News DetailDeadly tornadoes tear across the Central U.S.
Posted At: May 11, 2008 @ 12:05 PM
Posted By: Reed Timmer
Related Categories: Tornadoes
Preliminary SPC reports indicate that 42 tornadoes touched down yesterday from the eastern Southern Plains to the Southeast U.S., with many of the reports coming from a particularly strong supercell that tracked from Southeast KS into Southwest MO. Sadly, this storm produced at least 20 fatalities from extreme Northeast OK into Newton Co, MO, with the hardest hit communities being Picher, OK and Seneca, MO, where 7 and 10 fatalities were reported respectively. The tornado that hit the town of Picher (an old mining town of ~800 people) was a 1/2 mile wide wedge tornado that appeared to be very strong. From the damage pictures I've seen and from a friend who intercepted the tornado, it appeared to be EF3 to EF4 damage in Picher.
Here are links to video of this tornado from storm chaser Chris Wilburn:
Wedge near Picher, OK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-aKmv1QepQ
Stovepipe from I-44 in extreme Northeast OK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2obd362ZaM
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/05/10/tornado.deaths/index.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24558648/
In addition to this supercell, several tornadoes were reported in Eastern OK and Arkansas, with the town of Stuttgart, AR taking a direct hit from what appeared to be an EF2 tornado. We were chasing this storm from south of Little Rock, through the town of England where the first circulation tried to put down a tornado. Here, rain curtains were wrapping completely around the circulation, but a condensation funnel was never visible. We fell behind the storm briefly but re-intercepted from the west just as a new tornado was moving through Stuttgart. We could not make out a condensation funnel since we were approaching from the west near dark, but we did see power flashes as the tornado was moving through the south side of town. After the tornado moved through, we returned to Stuttgart to help with the rescue effort. Power lines and trees were down everywhere, and the smell of natural gas was nauseating. We even witnessed some looting around some destroyed structures. Very bad site. From what I saw, I'm guessing this was an EF2 tornado. Here are some radar images I captured as the tornado was on the ground from around 8:10 pm CDT yesterday evening. Interestingly, this is the last radar image we were able to acquire, since we could no longer connect to mobile internet after this time...likely due to a downed data tower near the town of Stuttgart.
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Aww. Why can't we have just one large severe event with no fatalities?? It makes me sad.
However, good work to all the chasers and spotters! This was a well-documented storm, on both radar and on the ground.
Yeah, it's sad to hear about all the fatalities.
Tuesday is starting to look interesting.
anyone know if anything hit atlanta or area????
Dale, several thousands without power, many injuries and two fatalities unfortunately
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/16229867/detail.html
Very sad to see the people killed.Also if earlier stroms that were elevated did not occur this might have been even worse.Tuesday could be a similar outbreak but more sun.Also low 70 dew points uner an intense mid level jet and cape.Outbreak again definetly.
Alberto, I would not throw the use of "outbreak again defeintely" around. There is a threat for severe weather, but at the moment it looks like the cap will be pretty strong.
i have been watching them all night and part of the outbreak hit ohio.
Like your website, I live in North Ms. we had the strongest straight line winds i have ever seen last night. Small hail and very heavy rain, several large trees down in Marshall County, Ms.
Picher......isn't that the town the gov't is trying to buy out?? Just read something about it a day or so ago, something to do with iron or tar poisoning or something along that from mining....sry...the name caught me off guard, had to ask
either way, my heart goes out to those who went through this and/or lost someone...
Demonique, theres a documentary called "The Creek Runs Red" about Picher. When I saw the videos of the damage I saw the large hills from the mining and remembered the doc about that place. Heres the link to the movie
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/creekrunsred/
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/creekrunsred/
I heard that the TIV may have made a tornado intercept near Stuttgart, AR yesterday. According to the CSWR website, the DOW and TIV both collected data on that tornado. Was a TIV intercept actually made?
Thanks Josh, it is the same place. There was a recent online story on it, was linked to a page I was looking at, but can't remember where...been looking for it since my post.
Even places like the upper midwest SD, ND, NE which are much less densly populated, tornadoes always seem to destroy some property.
Is it mandatory for new houses etc to be built with a tornado shelter in the mid-west?
I know people can get caught out in a bad location, like on a highway or in a paddock, but this years death toll still seems too high. Do people not pay attention to tornado risk forecasts anymore?
This pitcher tornado reminds me of greensburg kansas.A small town compltely or almost destroyed.Looking at the trees they look like greensburg,kansas the way they were snapped.I have a feeling on another outbreak this week the next tuesday to wendesday perhaps?
Jacksonville may get a tornado in that area where i detect 2,200 cape in downtown area strong vertical shear for supercells and flow is kind of strong in lower levels directional shear though not the setreongest seen but moderate to strong.Becareful there.
There are alot of deaths, the avg is about 100 a year. I don't think shelters are mandatory, but most houses have basements. I think an alarm system like a smoke detector that receives NWS signals when a tornado is immenent would be a good idea. Or 911 callback to those in the path of a tornado. This would put a little more emphasis on the seriousness of an event. The problem is tornadoes usually form pretty quick in intense storms, and like Reed mentioned can be hidden in rain.... It's up to the government how much they want to spend on new ways to inform the public.
Smudge, unfortunately tornado shelters are not mandatory. I live just north of Dallas, and we don't even have basements, but they say thats because the ground shifts too much. I can believe that considering our short transition between the rain-filled springs and drought-ridden summers
That's why it's imperative to impart to people the HUGE importance of tuning into news stations during severe weather coverage and/or investing in a GOOD weather radio and some extra batteries. Most of the TV stations around the DFW area have their own weather radios that they offer to the public. I'm sure stations in OK, AR, and elsewhere do the same thing. I feel it is our obligation as weather observers to get the word out about these things... because I truly believe they can help.
Check out this video of the Picher, OK tornado from Jim Bishop:
Stormgasm.com
The wedge phase of the Picher, OK tornado looks eerily like pictures of the Spencer, SD tornado of May 30th, 1998;
stormeyes.org/tornado/spencer/spenpix.htm
...but I guess that's what most 1/2 mile wide tornadoes look like.
Kudos to everyone who was out there and helped w/ search-and-rescue.
Simon E.
Is this guy for real?
Someone please stop it.
Sadly, I live about 30-45 minutes from the areas of devastation. I was going to go out chasing when everything started on Saturday. I had just gotten off work and was excited at the prospect of seeing the action, but the rain and hail were so intense (especially on the new car of mine) that I couldn't see anything TO drive. The streets in my town were completely flooded from an intense downpour that lasted all of 15 minutes and then cleared and I thought in the best interest of my car and own well-being, I'd better stay home and weather the storm from there. I didn't really want to drive in the baseball sized hail, either.
I have several friends who had damage to their homes and my parents, sadly, knew four of the now reported 22 fatalities. It hits close to home, considering I had family and friends who lost their homes in the May 4th outbreak a few years ago.
We are starting a relief effort here at the corporate office of my company. Just keep everyone in your prayers...this is truly a tragic time.
It seems like the chase came to you Karen.
I know...and that really sucks. :( I feel helpless right now. Everything I'm hearing now is eerily reminiscent of the May 4th outbreak. The devastation, the destruction, the relief efforts. It's unfathomable to drive by places you grew up passing all the time and to see it be nothing but twisted remnants of a building that used to be there. It really is heartbreaking...
Seeing tornado damage first hand, how effective do you think a storm shelter is? Mine is an above ground - 4 inches of reinforced, monolithic concrete, steel door with four locking bars, and held to the slab by super strength concrete epoxy. I'd like to think it's safe for my family. Your thoughts?
Karen... I can't say I know exactly how your family feels, because no one can unless they've been through it themselves, but I have met people who have lost everything in these storms, and it's hard to find words that will help. One of the best thing to do is let the people who went through it tell their story and just listen...
What I'm really concerned about is what's going to happen to the town now. As I understand it, a large portion of the town moved out because of the ground and water contamination from the mining operation. Will they find the resources to rebuild?
One of the things that will come out of this outbreak is that meteorologists are going to take a very close look at what happened in the last few hours right before the event. Everyone was anticipating the big event to be in southern and central Arkansas along the warm front, but the wind field changed near the dryline just before the outbreak started and so the worst of it occurred well to the west. We need to sort out why the forecast models didn't pick up on this.
BTW, very sorry about my last post; I have no idea where I was going with that stuff...
Simon E.
Jnelson, I'm no expert. But, I imagine it would hold up pretty well to most tornadoes. I don't know about an ef5. I'll let someone else take that. But, what you have is definitely better than what I have (the bathroom tub with couch cushions over our heads).
KC's Fox station said the Seneca,Mo nado was an EF4. Quite a few people died in their cars including two 18 year old kids who were recently married. They think they might have tried to outrun it. 1/2 mile wide and on the ground for 15 minutes. Yikes. They also showed a car with it's roof crushed most of the way down that claimed another victim.
TS - That was my thought too. I don't think much survives EF5 wind velocity/debris field.
You know the feds have a program that most counties in Tornado Alley participate in that provides up to $2500 in reimbursement to build a shelter. Still fairly pricey though. After reimbursement we were $4500 out of pocket. Thanks for the feedback.
I think I read about the $2,500 govt program last year after we were hit by the Haltom City tornado. Thankfully, it was in the dying stage and didn't do too much damage. Just took down our fence (snapped the posts at the bottom) and took about half our shingles off the room, plus some other minor damage. It is a scary feeling looking out your front door and seeing it coming right at you not knowing if it's an ef0 or a ef5. We're definitely either having a safe room built or a storm cellar at our next house.
I was near the tornado that went near seneca and neosho. I was chasing and came upon quite a bit of damage. However, I was never able to get close enough for a sighting because of closed roads and traffic.
All it take is a good T-Storm nearby and out goes our Dish TV and the weather warnings.
Correction to the track...the tornado was actually on the ground for closer to 1 1/2 hours. It started by Chetopa, KS, completely leveled most of the town of Picher, OK and tracked all the way into Missouri, branching out into two separate cells near Neosho & Granby, MO.
Simon, I'm very anxious to see what the meteorologists have to say about the hours preceding the storm. It was sunny when I got off work at 5 and by 5:15pm, it was hailing and raining hard enough that I couldn't see down the block...I'd like to hear what the reasoning is for the forecast models not catching this.
looks like might be good day for some svr storms tommarow and mabey isolated tornado's in eastern oklahoma and texas
sry for posting again but from what im reading sounds like TIV intercepted the stuargut tornado, but idk you tell me if it sounds like it
The TIV and the DOW both successfully intercepted the Stuttgart tornado.
http://aaron.ou.edu/projects/rotate/rotate2008.php
DJ, if you're having problems with your sat-tv, might I suggest looking around for one of the old primestar dishes? It's not difficult at all to mount a dish network or directv LNB onto one of those old (and larger) dishes... and can improve reception (we did experiments with one while living north of town - lowerest the signal dropped during a bad storm was to 68, when normally it would have been in the 40's)
There's all manner of neat little things you can do with those old primestar dishes :))
moderate risk now issued for today!
Thanks!
To keep up with the DOW and TIV follow this website:
http://www.cswr.org/projects/rotate/rotate2008.php
Scroll down to "2008 Data Logs" And "Mission Logs"
You'll see that DOW and TIV did indeed both collect data from the stuttgart storm. And TIV may have been in the "Core flow" of the tornado.
Looks like there is another round of severe weather in store for my area. I have a co-worker who is friends with the meteorologist at a local tv station here and she said he is predicting tonight to be more severe than Saturday. I will definitely be keeping my eye out and am well-rested (for now) so I'll probably be out and about tonight. Anyone else have an opinion of what will happen in SE KS/SW MO this evening?
I'm in Fort Worth. Looks like we're going to get it tonight too. I hate when the storms are at night when you can't see what's coming (plus you're trying to sleep).
Already a tornado warning in NE Missouri.....
Hey Reed just wondering if you guys are chasing today.
Today looks good for severe weather. Could be a widespread event.
Yeah, I saw that. The clouds are already starting to roll in here, but no sign of rain yet. Just gloom. I'm anxious. :)
Back in 2005 I drove to Monett Mo to meet up with my wife. On the way I stumbled upoin Piece City Mo. and saw all the aftermath of the twister that destroyed much of the city. Does anyone know how the recovery process is going?
Just saw a story that 8 of the 25 people that died were in their cars. Also, amazingly a couple found two family pictures that belonged to tornado survivors from Picher, Ok.
The couple live in Springfield, Missouri. Probably 80-90 miles away as the crow flies.
I live in Stuttgart, AR, and we were hit by a EF3. My husband, his cousin, and I were out of town to watch a movie when I got a phone call from my mom saying Stuttgart just got hit by a tornado and it was heading towards Yoder where my dad lives. Thankfully he wasn't hit, this is the second time his has gotten lucky within a few days apart. There were around 50 businesses damaged or distroyed, and around 300 damaged or distroyed. Thankfully no one was seriouly injured.