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Update from the April 14, 2012 tornado outbreak PDF Print E-mail
News - Tornadoes
Written by Heidi Farrar   
Monday, 16 April 2012 15:47
4-14-12-wc 4-14-12-dcSaturday and early Sunday proved to be the violent conclusion to several days of nearly unprecedented preparation and predictions, as a massive tornado outbreak swept across northern Oklahoma and Kansas, with parts of Nebraska and Iowa being impacted as well. Among the hardest hit was the town of Woodward, Oklahoma, where over 100 homes and businesses were heavily damaged or destroyed by a (preliminarily-rated) EF-3 tornado that struck just after midnight early Sunday; sadly (and amazingly), this was also the only killer tornado of the outbreak. Damage is still being assessed across southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma, but so far several tornadoes have been assigned a strong to violent rating, with at least one rated as EF-4. Below are the current updates from the forecast offices in charge of conducting damage surveys; we'll update again as new information on the current tally of 135 tornadoes becomes available; Reed will of course post updates on his Facebook and Twitter pages as well.:

EF-4 near Kanopolis Lake, EF-3 Conway Springs -- Will Campbell and Dan Castro of the Omaha Twister Chasers live streaming teams got some amazing photos of the EF-4 tornado as it moved near Marquette, KS, pictured at the top of this post. (What a monster!)



As anticipated, storm chasers were out in full-force over the weekend, and several TVN teams captured some pretty compelling video on Saturday (of note, TVN website moderators JCPalmer and DougNKC were chasing and tracked down some tornadoes in Kansas as well!!!). The Dominator team covered storms in southern and central Kansas, eventually documenting tornadoes near Hesston, as well as the after-dark tornadoes near Wichita. TwisterData.com's Dave Demko and I started off chasing in south-central Kansas, but when storms re-initiated in northwest Oklahoma in the early evening, we opted to leave the storms near Arlington and Kingman, KS (which eventually produced the tornadoes near Hesston) and dropped south toward the Alva, OK area. We arrived in Cherokee, OK, area just as a large cone was touching down southwest of town, and soon another tornado developed to its east, resulting in two simultaneous tornadoes! We ultimately positioned ourselves for an up-close and personal encounter with the rope-out of the initial tornado, which dissipated roughly 100 yards south of our position, and offered us a "unique" opportunity for documentation! Thunder Entertainment's Curtis McDonald, Matt Chatelain, Daniel Betten and Thomas Spence were on this same storm and documented the rope-out from another wild angle, and eventually tracked it all the way into the Wichita metro. A prolific tornado producer, it put down several wedge tornadoes along the way.

Last Updated on Monday, 16 April 2012 16:09
 
Discuss (8 posts)
Re:Update from the April 14, 2012 tornado outbreak
Apr 18 2012 00:53:02
storm-chasing paparazzi
When you film it, They will come.
#54893
Re:Update from the April 14, 2012 tornado outbreak
Apr 18 2012 10:09:56
Chasing just is what it is now....

Just like anything else, dumb people ruin everything. We saw some dummies out there. Someone slammed on his brakes and did a u turn in the middle of the road. Several were not pulled all the way off the road and so many cases of seeing cars zipping down dirt roads that shouldn't be zipping down dirt roads. We were sure there were MANY who ended up stuck in the mud on Saturday.

Someone will be injured or killed.. it's just a matter of time, and every year we have this discussion. The yahoos out there are people who don't have any desire to learn, and every year there will be more. These people won't stick with the hobby for long, because these are the types that quit after a couple of busts. Unfortunately, there will be more waiting in line behind them.

I can imagine for people in the areas it can be frustrating. Dean was accused of making money off of others demise in that one article, and we all know that isn't true. But I'm sure it's a touchy subject for those who live in areas subjected to this weather. It's one reason why we made a conscious decision not to yell out HEY WE ARE STORM CHASERS EVERYBODY!!!
#54895
Re:Update from the April 14, 2012 tornado outbreak
Apr 18 2012 15:24:20
And now, back to our original topic: The April 14th outbreak.

Just for kicks (because I'm addicted to this video for multiple reasons, both meteorological and personal) I'll repost it and encourage some of you not to be influenced by many of the ridiculously ridiculous comments beneath. *yawwwwn*
#54897
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Comments  

 
+3 #1 Zebrails 2012-04-16 18:52
With the video Reed Timmer is in, the camera focused on him longer than the actual funnel cloud forming. Perhaps his picture could be posted, as well as the other drivers and chasers. People want to see the tornadoes/power/ unfortunate destruction... the other two videos showed only the tornadoes/funnel clouds, besides some good audio expressions. I like those. Shouting Reed and camera focused on him is essentially redundant.
 
 
+4 #2 Boomerk 2012-04-17 15:25
I am not a chaser, but was within a few hundred yards of the Norman tornado, Friday,April 13, about 1600. Went to the Whittier middle school 15 min before any one else,just about, as I did not like the looks of the potentially right moving super cell down by Blanchard and our postiion toward the south side of the storm. I live in a small eficiency apt. offering little protection from strong tornadoes. My hunch/prediction panned out and a tornado went about 200-300yards west and north of me. The fireman manning the shelter saw it but I was inside where I was supposed to be and did not. I did see the meso whipping rain horizintallt, though, visibility near zero. I may have been smart to stay hunkered down, but regret not getting footage on my cell! I still wonder if they won't rate it EF2 based on the most severe damage in town, though it was EF1 for most of it's path. The people who came in after their apt. was destroyed would not care what it was rated,I'm sure.
 
 
+3 #3 smalltexan 2012-04-19 14:10
Wow sounded like a busy day for storm chasers! Good luck to all that were affected, and great job to all the chasers out there!
 

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