News DetailRadar images from the Manitoba storm!
Posted At: June 28, 2007 @ 11:33 AM
Posted By: Reed Timmer
Related Categories: Tornadoes
Here are some reflectivity and storm-relative velocity images from Minot, ND from around the time of the tornadoes in Manitoba on June 23. Note the textbook structure and huge hook echo on reflectivity:
The higher reflectivities just on the north and northeast side of the inflow notch are where the huge hail was associated with this storm. At around the time of this image, we were getting blasted by baseball to softball size hail with the core.
The velocity image below (green towards the radar to the south-southeast, red away) shows a long RFD structure and very strong couplet. I was told by Matt Chatelain, who was saving these images for us, that the couplet exceeded 100 knots gate-to-gate.
The rear-flank downdraft (RFD) associated with this tornadic supercell is shown in the velocity image below with the yellow arrows. The RFD is a downdraft that wraps around the back side of the updraft and impinges on the mesocyclone at low-levels due to strong negative pressure perturbations at the interior of the circulation. The RFD can be seen visually as the "clear-slot" which yields a tighter sub-mesocyclone-scale area of rotation above (relative to the storm motion) that can strengthen into a tornado.
The higher reflectivities just on the north and northeast side of the inflow notch are where the huge hail was associated with this storm. At around the time of this image, we were getting blasted by baseball to softball size hail with the core.
The velocity image below (green towards the radar to the south-southeast, red away) shows a long RFD structure and very strong couplet. I was told by Matt Chatelain, who was saving these images for us, that the couplet exceeded 100 knots gate-to-gate.
The rear-flank downdraft (RFD) associated with this tornadic supercell is shown in the velocity image below with the yellow arrows. The RFD is a downdraft that wraps around the back side of the updraft and impinges on the mesocyclone at low-levels due to strong negative pressure perturbations at the interior of the circulation. The RFD can be seen visually as the "clear-slot" which yields a tighter sub-mesocyclone-scale area of rotation above (relative to the storm motion) that can strengthen into a tornado.
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Michael...RE: April 82 Paris TX tornado. I just happened to stumble across this thread. I too am an alumni of the Paris tornado. We were caught out in the open, running for our lives, abandoning our car in a downtown alleyway. We were traveling south and made it to town as the tornado torn into the west end. I actually saw the brief thin funnel fill out in seconds as it quickly formed into a monster in an open field just west of the city. It moved due east and our attempt to outrun it nearly killed us. I was traveling with a friend and as we entered town shortly after 4pm it was appearent the tornado was there as well. Cars were crashing into one another in the panic and we took a quick alleyway going south. We abandoned the car when we could feel and hear the roar approaching. I remember there were a lot of brick warehouse type buildings and no place to go but a big open lot adjacent to a tall radio tower. I said a prayer, expecting to die there but to my amaizment it passed a block north of our position. It was so huge, I could have never taken a picture of it. I was shaking to badly anyway. Debris was literally being tossed 100 feet over our heads. I could clearly see 4x8 sheets of plywood, roof trusses and concrete blocks airborne overhead. The sound was indescribeable. The frequency was so low that the ground vibrated. I could plainly hear buildings exploding and the distinct sound of breaking glass (probably plate glass windows). As the tornado passed to the east, we were pelted with wind driven rain that left welts on our skin. A door opened on one of the warehouses and three guys peered out as we ran back to the car. Incredibly, nothing happened to our car but 50 feet north of of the devistation. It was something that is still fresh in my mind after all of these years. I would also be interested in finding more on the event but it seems to just be a footnote in Paris TX history. I'm sure it's something they choose not to remember.
Wow...those radar images are awesome...very well defined..
Just two questions...
Gate to gate means top of the rfd to the bottom right? (or side to side) And where could i find those readings on Gr3.
Also judging by the images...Were these taken on Gr2ae? If so i would wonder if he has a picture in 3d. Although minot being so far out...may be impossible.
Reed - Im sure you know this, but maybe others on here dont. You can download archived NEXRAD L3 data and drop it into GR Level 3. You can also get L2 data for GR2AE or GRLevel2.
To do this, goto:
http://hurricane.ncdc.noaa.gov/pls/plhas/has.dsselect
After choosing your date, the radar site, and the type of data you want, you will be sent a link in your email to download the archive file.
It will be a compressed .tar file. Create a new directory, decompress and un-tar it, and you will then have 9000+ files of L3 (or L2) data for each day you want to look at. Find the ones you are interested in and drag and drop them onto a running instance of GR3/GR2AE.
However, in the owners forum for GR3, in the FAQ, there is a link to a utility that will convert the archive file to GR3's native file format....the benefit here is that you will then only need to deal with a couple of hundred files, and not thousands of files.
I forgot to add that if you want to download the archived data for Reeds Manitoba tornado, use the Minot ND (KMBX) site.
Ok so lots of people have been looking at the data for a while, and although I'm pretty sure that beast didn't hit any substantial dwellings, which would make it harder to rate, has anyone come up with a rating on the EF scale for it? Or a guess?
Has Canada ever had a confirmed EF5?????
Andrew
Oops. I'm thinking maybe Canada doesn't use the EF scale yet. Well, whatever. Would it have rated F5?
Andrew
Andrew, according to what I've read there's never been an "official" F5 (or EF5) tornado recorded in Canada.
FWIW, here is a list of F5's from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F5_and_EF5_tornadoes
Hey Mike...Thanks!
Yeah I've been using the NCDC site and dropping the files in Grlevel3 with the chase logs page. I've been working on extending the chase logs back to 98, and will add radar loops as well.
Hi Andrew,
The quick answer to your question is no, we haven't had a confirmed "5" on either scale. What you will find if you look hard enough is speculation about a number of events, like the 1946 Windsor/Tecumseh, Ontario tornado or the 1920 Benson, Saskatchewan tornado. The problem with this speculation is that it takes a lot of research to track down damage pictures, construction details on the buildings that were damaged, etc. to get an accurate picture of what happened so many years ago (but it can be done!).
We have only really been doing damage investigations in an organized manner on a National scale for less than a decade now. Compound that with the lack of structures to hit in most parts of the country, the lack of folks to get close-up footage of these things, the difficulty in getting to some of these damage sites, and so on and so forth, and I think it becomes quite clear how long it may take to confirm a "5" in Canada (regardless of what these tornadoes are actually capable of...)
In the absence of building or vehicle damage (or, like in this case, damage to substantial structures), we aren't left with much. But thanks to Dave and Reeds video, I think we have a golden opportunity here for some photogrammetery. I know I don't have that kind of time right now, but is there anybody out there who does?
Simon E.
p.s. sorry about the long posts, I'll try to cut down in the future
No Simon! The long posts are good.
The shear and instability is definitely sufficient in Canada to get an EF-5, that's for sure.
Since the jet stream migrates north to it's max latitude near the Canadian Prairies in summer, before beginning the progression southward the following fall...the residence time of the jet should be maximized over Canada. This is another reason for the likely high number of tornadoes there.
Tomorrow (Friday) looks very interesting over Alberta...we'll likely be adding a post about this event tonight.
This is from the June 7 tornado in Wisconsin. You can see the track it tore through the forest in a satellite shot
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/shownh.php3?img_id=14299
Hey Joe, this is definitely the June 23 Manitoba storm we were on. The radar image is from the Minot, ND site. The background is likely not an updated satellite image.
Reed, when I said "This is from the June 7 tornado" I was just referring to the link at the bottom of my own post, not your radar images. Sorry about the confusion.
"Tomorrow (Friday) looks very interesting over Alberta...we'll likely be adding a post about this event tonight."
Looking forward to your post I live east of Edmonton and we've been having some very active weather this year!
Ok i have been a daily visiter to this sight since feb of this year and well I'm hooked. However i have an odd request. I'm looking for picutes of a tornadoes that happened 25 years ago. It was an f4 and very special to me as it was my first real brush with death and my first experience with a tornado. It was the april outbreak of 82 and the place was Paris ,Texas. I know there was a small bit of video shot of the system and tons of pictures however it seems i can't find a single one. In reno just outside paris traveling east my mother and i where in a car traveling west bound when we cleared the tree line and was swept up and thrown to the ditch . I still remeber that day vividly and it has sparked my passion to chase all my life. Thanks in advance for anything you folks might be able to point me to since i would really like to show my kids the pictures of the storm that nearly took their daddy.
Hey Micheal, I can't find any either. Strange, huh? You'd think there'd be some, considering it was an F4 that killed 10 people.
Here's an idea, you could call the Paris newspaper. Here is their number at this link:
http://theparisnews.com/service.lasso
They probably have photos from it, they might even have published photos in the April 2, 2007 edition of this year if they did some sort of 25-year remembrance article.
You could also try calling the Paris library, one thing I've learned about librarians is they work real hard to find something for you if you just ask
http://www.paristexaslibrary.com/
Or even the Lamar County museum
http://www.lchsparistx.org/
Thanks very much for the replies. Looks like i will be making a trip to the paris newspaper and the library in a couple weeks. All i had in photos are pics of the aftermath that where taken by my mother and grandparents but none of the storm and i know there to be pics and a short video that aired on the news at the time the anchor even won an award if memory serves yet I can't find anything. I hope to find some pics as it was a well defined multi vortex, at the time it looked like 5 tornadoes on the ground at the same time 2 really big ones 2 medium and 2 ropes. Of course now we know it was just the one multi vortex. Paris lumberyard sign was located nearly 100 miles away in arkansas a few days after the event. So it has certainly earned the title longest sign throw if nothing else
Excuse my typo it appeared to be 2 rather large wdges 2 simulier in thickness to stovepipes and 1 rope that raced at a very rapid rate.However it should be said i had only about 20 or so seconds to stare before closing my eyes and to be honest crying like a baby as the sound drowned out my screams with the sounds of the like to a wood chipper set to turbo mulch ;)
I would figure you would here more about the Paris tornado at least here in Texas since for the record it's still the one of the largest on state record
Did you have nightmares about it in the years afterward?
Yes i did for a number of years after, and needless to say i watch the weather closely as an adult. We where caught of guard and out in the open. It looked like just a dark cloud and then as we past the tree line and realized we would be confronted by a killer. The only thing my mother could muster before we went for the ride was and i quote (Hold on baby this is going to hurt) and then everything happened in slow motion, when we came to rest the car was upside down in the ditch about 150ft from where we left the road, scrapped and bruised but ok . The car was destroyed yet somehow we made it. As an adult i have a deep respect for the power tornadoes have and feel drawn to watch them. I grew up in lamar county during a very active period of time, I now live in Texarkana and here there isn't much in the way of weather and hasn't been in 185years and i think the people here in this area have grown to believe the folk lore that tornadoes don't hit valleys. Needless to say after having been through a very power system in a vally even lower than texarkana i know as you do that they have a false sense of security.
That seems to be the way it works. Kids who are in tornados often have nightmares, but they are also fascinated by weather the rest of their lives. Same for me, my neighborhood was hit when I was a little kid, I didn't even see the tornado, but getting herded down to the basement and then seeing all the trees blown down afterward gave me bad dreams about tornados for many years. But when I grew up, the dreams became pleasurable, as in, "Wow, I am finally seing a tornado! And I'm awake and it's real, too!" (then I wake up and realize it was just a dream and get bummed out).
I can say i still on occasion have a dream every once in awhile although now i must say its no longer nightmares. I have become an adrinaline junky thats not to say i'm no longer afraid as thats simply not the case. I just get a rush from facing that fear and the since of respect it demands from you. I know the chance in having to go face to face with another f4 or bigger without having to look for it is quite low. Although with 6 kids i can't spare the money to chase any more, but i have some great memory's and seen my share of the glory and horror. It should be said that their awesome apperance is second only to there destruction. Those people whom have seen first hand will forever remain on notice while they await the return of the next season.Always waiting for the sirens to blare for this is a victims curse to forever watch every storm no matter how small waiting for mother natures return to finish it job.
More on the June 7 tornado that carved that path through the Wisconsin forest.
Tornado-downed timber being harvested
June 28, 2007
The tornado that ripped through the Langlade area on June 7 reduced 14,441 acres of timberland into piles of pick-up sticks.
Now, area loggers are rushing —very carefully—to salvage what they can.
“This is the worst sort of logging. It is very, very dangerous,” Dennis Fincher, a forester with Kretz Lumber Company, said. “Down on the Menominee reservation, three loggers have already suffered broken arms from trees snapping back at them.”
The tornado cut a swath across the northwoods 36 miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide. Preliminary estimates indicate that 14,400 acres sustained timberland damage including 8,000 acres of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
On the reservation alone, 100,000 cords of pulpwood and 50 million board feet of saw lumber—enough to build 4,166 average-sized homes—were leveled.
Fincher said Kretz Lumber lost about 320 acres of woodlands, with 100 acres “totally flattened.” That timber value is figured at $1,500 to $2,000 an acre.
Now Kretz is working with loggers and private landowners to salvage what it can.
“Lots of local loggers are involved in the current salvage efforts,” Fincher said. “Right now it looks like most everyone will have some loggers to help them salvage their timber. I give a lot of credit to the industry to come forward like this.”
Marshall Logging is serving as Kretz’s private contractor in the area, relying on high-tech processors rather than chain saws to safely remove and stack the timber.
Kevin Marshall said it is slow work.
“There are a lot of twisted trees,” he explained, adding that his crew began working in the area a week after the storm hit. “We can salvage a lot but it is a slow process.”
Marshall has four processors at one salvage site with another machine working nearby. His seven-member crew is removing the timber from a 240-acre tract, a process that he expects to take three months or better.
“Some of the wood will go to the pulp mills and some to Kretz for milling,” Marshall said.
Kretz has been experiencing less-than-robust times due in part to declining demand, but Fincher said there is a market for the timber.
“It’s not the strongest but there is a market,” Fincher said, predicting the mill will ramp up production once the wood begins arriving. “This gives us a shot in the arm, but it’s not the kind we wanted.”
Fincher estimated landowners such as Kretz will recover about 75 percent of the timber’s value through salvage efforts.
Salvage work must be done in a timely manner. Pine deteriorates more rapidly than hardwood and the saw timber faster than pulpwood due to staining that may reduce log quality.
The salvage will also reduce insect problems, encourage forest regeneration and lessen fuel loads for wildfire potential.
Andrew,
There were 3 distinct tornado tracks from the storm on Saturday, June 23 in SW Manitoba. They were rated by EC using the EF scale as F0, F3, F3. As many people have mentioned, the lower than expected rating is due to the fact that it didn't really hit a town or city.
Allison, thanks for the info.
Joe, that Wisconsin tornado is what really got me hooked on severe weather. That was a similar tornado to the one Reed caught in Canada, in that it really didn't hit anything solid except for trees and was in the middle of pretty much nothing. But it was a 3/4 mile wide monster and was absolutely screaming along at 70mph. Good thing it didn't hit much except for trees 'cause no one would have had time to even move out of its way. It was the first high risk day for MN/WI that I ever paid attention to, and I had just barely started studying about how to read radar, what a hook/velocity couplet was, and along came that beast that I watched live on the Green Bay radar. Talk about a cool "tutorial" in how to read radar images. That thing was so easy to see happening.
Here is the NOAA page on that day.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb/?n=070607
Looks like a couple lucky folks were actually able to snap some shots of it.
That sattelite image is the most amazing tornado damage photo that I have ever seen.
Andrew
Just wanted to let ya know have found the photos in question, or at least the microfilm. It will be next week before i can retrieve them, i'm now considering making a page for the paris f4. So that otheirs searching like me can put the details together. I believe all tornadoes and the victoms they leave behind could use a website devoted to them. It would certainly help from a research stand point and long term could help to see patterns based on radar images and accounts of the people that actually experienced them. I think a system like this could help with long term weather modeling and prediction , and could also help the mending process for countless survivers . Thanks again for the ideas of where to find the goods?
Andrew, somewhere on Youtube I saw a video of a tornado ripping up trees out of a forest. It was amazing (filmed from a helicopter, no less... what pilot would try to get a copter close to a tornado?) Thanks for the link. Man, it's amazing what those things do in the woods.
Micheal, there are a bunch of web pages dedicated to past tornado events, but there obviously isn't one yet for the 1982 Paris, TX twister. If you were to make one for that day, even if it's just a free blog, that would be rather cool. Glad you found the film.
Joe I think that video you saw was taken about 10 miles from my house back in the 1980s. I remember that day. All the NBC stations interrupted their show to feed it live from KARE11 in the Twin Cities. If I remember right it was a pretty cool little multiple-vortex F1 and it went right through a nature preserve here.
First live tornado filmed anywhere in the world.
And yes, that chopper pilot was crazy. Lucky guy.
so this paris tornado you are talking about was in texas right cuz i have a storm stories espisode where hitsw the town of parris in tennese
Yes it was Paris,Tx . Paris and the surrounding area has had scores of tornadoes over the years but the April 82 storm was by far the most destructive and had the largest impact on the community. I can remember 12 tornadoes in a 6 year time space when i lived in the small town of Blossom which is about 10 miles east of Paris. It seems Lamar Red river and Grayson counties over the years have been the largest producers of tornadoes per square mile of counties in Texas for a number of years. The last 2 decades however our region has had a bit of a rest. However i think if you look at long term trends that may well change soon. Being a pc tech and having a good bit of spare resources to throw at a web page for the event in question shouldn't be to difficult . Soon as i work through some details i will drop a line here.
Joe Surfer wrote:
"Andrew, somewhere on Youtube I saw a video of a tornado ripping up trees out of a forest. It was amazing (filmed from a helicopter, no less... what pilot would try to get a copter close to a tornado?) Thanks for the link. Man, it's amazing what those things do in the woods."
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Joe,
The video was from a F2 in MN in 1986, if you're talking about the tornado here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNOcOmVW5QU
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Reed, did you bag any other tornadoes outside the one that you've posted?
Jim, that's the one! Thanks. You probably saw this video too, this is a closer-up shot of the trees getting uprooted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnLplAeJKgY
In regards to comments from Michael. I was in the Paris '82 tornado as well. We did have a brief moment before it hit to get down in the hallway (me, mom, and baby sister) with a mattress over us but once it hit it ripped the mattress right off and my mom says she had to hold me down with her legs. Afterwards, we had glass all underneath us. We sang my sister's favorite praise song right before. It was definitely a life changing event!