornado Alley, is usually hit with at least one and often many more tornadoes each year, two major non-tornadic storms had profound effects on the city. On September 12, 1977, following a soggy summer, of rain fell on Kansas City, causing severe flooding across the entire region. The most dramatic flooding was in the Country Club Plaza neighborhood, along Brush Creek. The storm killed 25 people, and caused nearly $100 million in property damage.bccp.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2015. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Bangladesh, Brazil and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather including strong thunderstorms, winds and hail.
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A total of 20 people were killed by tornadoes—mainly during the pre-dawn hours of the outbreak—making it the second-deadliest outbreak in January since 1950, behind the 1969 Hazlehurst, Mississippi tornado outbreak that killed 32 people. In the aftermath of the outbreak, relief organizations assisted in clean-up and aid distribution. Total economic losses from the event reached at least $1.3 billion (2017 USD). Non-tornadic impacts were also felt along the East Coast of the United States.
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Another deadly and destructive F4 tornado struck the town of Emporia in Kansas, killing six more people. The outbreak also produced two F3 tornadoes in the Tulsa metropolitan area that killed two people and, combined with flooding, produced the costliest natural disaster in that city's history up to that time—a disaster worth $30,000,000 (1974 US$). Additionally, the outbreak produced non-tornadic winds in the city which reached () for several minutes. In addition to confirmed tornadoes, a possible tornado occurred at 8:15 p.m.
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On March 2 and 3, 2012, a deadly tornado outbreak occurred over a large section of the Southern United States into the Ohio Valley region. The storms resulted in 41 tornado-related fatalities, 22 of which occurred in Kentucky. Tornado-related deaths also occurred in Alabama, Indiana, and Ohio. The outbreak was the second deadliest in early March for the U.S. since official records began in 1950; only the 1966 Candlestick Park tornado had a higher death toll for a tornadic system in early March.
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The storms congealed into a squall line that produced additional severe weather and tornadoes along with flash flooding through Missouri into West Virginia overnight into April 25. Following the squall line, a massive cluster of severe and tornadic thunderstorms with torrential downpours formed over Indiana and Tennessee and trekked eastward, producing massive amounts of damage and numerous casualties. General thunderstorms produced scattered activity during April 26-29 before another outbreak surged through the Great Plains on April 30, the final day of the sequence.
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SPC analysis had detected the presence of a dry line that stretched from western Kansas into western Texas that was approaching a warm, humid air- mass over the Central Plains; the condition ahead of the dry line and a connecting trough positioned over northeastern Colorado appeared to favor the development of thunderstorms later that day that would contain large hail, damaging straight-line winds, and isolated tornadoes. SPC forecasters initially underestimated the atmospheric conditions that would support tornadic development that afternoon and evening. Around 4:00 a.m.
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Since the record for maximum winds are reported from only non-tornadic events, however, the wind gust from Cyclone Olivia in 1996 retained the title. Damage in Bridge Creek was extreme, as many homes were swept away completely, leaving only concrete slabs where the structures once stood. Damage surveyors noted that the remaining structural debris from some of the homes in this area was finely granulated into small fragments, and that trees and shrubs were completely debarked. A few of these homes were bolted to their foundations.
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Location of fatal tornadoes in the Contiguous United States during 2011 An ongoing outbreak at the end of 2010 continued into the first three hours of 2011. During that period seven tornadoes touched down in Mississippi. However, during the remainder of the month, tornadic activity was suppressed by a cold air mass, with nine additional tornadoes – all weak – taking place. This inactivity continued through much of February before a pattern shift. Two consecutive outbreaks took place on February 25 and 27 – 28, producing a combined 55 tornadoes.
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Near Union City, debris from a barn destroyed by the tornado struck the vehicle of Brandon Sullivan and Brett Wright, breaking their windshield; they escaped without injury. The hood of Reed Timmer's Dominator 2, a vehicle designed for intercepting tornadoes, was torn off. Storm chaser Dan Robinson received injuries after being enveloped within the outskirts of the tornadic circulation. He escaped a few hundred meters ahead of the TWISTEX crew and is believed to be the last person to see Samaras, his son Paul and Young.
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It is true that a house that is between two destroyed homes can be undamaged, but this is not the result of a tornado skipping, as some previously thought. After the 1974 Super Outbreak, Ted Fujita studied many films of tornadoes from that day. Included in his review was damage and tornado film footage of F4 and F5 tornadoes. Fujita concluded that multiple vortices, highly volatile tornadic satellites transiting within a parent tornado at high speeds, are responsible for making tornadoes appear to skip houses.
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This tornado was officially rated an EF2 by the NWS. A second tornado was reported just north of Butler in Dewey County, Oklahoma at 6:17 pm CST, it was rated EF0. The tornadoes formed from a low-top supercell and occurred while temperatures were in the mid-to-upper 50s (near 15 °C) in the affected areas, which normally does not favor tornadic development; though the storm was in a narrow instability axis in Western Oklahoma that developed due to clearing from earlier thunderstorms.
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Stronger dry line passages result in a sharp drop in dew point, clearing skies, and a wind shift from south or south- easterly to west or south-westerly. Blowing dust and rising temperatures also may follow, especially if the dry line passes during the daytime. These changes occur in reverse order when the dry line retreats westward during the evening and nighttime hours. Severe and sometimes tornadic thunderstorms often develop along the slope-reversal zone east of the surface dry line, especially when it begins moving eastward.
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The most significant tornado that occurred that evening was a high-end EF2 that struck Morristown, Minnesota, heavily damaging or destroying multiple homes in town. Twenty-five tornadoes touched down in Minnesota alone, making September 20, 2018 the third-most prolific tornado day in state history. A localized but damaging outbreak of tornadoes impacted eastern Ontario and southern Quebec on the afternoon of September 21 as tornadic supercells moved through the area. The National Capital Region of Canada incurred the most significant damage from the event.
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The National Weather Center, located in Norman, houses a unique collection of university, state, federal, and private sector organizations that work together to improve the understanding of events related to the Earth's atmosphere. Norman lies within Tornado Alley, a geographic region where tornadic activity is particularly frequent and intense. The Oklahoma City metropolitan area, including Norman, is the most tornado-prone area in the world. The Storm Prediction Center (SPC), a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is located at the NWC.
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Though unconfirmed, localized tornadic activity in Humberto's right-front quadrant may have been responsible for instances of isolated damage hours before hurricane-force winds spread across the islands. The quick-moving system was accompanied by only of rain, insufficient to wash away foliage-burning salt residue. Peak storm surge values were under , and low astronomical tides prevented any significant coastal flooding. The lowest air pressure recorded in Bermuda was , and the highest waves in the seas off the territory's northern coast were analyzed near .
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Numerous businesses in downtown Xenia were heavily damaged or destroyed, and several people were killed at the A&W; Root Beer stand as the building was flattened. At the time, this was the state's highest tornadic death toll for a single building since 1953. Past downtown, the tornado continued into the Pinecrest Garden district, which was extensively affected. The Xenia tornado was recorded on film by one resident, and its sound was recorded on tape by a Mr. Brokeshoulder from inside an apartment complex.
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A Doppler on Wheels unit observing a tornado near Attica, Kansas Meteorology is a relatively young science and the study of tornadoes is newer still. Although researched for about 140 years and intensively for around 60 years, there are still aspects of tornadoes which remain a mystery. Scientists have a fairly good understanding of the development of thunderstorms and mesocyclones, and the meteorological conditions conducive to their formation. However, the step from supercell, or other respective formative processes, to tornadogenesis and the prediction of tornadic vs.
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If strong cyclonic winds are occurring at the surface and are connected to a cloud base, regardless of condensation, then the feature is a tornado. Debris swirls are usually evident prior to the condensation funnel reaching the surface. Some tornadoes may appear only as a debris swirl, with no obvious funnel cloud extending below the rotating cloud base at any time during the tornadic life cycle. The surface level vortex tends to strengthen over time following initial formation, making the debris swirls and the condensation more apparent.
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Radar imagery showed that the supercell was rapidly organizing, developing a bounded weak echo region and hook echo—radar signatures that hint at a strong and potentially tornadic thunderstorm—in less than a half-hour. Radar also indicated that a broad mesocyclone had developed by around 6:00 p.m. CST (00:00 UTC), extending vertically through the entirety of the supercell. At around the same time, a wall cloud was spotted in association with the rotating thunderstorm while baseball-sized hail fell ahead of the rotation in northern Fort Worth along Interstate 820.
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LP and HP supercells RFD clear slot. The wall cloud feature was first identified by Ted Fujita and as associated with tornadoes in tornadic storms following a detailed site investigation of the 1957 Fargo tornado. In the special case of a supercell thunderstorm, but also occasionally with intense multicellular thunderstorms such as the aforementioned QLCS, the wall cloud will often be seen to be rotating. A rotating wall cloud is the area of the thunderstorm that is most likely to produce tornadoes, and the vast majority of intense tornadoes.
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An intense storm system spawned several tornadoes along with a very high number of waterspouts in multiple European nations. On the September 25, tornadoes struck France, Italy and Denmark. The outbreak started that morning when a large tornadic waterspout struck the eastern portions of the Italian city of Salerno, uprooting trees, causing light structural damage, and injuring a person. That afternoon, when an F1 tornado struck and damaged two schools in Albertslund, Denmark along with several homes and trees; a couple of supercells in northern Italy produced two more tornadoes.
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The objectives of this research are to better understand tornado generation, maintenance and decay processes and to gain insight and knowledge of the seldom sampled near-surface internal tornado environment. Progress on these research fronts is aimed toward increasing tornado warning lead time while the internal tornado near-surface sampling provides essential ground truth data for structural engineering analysis of the interaction of tornadic winds with homes and buildings.twistex.org. TWISTEX is one of the featured teams in seasons 3, 4 and 5 of Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel.Discovery Channel Online.
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Waterspouts are defined as tornadoes over water. However, while some waterspouts are supercellular (also known as "tornadic waterspouts"), forming in a process similar to that of their land-based counterparts, most are much weaker and caused by different processes of atmospheric dynamics. They normally develop in moisture-laden environments with little vertical wind shear in areas where wind comes together (convergence), such as land breezes, lake effect bands, lines of frictional convergence from nearby landmasses, or surface troughs. Waterspouts normally develop as their parent clouds are in the process of development.
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In November 2013 Muller wrote an op-ed in The New York Times arguing that strong to violent tornado activity decreased since the 1950s and suggesting that global warming is the cause. Atmospheric scientists Paul Markowski, Harold E. Brooks, et al., replied that Muller made substantial methodological flaws and was ignorant of long established findings in severe storms meteorology. They argue that there is no discernible decrease in significant tornado activity and that attribution of tornadic activity to global warming is premature although changes, especially in regional character, are likely as the atmospheric environment changes.
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However, gale-force winds, high seas, a heavy swell and storm surge inundated Bequ Island and a village on Kadavu Island, while partly destroying beach-fronts, roads, jetties and bridges within the archipelago. Within Lautoka several shops, power lines, a bus station and the roof of a shopping complex were damaged after what was believed to be either a tornado or tornadic winds developed in one of Susan's rainbands as it crossed the shoreline. Firemen and linesmen from the Fiji Electricity Authority, were called in to assist police to clear downed power wires.
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Likewise, a surface-level gust caused by Typhoon Paka on Guam in late 1997 was recorded at or . Had it been confirmed, it would be the strongest non-tornadic wind ever recorded on the Earth's surface, but the reading had to be discarded since the anemometer was damaged by the storm. The World Meteorological Organization established Barrow Island (Queensland) as the location of the highest non-tornado related wind gust at World Record Wind Gust: 408 km/h . World Meteorological Organization. on April 10, 1996, during Severe Tropical Cyclone Olivia.
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Bangladesh and the eastern parts of India are very exposed to destructive tornadoes causing higher deaths and injuries. Bangladesh, Philippines, and Japan have the highest number of reported tornadoes in Asia. The world's single deadliest tornado struck the Manikganj District of Bangladesh on April 26, 1989, killing an estimated 1,300 people, injuring 12,000, and leaving approximately 80,000 people homeless. Five other recorded tornadic events have killed more than 500 people in Bangladesh, the most recent on May 13, 1996, when multiple tornadoes swept through the Jamalpur and Tangail districts, killing more than 600.
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Since the inception of the project, both SMART-Rs have performed field research in various regions of the United States, including hurricane research, and haboob intensification studies. Both SMART-Rs have sampled tornadic supercells across the plains, taking part in projects such as VORTEX-2 and VORTEX-SE. Given the SR platform consists of two individual radars, projects are often arranged in what is known as a dual- doppler setup, whereas two radars are located at different locations in varying orientations so as to maximize wind retrieval accuracy.
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By the late-afternoon hours of April 25, several tornadoes had been reported across a few states, including two which caused significant damage in Oklahoma and Texas. At 3:25 pm CST (2025 UTC), the SPC issued a PDS tornado watch for much of Arkansas and parts of Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. Tornadoes were scattered that day until early evening, when an intense tornadic cell tracked near the Little Rock metropolitan area and a tornado emergency was declared for Vilonia, Arkansas. A wide EF2 tornado then caused extensive damage in Vilonia.
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Slow-moving Tropical Storm Lee resulted in at least 55 tornado reports along the immediate northern Gulf Coast beginning on September 3 and into September 4, inching inland on the afternoon of September 4. Several areas of damage, some significant, was reported from central Louisiana to the western Florida Panhandle. A moderate risk of severe weather, a rare occurrence when associated with a tropical cyclone, was issued for September 5 in Alabama and Georgia, with numerous tornadoes possible. The most concentrated tornadic activity that day took place in northern and central Georgia, particularly around Atlanta.
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Non-tornadic winds were recorded to have reached as high as 80 mph (130 km/h) at eight locations on December 31, while hail as large as 2.75 in (7.0 cm) was documented north-northeast of Mansfield, Missouri. Overall, damage from the outbreak totaled US$123.3 million, most of which was related to tornadoes. The United States Storm Prediction Center first noted a possible New Year's Eve severe weather event as early as December 25, 2010. These forecasts gained confidence as the event approached, with a focus on the Ozarks and adjacent areas.
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However, the SPC indicated that discrete tornadic supercells and more severe thunderstorms could result from atmospheric conditions deviating slightly from the forecast. In contrast, forecasts were more confident in a widespread outbreak of severe weather for New Year's Eve; the SPC issued a slight risk outlook for much of the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Ozarks as a result. Atmospheric conditions remained only marginally conducive for the development of thunderstorms on the morning of December 30. Throughout the day, moisture was drawn from the Gulf of Mexico northward into the Ozarks region.
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On the left, a typical debris ball shown as an area of high reflectivity on the end of the alt=Image showing two radar images. On the left is a base reflectivity radar image, which displays precipitation. On the right is a storm relative velocity radar image, which shows direction and intensity of wind speeds. A tornadic debris signature (TDS), often colloquially referred to as a debris ball, is an area of high reflectivity on weather radar caused by debris lofting into the air, usually associated with a tornado.
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Phased array radar (reflectivity; click to animate) of the series of supercell thunderstorms that impacted the Oklahoma City metropolitan area on May 31. A quasi-linear complex of thunderstorms began developing near the Highway 81 corridor west of Oklahoma City between 4:00 and 4:45 p.m. CDT, and rapidly reached severe intensity. At 5:33 p.m. CDT (2233 UTC), the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Norman, Oklahoma issued a tornado warning for Canadian County, prompted by increasingly strong tornadic circulation exhibited in the southernmost supercell of this complex.
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On Great Inagua, 70% of homes sustained roof damage, and the island's school lost its roof entirely. The Morton Salt Company's signature production facility, one of the major employers in the country, experienced millions of dollars in damages. The Acklins settlement of Salina Point was cut off from the rest of the island by flooding, while Crooked Island had widespread roof damage. In the northern Bahamas, the worst property damage came on September 10 as the outer bands of the system produced tornadic activity on Grand Bahama and Bimini.
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The tornadic fire created a huge inferno with winds of up to reaching temperatures of and altitudes in excess of , incinerating more than of the city. Asphalt streets burst into flame, and fuel oil from damaged and destroyed ships, barges and storage tanks spilled into the water of the canals and the harbour, causing them to ignite as well. The majority of deaths attributed to Operation Gomorrah occurred on this night. A large number of those killed died seeking safety in bomb shelters and cellars, the firestorm consuming the oxygen in the burning city above.
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The tornado continued moving through residential areas on the southeast side of Yazoo City, heavily damaging or destroying numerous homes. The tornado continued northeast through rural eastern Yazoo and southern Holmes Counties, causing intense tree damage and damaging or destroying a number of rural residences. As the tornado moved by the Franklin community in rural Holmes County, it again reached EF4 intensity as it completely destroyed two brick homes and heavily damaged or destroyed a number of other homes. Doppler radar images of the tornadic supercell as the tornado hit Yazoo City.
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Intense bow echoes responsible for widespread, extensive wind damage are called derechos, and move quickly over large territories. A wake low or a mesoscale low-pressure area forms behind the rain shield (a high pressure system under the rain canopy) of a mature squall line and is sometimes associated with a heat burst. Squall lines often cause severe straight-line wind damage, and most non-tornadic wind damage is caused from squall lines. Although the primary danger from squall lines is straight-line winds, some squall lines also contain weak tornadoes.
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Severe Tropical Cyclone Olivia was a powerful cyclone that produced the highest non-tornadic winds on record on Barrow Island, , breaking the record of on Mount Washington in the United States in April 1934. The 13th named storm of the 1995–96 Australian region cyclone season, Olivia formed on 3 April 1996 to the north of Australia's Northern Territory. The storm moved generally to the southwest, gradually intensifying off Western Australia. On 8 April, Olivia intensified into a severe tropical cyclone and subsequently turned more to the south, steered by a passing trough.
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Later that evening and the next day, the local television stations (such as WJBK, WDIV-TV, and WXYZ-TV) displayed video and images of downtown Detroit. The temperatures on July 2 were very high, around , with a heat index close to . After the storm passed, the temperatures dropped to . For the next 6 to 8 hours, there were still thunderstorms rolling and rumbling through, and many people were afraid of further tornadic activity, especially since two-thirds of the City of Windsor were without power until the next morning.
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Like astraphobia, lilapsophobia is a common fear for children, although less common. Because children are just learning to distinguish between fantasy and reality, major storm broadcasts on television or discussion by parents can cause fear that the storm is coming with a tornadic potential or a hurricane. Because fear is a part of normal child development, this phobia is not diagnosed unless if persisted for more than six months. Parents should conquer the child's fear by telling them how rare the major storms that hit hometown area are.
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The Baron Tornado Index (BTI), also called Vipir Tornado Index (VTI) is a meteorological computer model. Its main usage is to determine the probabilities of a tornado inside a Tornadic Vortex Signature on the rear flank of a storm, to better alert potential high-risk areas for tornadoes and to easily track them. With the help of NEXRAD weather radar data, mesoscale models and algorithms, the index is measured on a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the BTI value is, the more likely a tornado is on the ground.
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Unlike supercells over the Great Plains, these storms last no more than a few hours and are often training. Most of the tornadoes occurred in the hurricane's right-front quadrant, where strong low-level wind shear, high moisture content, and low convective available potential energy combined to produce locally favorable tornadic conditions. A study in 2008 conducted through the American Geophysical Union found that the majority of Katrina-related supercells developed inland over the Gulf Coast rather than offshore, a finding contrary to multiple studies of prior tropical cyclones.
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Currently, the second-highest surface wind speed ever officially recorded is at the Mount Washington (New Hampshire) Observatory above sea level in the US on 12 April 1934, using a heated anemometer. The anemometer, specifically designed for use on Mount Washington was later tested by the US National Weather Bureau and confirmed to be accurate. Wind speeds within certain atmospheric phenomena (such as tornadoes) may greatly exceed these values but have never been accurately measured. Directly measuring these tornadic winds is rarely done as the violent wind would destroy the instruments.
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A warm front was likely to develop along the leading edge of the system, allowing for atmospheric instability, a necessary component of severe thunderstorms. In areas farther north, relatively cool temperatures were anticipated to limit convective activity but very strong dynamics in the area would allow storms to develop. This would allow a thunderstorm which became separated from the main squall line to become severe and possibly tornadic. Later in the day, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued a slight risk for a large area which encompassed much of the Southeast United States.
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Tornadoes were also reported in other places like Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Severe thunderstorms, hail and gusty winds were also felt in the Northeastern United States and Mid-Atlantic states on February 24 as well. In addition to the outbreak, non-tornadic impacts were felt in the Midwest, where the storm system produced blizzard conditions and cold temperatures in places including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and even parts of southern Ontario in Canada. Snowfall totals of up to were recorded in parts of the hardest hit areas by the snowstorm.
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The Tornado outbreak sequence of March 18–24, 2012 was a long lasting tornado outbreak that occurred due to a slow moving, but powerful trough and cutoff low. The outbreak began in the Great Plains, where, over a two-day period, several tornadoes touched down, some of which were significant. The North Platte area was damaged by an EF3 that was produced by a supercell that spawned many tornadoes throughout its lifespan. The tornadic activity then shifted the Southern United States over subsequent days, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi.
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Outflow boundaries can be seen either as fine lines on weather radar imagery or else as arcs of low clouds on weather satellite imagery. From the ground, outflow boundaries can be co- located with the appearance of roll clouds and shelf clouds. Outflow boundaries create low-level wind shear which can be hazardous during aircraft takeoffs and landings. If a thunderstorm runs into an outflow boundary, the low-level wind shear from the boundary can cause thunderstorms to exhibit rotation at the base of the storm, at times causing tornadic activity.
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Thunderstorms are common during summer and occur on average 32 days per year, some of them severe with high winds, heavy rainfall, flooding, intense lightning, hail and less often, tornadic activity Winters are generally cold with a January mean temperature of . Windsor is not in the traditional lake- effect snowbelts but does occasionally see lake-effect snow that originates over Lake Michigan. Snow cover is intermittent throughout the winter; on average there are 53 days each year with snow on the ground. There are typically three to five major snowfalls each winter.
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As the Canadian city with the highest number of days that experience severe thunderstorms and lightning, Windsor has historically been subject to tornadic activity. The strongest and deadliest tornado to touch down in Windsor was an F4 in 1946. Windsor was the only Canadian city to experience a tornado during the 1974 Super Outbreak, an F3 which killed nine people when it destroyed the Windsor Curling Club. The city was grazed by the 1997 Southeast Michigan tornado outbreak with one tornado (an F1) forming east of the city.
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This page documents confirmed tornadoes from May to July 2020 via various weather forecast offices of the National Weather Service. Based on the 1991–2010 averaging period, 276 tornadoes occur across the United States throughout May and 243 in June. The climatological peak for tornadic activity in the country, May features a risk area that is concentrated throughout the U.S. Great Plains, especially in the states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. This is a shift from earlier months where the highest concentration of tornadoes is focused around the U.S. Gulf Coast.
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A low-risk of tornadoes accompanied the heavy rain across North Carolina. Minimal diabatic heating stemming from the hurricane's lack of a thermal gradient kept the threat of tornadic storms low, with the primary driving force being ample atmospheric moisture. Small-scale training supercells—series of severe storms that continuously develop, track across, and dissipate over the same areas—developed between Morehead City and Wilmington during the overnight hours of September 14–15. Record flooding ensued along the Cape Fear, Northeast Cape Fear, Lumber, and Waccamaw rivers; nine USGS river gauges observed all-time crests.
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TVS is then an extremely strong mesocyclone found at very low level and extending over a deep layer of the thunderstorm, not the actual tornadic circulation. The TVS is, however, indicative of a likely tornado or an incipient tornado. The couplet and TVS typically precede tornado formation by 10–30 minutes but may occur at nearly the same time or precede the tornado by 45 minutes or more. Polarimetric radar can discern meteorological and nonmeteorological and other characteristics of hydrometeors that are helpful to tornado detection and nowcasting.
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Tornadoes are also not the only source of such sounds in severe thunderstorms; any strong, damaging wind, a severe hail volley, or continuous thunder in a thunderstorm may produce a roaring sound. Tornadoes also produce identifiable inaudible infrasonic signatures. Unlike audible signatures, tornadic signatures have been isolated; due to the long distance propagation of low-frequency sound, efforts are ongoing to develop tornado prediction and detection devices with additional value in understanding tornado morphology, dynamics, and creation. Tornadoes also produce a detectable seismic signature, and research continues on isolating it and understanding the process.
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The combination of these factors produced conditions favoring the development of tornadic thunderstorms. Several hours later, a second tornado watch was issued for areas along the northern shore of Delaware Bay through southern New Jersey. Flood watches were also extended northward into Massachusetts as Jeanne continued moving through the eastern United States. Several hours after Jeanne moved just offshore of the southern New Jersey coastline on September 29, the National Weather Service discontinued all flood and flash flood watches associated with the storm; however, one county in New Jersey remained under a flood warning for a few more hours.
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Thunderstorm activity soon developed in the vicinity of the area of low pressure, but the highest risk of tornadic activity was expected to materialize farther east where the direction of surface winds would be more conducive to rotating storms. As the storms tracked eastward, multiple damaging tornadoes were reported. Farther south across eastern Texas and western Louisiana, a subtle warm front and an additional surface boundary proved to be the impetus for convection to develop supercell characteristics. One such supercell in Walker and Houston counties further organized as it curved right into an undisturbed environment of high wind shear and moisture.
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The system weakened over the state, briefly emerging into the northeastern Gulf of Mexico before making a final landfall at the mouth of the Aucilla River in Florida on the afternoon of September 6, with winds of 60 mph (95 km/h). Frances continued inland, ultimately dissipating over the Gulf of St. Lawrence late on September 10\. Along its path, the storm accrued over $9 billion (2004 USD) in damage and resulted in 50 deaths. The brunt of tornadic activity associated with Frances occurred on September 5 through September 8 as the system progressed northward across the East Coast of the United States.
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Studies of the storm led to new conceptual modelsUnion City Tornado Makes History and the success of the field intercept data collection led to their being an important aspect of severe storms research.The 40th anniversary of the Union City, OK tornadic storm NSSL radar research led to the development of NEXRAD. Kessler also developed the Kessler Microphysics Scheme, which continues to be used in atmospheric modeling and numerical weather prediction (NWP). Kessler served on advisory panels for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and for NASA, as well as to organizations in foreign countries including Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
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An RV was thrown into a house, a car flipped, trees were knocked down, and pieces of shingles and roof decking were blown away. The tornado's ultimate rating of F2 was based on damage limited to a small area, and most damage was actually consistent with that of an F1 tornado. The seventh tornado produced by the second tornadic storm (rated F2), which affected Northeast Oklahoma City in the Frontier City area, was also the most destructive. The tornado touched down near the Hefner Road/Bryant Avenue intersection before going on to cause major structural damage to numerous businesses.
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The Storm Prediction Center stated that "a regional tornado outbreak appears likely".May 22, 2008 2000 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook Storm Prediction Center. Accessed May 22, 2008. Radar image of a tornadic supercell thunderstorm producing an EF3 near Greeley, Colorado at 1744 UTC At about 11:30 am MDT (1730 UTC) on May 22, a powerful low-end EF3 tornado touched down in Weld County, Colorado moving between the towns of Gilcrest and Milliken, about 45 miles (72 km) north of Denver Weld County officials closed US 85 at SH-60 after two semi-trailers were blown over at that location.
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A severe weather outbreak was forecast for April 23 and 24 across the southern Plains. In the early morning hours of April 22, the SPC issued a moderate risk of severe weather for South Central Kansas, Central Oklahoma, and North Central Texas. This was an extremely rare issuance; only twice has such a risk been issued so far out—the others being for June 10, 2005 and January 2, 2006 (neither time did it result in a major outbreak). Several tornadic storms were reported across northwest and south-central Texas, far western Oklahoma, and southwest Kansas on April 23.
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Later in the afternoon, the risk that day was upgraded to a high risk over parts of East Texas. Tornadoes, along with large hail and damaging winds, occurred in the afternoon and evening hours across the Plains. 22 tornadoes were reported. One large tornadic supercell also moved through Piedras Negras, Coahuila in Mexico, and moved into Eagle Pass, Texas, with reports of significant damage on the U.S. side of the border and at least seven deaths and 74 injuries from that EF3 tornado, plus at least three deaths and at least 40 injuries across the river in Piedras Negras.
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Tornadoes alone were responsible for $1.067 billion in damage, with the EF4 tornado that struck Washington, Illinois accounting for $935 million of the total. In addition to structural damage, widespread power outages affected thousands of electricity customers across the same regions impacted by the tornado outbreak and subsequent squall line. Non-tornadic deaths and injured include one killed in Jackson County, Michigan, when a tree fell on a car, one killed by live wires in Shiawassee County, Michigan, one killed after touching a downed wire in Detroit, and two minor injuries in a home damaged by wind in Ohio.
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Based on damage indicators and the surface wind measurements, the highest winds that translated to the ground were around . Because mobile doppler radar data is not a method by which tornadoes are rated, it was later officially downgraded to an EF3. Despite the downgrade, the National Climatic Data Center maintains that the Bennington tornado was violent, and likely reached EF4 intensity at some point in its life. The wind gusts above the surface were among the highest ever measured/estimated on record, comparable to the highest non- tornadic gust of measured during Cyclone Olivia in 1996.
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Radar image of the system at the time the tornado watch was issued On November 14, the National Weather Service issued a slight risk of severe weather for the early hours of November 15 for the Carolinas and northern Gulf coast. Although conditions were not favorable for a large-scale severe weather event, the possibility of small clusters of thunderstorms existed. Strong wind shear was forecast to persist, which would allow small bow-echo line of thunderstorms which could produce damaging winds. The result of a weak disturbance which passed through the area of slight risk lowered the chances of tornadic thunderstorms developing.
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By 7:44 p.m. CDT, the supercell also produced straight-line winds of for at least one mile surrounding the tornadic circulation. The tornado maintained F3 intensity as it crossed the into the southern part of Kokomo. The tornado then continued in Kokomo, roughly following Lincoln St. At that point, it began to grow rapidly in width, and a second brief area of F4 damage was noted near South May Avenue, where several homes were leveled, and one was swept away from its foundation (this home was determined to have been nailed, rather than bolted to its foundation).
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Multiple additional weak tornadoes occurred in Texas and in other states that afternoon and evening as well. Overnight into the early hours of April 30, the activity pushed eastward and a powerful squall line of severe thunderstorms with numerous embedded tornadic circulations swept through the Mississippi Valley. Throughout the day, the low tracked northeast into the Plains and intensified, causing some snowfall in the mountainous regions and in colder places, meanwhile severe weather continued to occur in the South. Forty-two tornadoes occurred across the Southern United States that afternoon and evening, with much of the activity centered in Mississippi.
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Isolated severe weather occurred across southern Alabama, southern Georgia, and northern Florida during the afternoon and evening of April 8, 2010. The synoptic pattern that led to the convection, consisted of mid and upper level troughing over much of the eastern United States, and an associated surface cold front advancing eastward along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast. Shortwave energy was rounding the base of the longwave trough through the day and was the main trigger for the vigorous convection. The first tornadic thunderstorms across the forecast area developed early in the afternoon over Coffee County, Alabama.
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A moderate risk of severe weather also existed for April 15 across much of Alabama and Mississippi. During the pre-dawn hours into the morning of April 15, tornadic activity temporarily waned with only isolated activity. However, by late that morning, supercell thunderstorms developed again over parts of Mississippi, and tornadoes began to touch down again. A tornado emergency was declared for the northern Jackson metropolitan area shortly after 11:00 am CDT (1600 UTC), as a result of a widely photographed tornado that moved through parts of the city and the adjoining city of Clinton.
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This hypothesis appears supported by the type of animals in these rains: small and light, usually aquatic, and by the suggestion that the rain of animals is often preceded by a storm. However, the theory does not account for how all the animals involved in each individual incident would be from only one species, and not a group of similarly-sized animals from a single area.When Animals Rain From The Sky. Scribol. Further, the theory also does not account for a genuine tornadic waterspout not actually sucking objects up and carrying them rather than flinging objects out to the sides.
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In Tupelo, Mississippi, an EF2 tornado caused significant structural damage to several homes and an assisted living facility, injuring one person. Tornadic activity intensified and pushed into the Middle Tennessee region by the early morning hours of November 6; a high-end EF2 tornado near Christiana destroyed several homes, including a poorly-anchored house that was flipped completely upside-down, killing one person inside. A long-tracked, high-end EF2 also touched down near Winchester before lifting to the northeast of Pelham, damaging or destroying numerous homes, mobile homes, and outbuildings. Thousands of trees were downed along the path as well.
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This page documents notable tornadoes and tornado outbreaks worldwide in 2018. Strong and destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the United States, Brazil, Bangladesh and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions. Tornadoes also develop occasionally in southern Canada during the Northern Hemisphere's summer and somewhat regularly at other times of the year across Europe, Asia, Argentina and Australia. Tornadic events are often accompanied with other forms of severe weather, including strong thunderstorms, strong winds, and hail. There were 1,169 preliminary reports of tornadoes in the United States in 2018, of which at least 1,123 were confirmed.
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The Hurricane Rita tornado outbreak was a significant tropical cyclone- produced tornado outbreak and severe weather event that resulted from the remnants of Hurricane Rita in late-September 2005\. The event was the fourth- largest tornado outbreak caused by a tropical cyclone in recorded history. After the hurricane made landfall on the extreme southwestern coast of Louisiana on September 24, the tropical cyclone's strong rainbands affected much of the West South Central and East South Central States, producing heavy rainfall in addition to numerous tornadoes. Tornadic activity was distributed roughly evenly from September 24–25, though activity shifted slightly eastward on September 25\.
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Wakita was featured in the 1996 blockbuster film Twister starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in which Wakita was destroyed by an F4 tornado that was part of a storm system later spawning an F5 tornado. False fronts were built onto the existing store fronts for some shots and then were removed and replaced with rubble in the streets after the tornadic storm hit and the rest of the building was removed using CGI. Some original buildings were demolished and never replaced, with some of the bricks from the demolished buildings used to construct Twister Park.
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During the evening hours of April 9, the SPC issued a tornado watch for western and northern Iowa, eastern Nebraska and southeast South Dakota. Conditions within this region were favorable for the development of multiple tornadic storms and there was a 70 percent chance of multiple touchdowns. Around 2250 UTC (5:50 pm CDT), a strong thunderstorm developed over Burt/Cuming Counties in northeastern Nebraska. This cell slowly tracked east-northeastward and developed into a supercell as it moved into Monona County, Iowa. By 0021 UTC (7:21 pm CDT), a small tornado touched down roughly southwest of Mapleton.
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Approximately 15,000 homes were destroyed by the Tri-State Tornado. Total damage was estimated at $16.5 million in 1925 dollars; adjusted for increases in population/wealth and inflation, the toll is approximately $1.4 billion (1997 USD), surpassed only by two extremely destructive tornadoes, both in the City of St. Louis, in 1896 and 1927. Nine schools across three states were destroyed, in which 69 students were killed. More schools were destroyed and more students killed (as well as the single school record of 33 deaths in De Soto, Illinois) than in any other tornadic event in U.S. history.
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This resulted in unstable air and lower cloud bases, or low LCL heights, which is favorable to tornadogenesis. From southeastern Kansas to Kentucky and Indiana, early morning showers and thunderstorms north of the low and warm front cooled and stabilized that air, retarding northward advancement of the front, and led to a sharp contrast in temperature from north to south. Such baroclinic zones are also associated with tornadic storms. Ahead of the surface dry line, which are uncommon as far east as the Mississippi River, an apparent "dry punch" of air aloft served to further increase instability.
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The BTI, a product that was recently introduced, is mainly used to determine the probability of the presence of a tornado or tornadoes inside a tornadic vortex signature on the rear flank of the storm, to better alert potential high risk areas for tornadoes and to easily track them. With the help of radar data, mesoscale models and algorithms, it is measured on a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the BTI value is, the more likely a tornado is on the ground. Shear markers from different colors are used with BTI values above 2.
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Grazulis had long been interested in tornado simulators and included earlier laboratory studies in his TVC documentaries. The Secrets of the Tornado documentary featured a detailed instructional section with an accompanying printed guide for constructing one's own. A page on The Tornado Project's website in 2018 indicates Significant Tornadoes will be updated and released in two volumes of approximately 705 pages each covering tornadoes from 1680 to 1949 and 1950 to 2019. The new volumes will include updates on statistics, graphs, and charts, as well as analysis of trends in tornadic activity and examination of potential influence thereof by climate change.
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In addition to snowstorms, ice storms, windstorms, heavy rainfall events associated with tropical storms or very severe thunderstorms, tornadoes are rare but do occur, particularly in the northern and western suburbs. That area sits in a "tornado alley" where tornadoes occur the most often in Canada. Downtown Toronto, on the other hand, is generally shielded from tornadic storms by the lake shadow resulting from the lake breezes. Tornado warnings have been posted for the city on a few occasions in the early 21st century, however, no touchdowns have been confirmed in the city limits since a weak tornado hit Scarborough in 1998.
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In order to assess the intensity of these events, meteorologist Ted Fujita devised a method to estimate maximum wind speeds within tornadic storms based on the damage caused; this became known as the Fujita scale. The scale ranks tornadoes from F0 to F5, with F0 being the least intense and F5 being the most intense. F5 tornadoes were estimated to have had maximum winds between and . Following two particularly devastating tornadoes in 1997 and 1999, engineers questioned the reliability of the Fujita scale. Ultimately, a new scale was devised that took into account 28 different damage indicators; this became known as the Enhanced Fujita scale.
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Tornadic debris—including rooftop air conditioning units, gravel, and other detached construction—was thrown by the tornado at the school's western façade, causing minor damage. Throughout River Oak, three homes sustained major damage while 51 others experienced minor damage. The tornado crossed the Trinity River and dealt F1 or greater damage to over a hundred homes in the adjacent subdivision. Some roofs sustained partial roof loss and many large trees either lost limbs or were toppled. At the intersection of West Sixth Street and University Drive, the tornado abruptly turned east from its initial southeast heading, bringing it over the Linwood subdivision at around 6:22 p.m. CST (00:22 UTC).
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With the discovery of cyclic tornadogenesis with some supercell thunderstorms, it was learned that successive tornadoes form with new mesocyclones and the resulting series of tornadoes is referred to as a tornado family. Especially when a tornado is first developing there may be small gaps in damage due to the circulation briefly ceasing at the surface or becoming too weak to cause damage even as the parent mesocyclone (and possibly a tornadic circulation aloft) is continuous and this is typically, but not always, considered a single tornado. In these cases, usually only tornadoes emanating from new mesocyclones (i.e. new tornadogenesis cycle and new wall cloud) are counted as a separate tornado.
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The Great Lakes have been observed to help intensify storms, such as Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and the 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado, which moved onshore as a tornadic waterspout. In 1996 a rare tropical or subtropical storm was observed forming in Lake Huron, dubbed the 1996 Lake Huron cyclone. Rather large severe thunderstorms covering wide areas are well known in the Great Lakes during mid-summer; these Mesoscale convective complexes or MCCs can cause damage to wide swaths of forest and shatter glass in city buildings. These storms mainly occur during the night, and the systems sometimes have small embedded tornadoes, but more often straight-line winds accompanied by intense lightning.
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A gustnado near Williamstown, Kansas on 3 April 2011. This gustnado is a good example that gustnadoes can cause damage; it caused damage akin to that of a weak tornado: "Two center pivot irrigations were flipped over, a large outdoor shed was destroyed and several tree limbs were snapped." A gustnado East of Limon, Colorado A gustnado is a short-lived, shallow surface-based vortex which forms within the downburst emanating from a thunderstorm. The name is a portmanteau by elision of "gust front tornado", as gustnadoes form due to non- tornadic straight-line wind features in the downdraft (outflow), specifically within the gust front of strong thunderstorms.
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The Central United States tornado outbreak of March 13, 1990, was one of the most violent outbreaks ever documented in March (second only to the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1920 in terms of violent tornadoes and the March 2006 Tornado Outbreak Sequence in terms of the total number of tornadoes reported). Numerous tornadoes touched down across Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Two tornadic thunderstorms with exceptional life spans/tornado families were observed, one of which produced an F4 tornado in eastern Nebraska that was on the ground for over . The other produced an extensive tornado family in southern Kansas that included two F5 tornadoes.
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The Tuscaloosa mayor called the damage "catastrophic." The same tornado hit the northern suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, shortly thereafter, killing 20 more people. Television reporters in Birmingham, filming the tornado, reported that even from miles away, the funnel was so wide that they could not zoom their cameras out far enough to get the entire funnel into the frame at once. Over 200 tornadoes were reported during the SPC's reporting day of 1200Z April 27 (7:00 am CDT) to 1200Z April 28 (7:00 am CDT). 324 tornadic deaths were confirmed as a result of the outbreak, with as many as 238 in Alabama alone.
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A Doppler on Wheels-based analysis of how the tornado impacted these teams revealed that they were hit by an intense internal sub- vortex. This analysis showed that both the Weather Channel and TWISTEX vehicles entered the tornado through the less intense north/northwestern side, then were impacted by the internal sub-vortex, which contained radar-indicated winds approaching and was moving in a complex quasi-trochoidal pattern, sometimes nearly stationary, sometimes with forward speeds over . Entering the larger tornadic circulation without the ability to maintain situational awareness of the internal sub-vortex was likely a key contributing factor to the deaths and injuries.
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However, tornadic activity was limited to November 17, as individual supercell thunderstorms tracked across the Midwest United States, at times producing long-tracked tornadoes. The first tornadoes formed over Illinois, while the final tornadoes developed over Tennessee. Towards the end of November 17, these individual systems had merged into an extensive squall line that tracked eastward across the Mid-Atlantic states, producing damaging wind before exiting into the Atlantic Ocean early on November 18\. With damage estimated at approximately $1.6 billion, the tornado outbreak became the seventh weather event and fifth tornado outbreak in the U.S. to accrue over $1 billion in damage that year.
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During the early morning hours, a cold front with several embedded low pressure areas extended from east Texas northeastward into the Ohio River Valley. An upper-level disturbance that had moved across the frontal boundary the previous evening sparked an area of thunderstorms that morphed into a squall line. This line of severe thunderstorms would produce tornadic activity from the evening on April 26 into the late morning of April 27. Early in the morning the squall line, packing straight-line winds and numerous embedded tornadoes, moved through Louisiana and Mississippi before proceeding to affect North and Central Alabama and parts of Middle and East Tennessee.
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Deep moisture, high levels of CAPE, and low LCL heights were also present in this area as multiple thunderstorms rode the boundary and dramatically intensified into large tornadic supercells. A violent EF4 wedge tornado developed near Eustace, Texas and passed west of Canton, leveling homes, debarking numerous trees, and killing two people. Two more people were killed by a separate EF3 wedge tornado that passed east of Canton, destroying a car dealership along Interstate 20, tossing numerous vehicles, destroying homes, and causing significant damage further north in the town of Fruitvale. An EF2 tornado also touched down near Log Cabin and dissipated near Eustace, destroying additional homes and a communications tower.
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The closest deployment to a tornado was on April 29, 1984 near Ardmore, Oklahoma, by Steve Smith and Lou Wicker of the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). It turned out that TOTO had a center of gravity too high for extreme wind, and it fell down as it was sideswiped by the edge of the weak tornado. TOTO was also deployed as a portable weather station to measure thunderstorm gust fronts and non-tornadic mesocyclones—with more success than its tornado mission. TOTO was retired after 1987 because of safety issues and the logistical difficulty of getting such a cumbersome object in front of a tornado.
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An additional 11 tornadoes were confirmed on May 26; however, most were weak. June was somewhat below average in terms of tornadic activity; 90 tornadoes were reported over the course of the month, of which 87 were confirmed. In the evening of June 11, an EF3 tornado impacted the city of Baker, Montana, demolishing several homes and a steel-framed barn. In the early afternoon of June 23, an isolated violent tornado impacted the outskirts of Yancheng in the Jiangsu province of China, where numerous homes were leveled, several vehicles were tossed, cell phone towers were destroyed and trees were completely debarked and denuded.
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During the afternoon and evening of April 10, 1979, about 15 years after the City View twister, KFDX-TV provided complete coverage of an outbreak of tornadic thunderstorms that spawned several strong to violent tornadoes across northwest Texas and southwestern Oklahoma. That evening's coverage culminated with the opening segment of the 6:00 p.m. edition of Newscenter 3, as chief meteorologist Bill Warren was relaying reports of a multiple-vortex tornado that was beginning its path of destruction across southern sections of Wichita Falls. Four minutes into the newscast, electricity to the KFDX studio and transmitter facilities went down as the storm knocked sections of the city's electrical grid offline.
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CDT as wind shear profiles, combined with volatile atmospheric conditions, had made conditions highly conducive for a significant tornadic event across most of Oklahoma, southern Kansas and north Texas, including the likelihood of violent, damaging tornadoes. The SPC issued a tornado watch by mid-afternoon as conditions gathered together for what would be a historic tornado outbreak. By the time thunderstorms began developing in the late-afternoon hours, CAPE values over the region had reached to near 6,000 J/kg. Large supercell thunderstorms developed and in the late afternoon through the mid-evening hours of that Monday, tornadoes began to break out across the state.
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Unusually warm weather surged into the Eastern United States on March 12\. A jet stream dip, as well as the presence of a southeastward-moving surface low pressure system that had formed over Montana on March 12 led to creation of widespread strong to severe thunderstorms throughout the region along an unusual eastward moving warm front and dryline on March 13\. Starting in Central Plains, this area of severe and tornadic thunderstorms pushed eastward, producing damaging winds, large hail, and tornadoes to a total of 16 states before the low, which had turned northeastward, moved into Wisconsin and was replaced by a surface anti-cyclone on March 15.
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Indeed, numerous strong, long-tracked tornadoes had already taken place in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, although less favorable conditions were causing a two-hour lull in tornadic activity. Just before 7 pm CST, a strong supercell with intense low-level rotation was noted over the Gulf of Mexico, moving northeastward in the direction of Pensacola metro. At 7:12 pm CST, the National Weather Service in Mobile, Alabama issued a PDS tornado warning for Southeastern Baldwin County, Alabama and South Central Escambia County, Florida, with the warning stating "a large...extremely dangerous and potentially deadly tornado is developing." The storm continued northeastward, although the rotation weakened without having produced a tornado.
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The 1936 Cordele–Greensboro tornado outbreak was a tornado outbreak that affected the Southeastern United States during April 1936. The Greensboro, North Carolina, and Cordele, Georgia, tornadoes were the deadliest spawned during the April 1–2 outbreak, which developed in three waves of tornadic activity over 14 hours, associated with the same storm system. On the evening of April 2, 1936, the Greensboro tornado left a long path of F4 damage across the south side of Greensboro, passing through the south side of downtown. The storm began its path near High Point Road at Elam Street and continued east along Lee Street to east of Bennett College.
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Large EF2 wedge tornado and associated wall cloud in Manitoba on July 27 A tornadic supercell produced an extremely long-lived high-end EF2 tornado that was on the ground for up to three hours as it tracked approximately across southern Manitoba. The tornado moved along a sharp northeasterly path, remaining over very rural areas as they passed near the towns of Pierson, Melita, Tilston, Reston, and Virden. Very few structures were impacted in this sparsely populated area, though a few farmsteads sustained some damage. Numerous trees and power poles sustained major damage along the storm track, and asphalt was scoured from a highway bridge near Melita.
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EF3 damage to a house in Van, Texas. A six-day outbreak of tornadic activity began on May 5 with isolated tornadoes in western Texas. More widespread and significant activity occurred on May 6\. Much of central Oklahoma experienced tornadoes, and the town of Bridge Creek sustained major impacts from a large EF3 tornado, where several businesses and homes were heavily damaged or destroyed. Another EF3 tornado caused major damage in southwestern parts of Oklahoma City, just north of Valley Brook, where a hotel, several self-storage units, a mobile home park, and an RV park were heavily damaged, numerous vehicles were flipped, and at least 12 people were injured.
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North of the tornadic supercells, heavy rain affected areas of the southern Canadian Prairies where at least of rain fell across southern Alberta and Saskatchewan on June 16 – 17 causing widespread flooding. A state of emergency was declared at the Blood Tribe Indian Reserve where people were stranded in homes due to flood waters. Nine municipal governments in Alberta also declared state of emergencies due to the flooding as did some areas of southern Saskatchewan. Portions of the Trans-Canada Highway were closed for due to flooding along the border between Saskatchewan and Alberta on June 18 and remained shut down until June 26.
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EF2 damage to homes in Lancaster, Texas. During the afternoon and late evening of April 3, multiple tornadic supercell thunderstorms developed and moved through the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, producing multiple destructive tornadoes, injuring many people, and grounding flights at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. In Lancaster, just south of Dallas, the Schneider National facility was impacted by a high- end EF2 tornado live on TV, and a news helicopter broadcast live video of large semi-trailers being lofted into the air at that location. The city of Arlington was also hit by a damaging EF2 tornado and declared a state of disaster shortly afterward.
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The family of tornadoes that crossed the Spencer area was observed by a Doppler On Wheels (DOW) radar (Wurman et al. 1997, Wurman 2001). The DOW observed the tornadoes from before 8:04 through 8:45 pm local time (01:04–01:45 UTC)(Alexander and Wurman 2005) and the passage of a destructive F4 tornado through Spencer itself from 8:37-8:38 (01:37-01:38 UTC). DOW measurements of tornadic winds over the largely destroyed southern portion of Spencer have permitted the first (and only as of December 2006) direct comparison of measured winds with F (or EF) Scale damage ratings as reported in the above referenced articles.
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In April 2020, various weather forecast offices of the National Weather Service confirmed 251 tornadoes in the United States, indicating significantly above-average activity for the month. Based on the 1991–2010 averaging period, 155 tornadoes occur across the country during April. While the first three months of a year commonly feature tornadic activity across the Southeastern United States in close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, this risk area expands to include the U.S. Midwest and U.S. Southern Great Plains in April, maximized in the states of Texas and Oklahoma. This expansion comes as powerful winter- like systems overlap with an increasingly warm and humid airmass from the Gulf of Mexico.
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As a small area of low pressure progressed across northwestern Mississippi, it caused surface winds to turn out of the east-southeast, enhancing the potential for tornadoes. As a cluster of storms across central Mississippi progressed toward the northeast, it began to reintensify and develop embedded supercell characteristics with an attendant threat of strong tornadoes. Farther south, two distinct supercells developed within an environment where long-tracked, significant tornadoes were favored, both exhibiting extremely strong rotation and distinct debris signatures. Based on previous storm structures in similar environments, the SPC remarked that "this is an exceptionally rare event" and estimated tornadic winds of on the first supercell, consistent with a tornado of EF4 or EF5 intensity.
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The storm system that created the Flint tornado moved eastward over southern Ontario and Lake Erie during the early morning hours of June 9. As radar was still primitive (or nonexistent) in 1953, inadequate severe weather predictions resulted. (Even during the Super Outbreak of April 3, 1974, weather radar was still not up to this task; that outbreak resulted in a technological upgrade.) The Weather Bureau in Buffalo, New York merely predicted thunderstorms and said that "a tornado may occur." As early as 10 A.M., however, the Weather Bureau in Boston anticipated the likelihood of tornadic conditions that afternoon but feared the word "tornado" would strike panic in the public, and refrained from using it.
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Fortunately for the airport, Southwest's announced expansion at Lambert immediately began to fill in for many of the holes left by the demise of the hub. What followed were several years of steady growth by Southwest that maintained passenger numbers at a fairly steady level, allowing airport leadership time to shift priorities and begin the long road to recovery in earnest. Complicating recovery was the 'Good Friday tornado'. At about 8:10 p.m. on April 22, 2011, an EF4April 22nd Tornadic Supercell Greater St. Louis Metropolitan Area , National Weather Service, St. Louis, Missouri. (April 23, 2011). tornado struck the airport's Terminal 1, destroying jetways and breaking more than half of the windows.
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South America has its own tornado alley, composed of central and northern Argentina, southern and southeast Brazil, Uruguay, and part of Paraguay, and is considered the second highest frequency tornado region in the world. Argentina has areas with high tornadic activity, and the strongest tornadoes in the southern hemisphere like the F5 in San Justo, and the tornado outbreak in Buenos Aires with more than 300 tornadoes registered in less than 24 hours. This region is favorable for tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, due to the large size of the Pampas Plain where the cold air from Patagonia and Antarctica collides with warm, moist air from areas of Brazil, northern Argentina and Paraguay, and dry air from the Andes.
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Sometimes referred to as spin-up tornadoes, that term more correctly describes the rare tornadic gustnado that connects the surface to the ambient clouded base, or more commonly to the relatively brief but true tornadoes that are associated with a mesovortex. The most common setting for a gustnado is along the gust front of a severe thunderstorm (by many definitions, containing wind speeds of at least ), along which horizontal shear of the wind may be large. A particularly common location is along the rear-flank gust front of supercell storms. Gustnadoes probably form owing to shear instability associated with the strong horizontal shear; a relative maximum in vertical vorticity must exist in order for shear instability to be present.
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Within the warm sector, mid-level CAPE values were forecast to rise upwards of 2,000–3000 J/kg, with dewpoints in the mid-60s °F as far west as eastern New Mexico. Thunderstorms began developing along the dryline in eastern New Mexico and western Texas around noon local time, though these storms were not tornadic in nature in the absence of strong low-level shear. By the late afternoon hours, more transient supercell structures had become apparent, leading to a few tornadoes across the Texas Panhandle. One such tornado was rated an EF2 as it struck the north edge of Plainview, Texas destroying outbuildings, a mobile home, and a cell phone tower.
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The crushed remains of the TWISTEX vehicle near the intersection of Reuter Road and S. Radio Road approximately southeast of El Reno, Oklahoma. In the spring of 2013, TWISTEX was conducting lightning research (including with a high-speed camera) when active tornadic periods ensued in mid to late May, so Samaras decided to deploy atmospheric pressure probes and to test infrasound tornado sensors that were still under development. At 6:23 p.m. on May 31, 2013, Samaras, his 24-year-old son Paul (a photographer), and TWISTEX team member Carl Young (a meteorologist), 45, were killed by a violent wedge tornado with winds of near the Regional Airport of El Reno, Oklahoma.
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The same tornadic supercell that began in southern Fayette County, Pennsylvaniua, tracked southeastward and clipped the northeast section of Preston County, causing extensive property and crop damage in the Glade Farms area, near Bruceton Mills at 9:45 pm EDT. $5 million in property damage was reported in Preston County, with an additional $2 million in crop damage, as the F2 tornado passed over numerous farms, killing livestock and damaging or destroying virtually everything in its path. A clearly visible 300-yard wide, 1-mile long swath of trees which were completely sheared or uprooted was present near the Pennsylvania/West Virginia state border. Despite the heavy damage, no injuries occurred from this strong tornado.
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Radar scan of the tornadic thunderstorms over North Carolina during the late evening of May 8, 2008 A moderate risk was also issued for Southeastern Oklahoma and Northeastern Texas on May 7. A possible tornado in the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area produced some damage according to KFOR-TV and KOCO-TV, including to the roof of a Sam's Club store but mostly to trees and some power lines, cutting power to 16,000 customers including in Bethany and Northern Oklahoma City. A gas line in Bethany also ruptured, causing a gas leak. One report indicated a tornado near Wiley Post Airport and was previously filmed as a wall cloud and funnel near 164th Street in South Oklahoma City.
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On the morning of March 9, 2012, a particularly devastating and long-lived hailstorm hit the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Lanai. This event produced the largest hailstone ever recorded in Hawaii since records began in 1950 and National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Birchard stated that the event was "unprecedented." In addition to the spectacular early-morning lightning storms and flooding from the four feet (3.3 meters) of rainfall received, a tornadic waterspout formed off the coast of Oahu during the morning of March 9, 2012. This mesocyclone- induced waterspout tracked inland for 1.5 miles, becoming an EF0 tornado that caused minor damage to the Enchanted Lakes subdivision of Kailua at 7:10 am Hawaiian-Aleutian Time.
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A relatively cool and dry airmass was being pushed in from the north by means of a cold front, into warm and unstable air from the southern United States. Severe weather had already affected northeastern Ontario the evening before with this same cold front. During the late morning of the 7th the front had stalled across the Bruce Peninsula, where newer convection produced a couple of weak F1 tornadoes near the towns of Wiarton and Tara.Tornadoes - Atmospheric Hazards Web Site - Ontario - Adaptation and Impacts Research Group - [Meteorological Service of Canada - The Green Lane] It has been speculated that a large outflow boundary associated with these particular storms may have interacted with the lake breeze fronts, thus resulting in the Woodstock and Stratford tornadic supercells later that day.
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Damage surveys in this area showed a complex damage pattern, with evidence of sub-vortices developing well away from the main damage path, before either being pulled in and absorbed by the central tornadic circulation, or intensifying and becoming the primary circulation themselves at times. Aerial flyovers revealed extensive cycloidal scouring marks in farm fields outside of Marysville. EF3 damage continued to the east of Marysville as several homes and double-wide mobile homes were destroyed, with debris from the mobile homes was scattered up to a mile downwind. The tornado then briefly entered Scott County, regaining EF4 intensity and killing a man in the complete destruction of his frame home, obliterating five mobile homes, and severely damaging two other frame homes.
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The January 29–30, 2013 tornado outbreak was an early-season tornadic event that affected portions of the Midwestern United States and Southern United States. The first signs of the outbreak came on January 23 as the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) detailed the eastward progression of a shortwave trough into an increasingly unstable air mass across portions of the lower Mississippi Valley; however, considerable uncertainty in the placement of severe thunderstorms caused the SPC to remove their threat outline. Succeeding many changes in the forecast, a Day 1 Moderate risk was issued for January 29, warning of the potential for widespread/significant damaging winds and a few strong tornadoes. The threat shifted eastward on January 30, encompassing a large section of the Southeastern United States.
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The tornado outbreak of mid-October 2007 was a widespread tornado outbreak that took place across much of the eastern half of North America starting on October 17, 2007, and continuing into the early hours of October 19. The outbreak was also responsible for five deaths; three in Michigan and two in Missouri, plus many injuries (including some from non-tornadic events). At least 64 tornadoes were confirmed including 16 on October 17 across six states including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri with wind damage reported in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas and Mississippi. On October 18, at least 48 tornadoes were confirmed across eight states including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, plus widespread straight line wind damage.
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The hook echo was a major method used as an indicator for potential for tornadic activity during the first decades of weather radar. During the 1990s in the US, Doppler weather radar was deployed, providing velocity data on echoes flowing toward and away from the radar location, which enabled inferences about storm rotation, such as mesocyclones, and other dynamics, as well as data on downbursts (and wind shear aloft). The 2010s brought polarization radar in the US, which enabled confirmation of the presence of stronger tornadoes by discerning nonmeteorological echoes colocated with rotation in velocity data, which indicates the presence of lofted debris. However, radar is still limited by factors such as not capturing near surface environment and limitations on spatial and temporal resolution.
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An outbreak began across the United States during the afternoon of April 9; supercells developed along the warm front and tracked through parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, generating softball sized hail and eight more tornadoes. At the same time, a progressive upper-level trough moved east out of the Rocky Mountains and over the Midwest. Owing to early morning thunderstorms, moisture levels in the central Great Plains increased; however, capping in the region would limit daytime activity before atmospheric instability allowed for severe weather. forecast models indicated that the low-level jetstream would produce significant wind shear, aiding in the formation of possible tornadic supercell thunderstorms, and CAPE (convective available potential energy) values could exceed 3,000 j/kg.
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A needle-like funnel cloud, which may have been a tornadic circulation but was not yet visible as such and which did later develop to become a confirmed tornado, near Elie, Manitoba A funnel cloud is a funnel-shaped cloud of condensed water droplets, associated with a rotating column of wind and extending from the base of a cloud (usually a cumulonimbus or towering cumulus cloud) but not reaching the ground or a water surface. A funnel cloud is usually visible as a cone-shaped or needle like protuberance from the main cloud base. Funnel clouds form most frequently in association with supercell thunderstorms, and are the precursor to tornadoes. Funnel clouds are visual phenomena, these are not the vortex of wind itself.
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Many whirlwinds were produced by the four-day-long firestorm coincident with conditions that produced severe thunderstorms, in which the larger fire whirls carried debris away. Firewhirls were produced in the conflagrations and firestorms triggered by firebombings of European and Japanese cities during World War Two and by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Firewhirls associated with the bombing of Hamburg, particularly those of 27–28 July 1943, were studied. Throughout the 1960s-1970s, particularly in 1978-1979, firewhirls ranging from the transient and very small to intense, long-lived tornadic-like vortices capable of causing significant damage were spawned by fires generated from the 1000 MW Météotron, a series of large oil wells located in the Lannemezan plain of France used for testing atmospheric motions and thermodynamics.
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Very large hail and tornadoes were both expected with these supercells, with the possibility of a few strong tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch at 1:10 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) early that afternoon for the eastern two-thirds of Oklahoma, northwestern Arkansas, and portions of north-central Texas. Given the atmospheric parameters thought to be in place at the time, the Storm Prediction Center inadvertently underestimated the threat of tornadic activity that afternoon; the probability table for the tornado watch – the 191st severe weather watch issued by the guidance center in 2013 – indicated a 40% (or "moderate") probability of two or more tornadoes and a 20% (or "low") probability of one or more tornadoes reaching between EF2 and EF5 intensity within the watch area.
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NWS researchers estimated that the death toll from the storm would likely have exceeded 600 had it not been for the advanced warning through local television and radio stations and proper safety precautions being exercised by area residents. Because Oklahoma has historically been climatologically prone to tornadic activity, Oklahoma City-area television stations KFOR-TV (channel 4), KOCO-TV (channel 5) and KWTV (channel 9) – each of which provided continuous coverage of the outbreak that spawned the Bridge Creek–Moore tornado and its ensuing aftermath from the event's start on the afternoon of May 3 through the evening of May 4 – have long relied on state- of-the-art radar technology and visual confirmation from news helicopters and in-house storm chasing fleets to cover severe weather events.
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Non-tornadic severe thunderstorms also did serious damage in Berrien, Van Buren, Kalamazoo, and Allegan counties. On August 24, following conditions similar to the previous day, an EF3 tornado with "winds near " formed two miles (3 km) north of Charlotte, Michigan, doing severe damage along Vermontville Highway, passing through Potterville, and crossing I-69 in Eaton County before dissipating as it approached Dimondale, touching down around 4:25 pm EDT and leaving a damage path varying from to wide and long. Around 4:55 pm EDT, the same storm produced an EF1 tornado which touched down at the intersection of Waverly Road and M-99 in southeastern Lansing, extending across I-96, towards the intersections of Aurelius Road with Jolly Road and Dunkel Road before finally dissipating near the Jolly Road interchange on I-496.
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The storm continued producing damage, including F1 tornadoes, as it tracked southeast into Mineral and Hampshire Counties in northeastern West Virginia. A second severe thunderstorm within the hour tracked slightly northeast of the first severe cell, producing penny-sized hail in Flintstone (which had been hit hard with damaging winds two evenings prior from the same supercell that had produced a deadly F3 tornado in Salisbury, Pennsylvania) at 8:53pm. The third supercell in less than 2 hours took a virtually identical track to the first tornadic storm. The storm, which first produced a tornado in eastern Fayette County, Pennsylvania, tracked southeast through Somerset County, Pennsylvania, the tornado wavering between F2 and F3 intensity, clipped the northeast corner of Garrett County, producing F2 damage in Finzel at 9:38 pm EDT.
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Area forecast discussions during this period mentioned the possibility of F3-strength tornadoes later in the day. Also on the morning of March 29, the Storm Prediction Center issued a Day 1 moderate risk of severe weather. This moderate risk area was more narrow than the previous day's outlook, encompassing only southwest Wisconsin, northern Iowa and the southern third of Minnesota. As the day moved on, the Twin Cities, Sioux Falls and La Crosse NWS forecast offices all saw the potential for "strong to violent" tornadoes, and used such verbiage in their forecasts. The Twin Cities NWS noted in their 12:26 pm forecast discussion that "thunderstorms located south of a Redwood Falls to Minneapolis to Rice Lake line could be particularly strong with the potential of tornadic thunderstorms".
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The outbreak was the deadliest tornadic event in the United States since the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak that occurred on February 5 and 6, 2008, when 57 people were killed across four states. In North Carolina, the outbreak was the state's largest since March 1984. Describing the outbreak, AccuWeather meteorologist Henry Margusity said, "There has not been a tornado outbreak in history over three days with this many tornadoes spawned by a single storm system". That record would later be smashed by the 2011 Super Outbreak that occurred just over a week after this outbreak. Tornado events of this magnitude are rare in North Carolina, with outbreaks on February 19, 1884 and March 28, 1984 the only historical precedents for outbreaks of this size, scale, and level of overall widespread damage.
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Track of Hurricane Ivan On September 13, 2004, as Category 5 hurricane Ivan moved through the Yucatán Channel, the Storm Prediction Center noted the possibility of isolated tornadoes for parts of Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle three days out. Though the storm weakened while approaching the United States, strong low-level wind shear along its northeastern periphery allowed for the development of potentially tornadic supercells. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Hurricane Hunter aircraft intercepted Ivan during the afternoon and evening of September 15\. During the mission, dropwindsondes were deployed off the Gulf Coast to assess the rainband environment. By this time, an intense band of thunderstorms, with embedded supercells, developed about 250 mi (400 km) east of the hurricane's center. A thermodynamic sounding around 1:00 p.m.
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Waterspout filmed off Anglesey, Wales, on 15 November 2010 by an RAF Search and Rescue crew Waterspouts exist on a microscale, where their environment is less than two kilometers in width. The cloud from which they develop can be as innocuous as a moderate cumulus, or as great as a supercell. While some waterspouts are strong and tornadic in nature, most are much weaker and caused by different atmospheric dynamics. They normally develop in moisture-laden environments as their parent clouds are in the process of development, and it is theorized they spin as they move up the surface boundary from the horizontal shear near the surface, and then stretch upwards to the cloud once the low level shear vortex aligns with a developing cumulus cloud or thunderstorm.
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The Storm Prediction Center mentioned the potential for multiple long-tracked, violent tornadoes. Multiple PDS tornado watches were issued shortly thereafter. For only the second time in history (the first being April 27, 2011 for the 2011 Super Outbreak), Dr. Greg Forbes, severe weather expert for The Weather Channel, issued a TOR:CON (short for "tornado condition index", a scale to rate the risk of tornadic activity over a given region based on atmospheric conditions) rating of 10 out of 10; this time for the Louisville, Kentucky region and along the Ohio River of Indiana and Kentucky. Damage from an EF4 tornado in Henryville, Indiana. Tornadoes began early; shortly after 9:00 am CST, an intense EF3 tornado north of Huntsville, Alabama resulted in severe damage to houses and also caused damage at a school.
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However, a highway overpass is a dangerous place during a tornado, and the subjects of the video remained safe due to an unlikely combination of events: the storm in question was a weak tornado, the tornado did not directly strike the overpass, and the overpass itself was of a unique design. Due to the Venturi effect, tornadic winds are accelerated in the confined space of an overpass. Indeed, in the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak of May 3, 1999, three highway overpasses were directly struck by tornadoes, and at each of the three locations there was a fatality, along with many life- threatening injuries. By comparison, during the same tornado outbreak, more than 2,000 homes were completely destroyed and another 7,000 damaged, and yet only a few dozen people died in their homes.
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This warmer air aloft can describe either, or both, weak lapse rates, thus weak instability or a capping inversion. The atmosphere on August 28 was significantly more unstable as the approach of a low-pressure system from the northwest cooled the mid levels (and also caused dynamic lifting) as instability continued to build in the capped, muggy environment, although the wind fields (strong, but out of the west-northwest and unidirectional) were not suitable for significant tornadic development. As a result of the very high low-level temperature and dew point, convective available potential energy (CAPE) values were in excess of 8,000 J/kg; generally, values of 1,500 J/kg are considered to be moderately unstable, whereas values of more than 4,000 J/kg are considered "extreme". The lifted index (LI), the dominant estimate of instability used at the time, was also extreme.
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Many mobile homes were destroyed, and widespread power outages were reported in the region including in Rogers County near Oologah where five people where injured. A thunderstorm with a confirmed tornado approaching Owensboro, Kentucky In Kansas, a bow echo caused some localized significant damage in and around the Wichita Metropolitan Area with the most significant damage at the International Cold Storage located in the Andover area where the peak winds were measured. Overall, over 400 wind reports in the US alone, were reported on both October 17 and 18 across the Midwest, Gulf Coast and Great Lakes with several reports of damage but there were no direct non-tornadic fatalities. In Chicago, an eleven-year-old boy was struck and injured by lightning while another person was injured by broken glass when high winds broke windows of a lobby hall of a condominium.
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Hector from Gunn Point, Northern Territory Hector the convector on the Bureau of Meteorology website Named by pilots during the Second World War, the recurring position of the thunderstorm made it a navigational beacon for pilots and mariners in the region. Hector is caused primarily by a collision of several sea breeze boundaries across the Tiwi Islands and is known for its consistency and intensity. Lightning rates and updraft speeds are notable aspects of this thunderstorm and during the 1990s National Geographic magazine published a comprehensive study of the storm with pictures of damaged trees and details of updraft speeds and references to tornadic events. Since the late-1980s the thunderstorm has been the subject of many meteorological studies, many centred on Hector itself, but also utilising the consistency of the storm cell to study other aspects of thunderstorms and lightning.
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Most of the tornadic activity at this point moved into southeastern Ontario producing more tornadoes (some of which were significant). These tornadoes formed around the Highway 7 corridor between Lindsay to Madoc (Joe and Leduc, 1993) near the towns of Wagner Lake (F1 at 5:40pm), Reaboro (F1 at 6:05pm), Ida (F2 at 6:20pm), Rice Lake (F3 at 6:25pm), and Minto (F1 at 6:35pm). Most of these tornadoes had conversely shorter paths than the earlier tornadoes, likely as a result of the parent thunderstorms beginning to weaken. In addition, they did not receive as much media attention as the previous tornadoes (those earlier storms were grouped collectively by the media as comprising "The Barrie Tornado"), probably a result of the fact that they didn't have the opportunity to cause as much damage.
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The Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma had issued a "high risk" for severe weather over an area from northern Mississippi to central Indiana. Such a declaration is unusual (particularly for November) and means that there is a significant threat for severe thunderstorms with widespread tornadic activity. When the first tornado watches of the afternoon were issued, the SPC had declared a Particularly Dangerous Situation (PDS) for destructive tornadoes in several of the tornado watches, a highly unusual alert which notifies that frequent and dangerous tornadoes are possible, and by late that evening, no less than 49 tornadoes (including ten strong tornadoes and one violent tornado) were confirmed, and several more unconfirmed tornadoes were reported (and later confirmed as microbursts). Fortunately, the tornadoes were centered over more rural areas and damage was scattered but severe over many communities.
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Since no aircraft reconnaissance was available for Haiyan, the record set by Patricia is uncertain and comparing the intensities of the two storms is problematic. According to the World Meteorological Organization, Typhoon Nancy of 1961 also produced 215 mph (345 km/h) sustained winds; however, it is widely accepted that Western Pacific reconnaissance during the 1940s to 1960s overestimated cyclone intensity and Nancy's record is considered questionable. The most powerful wind gust produced by a tropical cyclone, as well as the highest non- tornadic winds ever recorded, is still retained by Cyclone Olivia in 1996: was observed on Barrow Island, Western Australia. The magnitude of Patricia's rapid intensification is among the fastest ever observed. In a 24-hour period, 06:00–06:00 UTC October 22–23, its maximum sustained winds increased from 85 mph (140 km/h) to 205 mph (335 km/h).
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By the early afternoon hours, forecasters at both the SPC and NWS Norman (both of which shared an office complex near Max Westheimer Airport at the time), realized that a major event was likely to take place based solely on observational data from radar and weather satellite imagery and balloon soundings, as the computer models remained uncooperative in helping meteorologists determine where the greatest threat of severe storms would occur. Conditions became highly conducive for tornadic development by 1:00 p.m. CDT as wind shear intensified over the region (as confirmed by an unscheduled balloon sounding flight conducted by the NWS Norman office), creating a highly unstable atmosphere. The sounding balloon recorded winds blowing southwesterly at and respectively at the surface and at the level, southerly winds of and westerly winds of at ; it also indicated that a capping inversion over the region was weakening in southwestern Oklahoma and north Texas.
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Storm chasers in the region reported several funnel clouds and two touchdowns, neither of which resulted in damage. Several tornadoes were confirmed through storm chaser video and local emergency management services. A large, intense, multiple-vortex tornado caused severe damage in the towns of Atoka and Tushka where many houses were destroyed or flattened. Numerous injuries were reported in the latter of these areas. Two people were killed and 25 more injured in Tushka. In Arkansas, 2 people were killed when an EF1 downed a tree which landed on a house. During the late- night hours into the morning of April 15, tornadic activity lessened. However, by the late morning hours, supercell thunderstorms developed again over parts of Mississippi, and tornadoes began to touch down again. A tornado emergency was declared for the northern Jackson metropolitan area as a result at shortly after 11:00 am CDT (1600 UTC).
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The cyclone responsible for the historic outbreak on April 27 Between April 25 and 28, a historic tornado outbreak took place across much of the Southern United States as well as parts of the Midwest and Northeast. With 360 confirmed tornadoes and 324 tornadic fatalities, the outbreak ranks as the largest and one of the worst in United States history. More than three dozen tornadoes were confirmed each day of the event, with 42 on April 25, 55 on April 26, a 24-hour record of 216 on April 27, and 47 on April 28\. In terms of violent tornadoes, the event ranks third with 15 EF4/5 storms, behind the 1974 Super Outbreak and 1965 Palm Sunday outbreak. A large outbreak was possible for April 25–27 as the SPC issued a moderate risk of severe weather for three consecutive days, centered over Arkansas through Tennessee.
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Watches (WWs) issued by the SPC are generally less than in area and are normally preceded by a mesoscale discussion. Watches are intended to be issued preceding the arrival of severe weather by one to six hours. They indicate that conditions are favorable for thunderstorms capable of producing various modes of severe weather, including large hail, damaging straight-line winds and/or tornadoes. In the case of severe thunderstorm watches organized severe thunderstorms are expected but conditions are not thought to be especially favorable for tornadoes (although they can occur in such areas where one is in effect, and some severe thunderstorm watch statements issued by the SPC may note a threat of isolated tornadic activity if conditions are of modest favorability for storm rotation capable of inducing them), whereas for tornado watches conditions are thought to be favorable for severe thunderstorms to produce tornadoes.
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A shelf cloud along the leading edge of a derecho in Minnesota A derecho (, from , "straight" as in direction) is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system and potentially rivaling hurricanic and tornadic forces. Derechos can cause hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, heavy rains, and flash floods. In many cases, convection-induced winds take on a bow echo (backward "C") form of squall line, often forming beneath an area of diverging upper tropospheric winds, and in a region of both rich low-level moisture and warm-air advection. Derechos move rapidly in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to an outflow boundary (gust front), except that the wind remains sustained for a greater period of time (often increasing in strength after onset), and may exceed hurricane-force.
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The tornado outbreak of February 28 – March 1, 2017 was a widespread and significant outbreak of tornadoes and severe weather that affected the Midwestern United States at the end of February 2017 and beginning of March. Fueled by the combination of ample instability, strong wind shear, and rich low-level moisture, the event led to 72 confirmed tornadoes and thousands of other non-tornadic severe weather reports. The most notable aspect of the outbreak was a long-tracked EF4 tornado—the first violent tornado of 2017 and the first violent tornado during the month of February since the 2013 Hattiesburg, Mississippi tornado—that tracked from Perryville, Missouri to near Christopher, Illinois, killing one person. Three EF3 tornadoes were recorded during the event, including one that caused two fatalities in Ottawa, Illinois, one that caused a fatality near Crossville, and one that heavily damaged or destroyed homes in and around Washburn.
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During the evening hours of March 28, 2000, a powerful F3 tornado struck Downtown Fort Worth, Texas, causing significant damage to numerous buildings and skyscrapers as well as two deaths. The tornado was part of a larger severe weather outbreak that caused widespread storms across Texas and Oklahoma in late-March, spurred primarily by the moist and unstable atmospheric environment over the South Central United States as a result of an eastward- moving upper-level low and shortwave trough. The tornado outbreak was well forecast by both computer forecast models and the National Weather Service, though the eventual focal point for the severe weather—North Texas—only came into focus on March 28 as the conditions favorable for tornadic development quickly took hold. The F3 Fort Worth tornado initially began as a relatively weak twister in River Oaks, gradually strengthening as it tracked southeastward and then eastward towards Fort Worth's central business district.
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A flame-filled fire whirl During the 1871 Peshtigo fire, the community of Williamsonville, Wisconsin was burned by a fire whirl; the area where Williamsonville once stood is now Tornado Memorial County Park.Tornadoes of Fire at Williamsonville, Wisconsin, October 8, 1871 by Joseph M. Moran and E. Lee Somerville, 1990, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 31 pp.Tornado Memorial Park kiosk historical notes, also see p. 19 of the County C Park and Ride lot panel draft pdf An extreme example of a fire whirl is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan, which ignited a large city-sized firestorm and produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 people in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo. Another example is the numerous large fire whirls (some tornadic) that developed after lightning struck an oil storage facility near San Luis Obispo, California, on 7 April 1926, several of which produced significant structural damage well away from the fire, killing two.
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What was initially believed to be a wind and hail event from reliable models and forecast unexpectedly developed into a locally significant tornado outbreak as a result of changing mesoscale situations, concentrated on the heavily populated Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. That development was attributed to an outflow boundary from another area of storms farther north in Oklahoma that tracked southward across the Red River and into the Metroplex where it stalled just south of the Interstate 20 corridor in the southern suburbs, allowing discrete supercells to form along the boundary. The boundary increased low-level wind shear significantly due to easterly winds, allowing for tornadoes to develop. As a result, taking advantage of the highly unstable environment that became much more highly sheared than initially forecasted with high CAPE values, the storms became much more intense than forecasted and quickly became tornadic and intense, resulting in severe damage across the region in heavily populated areas.
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CDT, CAPE (convective available potential energy) values began exceeding 4,000 J/kg, an extreme value well above the climatological threshold favoring the development of severe thunderstorms. Despite conflicting model data on the specified area where thunderstorms would develop, the newly available information that denoted a more favorable severe thunderstorm setup in that part of the state prompted the SPC to upgrade the forecasted threat of severe weather to a moderate risk for south-central Kansas, much of the western two-thirds of Oklahoma, and the northwestern and north-central portions of Texas at 11:15 a.m. CDT that morning, which now indicated that the atmospheric conditions present would "provide sufficient shear for a few strong or violent tornadic supercells given the abundant low level moisture and the high instability." The increasing threat of a severe weather/tornado outbreak for late that afternoon into the evening was reemphasized by NWS Norman forecasters in a Thunderstorm Outlook issued by the office at 12:30 p.m. CDT.
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Ahead of the storm, the warm moist air generated from the Gulf of Mexico increased the likelihood for a significant weather event. On April 15, activity developed across the Mid-Mississippi Valley and southern Ohio Valley where several tornadoes touched down in Illinois starting in the late afternoon before moving into Arkansas during the overnight hours where the first fatalities were reported. On April 16, as the main low-pressure system was near the Great Lakes and its cold front crossing the Mississippi River, dew points reached the mid to upper 60s across the Tennessee Valley while later in the day, CAPE values reached 1600 J/kg while dry air intrusion was also on the rise increasing the threat of severe weather across the area. As the bulk of the supercells moved out of Arkansas, the tornadic activity was slower during the morning hours before re-intensifying west of Nashville early in the afternoon.
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The Day 3 Convective Outlook (which is similar in format to the Day 2 forecast) was first issued on an experimental basis in 2000, and was made an official product in 2001. In 2006, the Storm Prediction Center, National Severe Storms Laboratory and National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office moved their respective operations into the newly constructed National Weather Center, near Westheimer Airport. Since the agency's relocation to Norman, the 557th Weather Wing at Offutt Air Force Base would assume control of issuing the Storm Prediction Center's severe weather products in the event that the SPC is no longer able to issue them in the event of an outage (such as a computer system failure or building-wide power disruption) or emergency (such as an approaching strong tornadic circulation or tornado on the ground) affecting the Norman campus; on April 1, 2009, the SPC reassigned responsibilities for issuing the center's products in such situations to the 15th Operational Weather Squadron based out of Scott Air Force Base.
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On May 22, an upper-level low moved eastward over the Western United States, with forward progression limited by a blocking high around the Northern Plains and Great Lakes. With ample low-level moisture streaming north ahead of the low into an area of moderate instability, scattered severe weather was anticipated over parts of Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska starting on May 24. The first tornado associated with the system was a small landspout tornado that touched down in rural Idaho on May 26. The tornadic activity became more intense the following day. On May 27, while only scattered tornadoes touched down, four of them were strong and caused considerable damage in parts of Kansas and Nebraska. One tornado near Lebanon, Kansas reached EF3 intensity, and an EF2 near Marysville caused major damage to several structures. In Nebraska, the town of Edgar took a direct hit from an EF2. Vigorous tornado activity continued on May 28.
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Many of the tornadoes listed were extremely destructive or caused numerous casualties, and the occurrence of a catastrophic event somewhere is inevitable. This list is not exhaustive (listing every single tornado that has struck a downtown area or central business district of any city), as it may never be known if a tornado struck a downtown area, or if it was just a microburst (powerful downward and outward gush of wind, which cause damage from straight-line winds), particularly for older events or from areas with limited information. Downbursts often accompany intense tornadoes, extending damage across a wider area than the tornado path. When a tornado strikes a city, it is occasionally very difficult to determine whether it was a tornadic event at all or if the affected area was indeed the "downtown", "city centre", or "central business district" consisting of very high population density and mid to high-rises, as opposed to other heavily urbanized/built-up parts of the city or suburbs.
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GOES-13 satellite imagery of the storm complex that produced the tornado outbreak on January 22 On January 17, 2017, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) noted the potential for a high-end severe weather event to occur in the Southern United States on January 21 and 22. On January 20, a large-scale, negatively tilted (aligned northwest to southeast) trough moved from the Western United States over the Great Plains, Broad cyclonic flow soon became established over much of the United States, with multiple shortwave troughs embedded within. Persistent convection from the Texas coastline to Mississippi initially inhibited the northward flow of warm, moist air and by extension limited proliferation of severe thunderstorms. Later in the day, a warm front—separating moisture-rich Gulf air and modified continental-polar air—developed over the southern Mississippi Valley within an environment of steep lapse rates and modest wind shear; this became the focal point for potentially tornadic storms.
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The writer who conceived the Shim'Tar character (George Pérez) seems to have created the character as a Post-Crisis version, or alternate reality version, of an already existing Wonder Woman villain named Doctor Cyber. This is verified by her position in a poster he created called the Wonder Woman Through the Ages Poster. Shim'Tar is placed right above the Pre-Crisis version of Doctor Cyber, maintaining a variant character pattern that is visible between other Wonder Woman villains. Additionally, Shim'tar's upbringing and heritage as a champion within a city protected by a mystical barrier (a tornadic magical sandstorm), her mysterious connection to Hipoltya and Wonder Woman, due to her curly hair, skin colour (until then, Shim'tar was the only Bana mighdalian possessing white skin which resembles a reversal of Nu'bia's background that made her the black sister of Wonder Woman and the only Pre-Crisis amazon with black skin ) and masked appearance, seem to be references to another character of Pre- Crisis continuity, Nu'Bia, that also made her debut using an armour with a concealing helm similar to Cyber's later visual in the Eighties.
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In the aforementioned 1991 footage, the subjects were able to safely ride out the tornado due to an unlikely combination of events: the storm in question was a weak tornado, the tornado did not directly strike the overpass, and the overpass itself was of a unique design. Indeed, the May 1999 tornado outbreak proved concerns that highway overpasses were dangerous places to seek shelter during a tornado, as three overpasses were directly struck by tornadoes, with a fatality taking place at each one. Two of these were from the F5 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado while the third was from a comparatively less intense F2, which struck a rural area in Payne County, north-northeast of Oklahoma City; many other serious to life-threatening injuries also occurred at these locations. The casualties at the three overpasses are attributed to the Venturi effect, as tornadic winds were accelerated in the confined space of each of the overpasses that the tornadoes passed through, increasing the chances that those riding out the tornado would be blown out at high speeds even if they tried to anchor themselves to the girders.
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The resulting tornado family, the series of tornadoes in totality is among the longest on record. This outbreak was also part of a larger storm system that was responsible for producing severe weather across a much wider area of the eastern U.S. On the previous day, weaker tornadoes had been reported in scattered locations from Louisiana to Alabama, and a thunderstorm-caused flash flood was suspected to be the cause of a train derailment in north Florida. The northern part of the same system first spawned additional severe (non- tornadic) thunderstorms, which caused 4 additional deaths in Maryland and Pennsylvania, before then dropping snow, sleet and ice across a wide area of the northeast. The thunderstorms which produced the tornado outbreak were also responsible (according to the same data) for numerous reports of large hail and wind damage in Appalachian southwest North Carolina, and numerous larger cities (Atlanta, Baltimore, Greenville, South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, Dover, Delaware, Fayetteville, North Carolina, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, North Carolina, Suffolk, Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia) at the periphery of the outbreak, with wind damage from thunderstorms reported as far north as Delaware.
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Tornado activity was expected to be low during the first quarter of 2016 due to a major El Niño event that would last into early spring. However, this did not come to fruition, as 2016 had the third most active first two months of the past 10 years, only behind 2008 and 2007. A significant outbreak impacted the southeastern and South Atlantic states on February 23 and 24; 61 confirmed tornadoes occurred, including four which were rated EF3. Seven fatalities occurred as a result of the outbreak. The generally above-average trend continued, to a much lesser degree, throughout the month of March, which saw 84 confirmed tornadoes. April, by contrast, was below average in terms of tornadic activity, with 142 confirmed tornadoes across the United States in the space of the month. On April 15, a large F3 multiple-vortex tornado struck the city of Dolores in Uruguay, demolishing over 400 buildings and causing five fatalities. Beginning in May, however, tornado activity increased, with a significant tornado outbreak affecting the central United States from May 7 through May 10, producing the first EF4 tornado of the year.
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From May 5 to June 12, 2009, Mike Bettes left the studio to report on the Vortex 2 project, a project in which researchers spent five weeks in Tornado Alley (the region comprising the Great Plains and South Central United States that is the most climatalogically favorable for tornado development) tracking tornadoes with weather researchers in an attempt to discover more information about the formation of these storms. Throughout the entire duration of the project, Bettes reported live in the field during Weather Center with Abrams & Bettes each evening, except for instances in which the Vortex 2 project was suspended for the day due to lack of tornadic activity. Several editions of the show featured Bettes and the Vortex 2 crew actively chasing potential tornado-producing supercells; on June 5, 2009, the crew caught its first and only tornado of the year live on PM Edition, the coverage of which spilled over into the beginning of Weather Center; both programs covered the entire tornado event without commercial interruption. While Bettes was reporting with the project crew, TWC on-camera meteorologist Adam Berg substituted for him in the studio.
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