2019 Severe weather thread

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
Well unfortunately this years severe weather season is getting off to a horrible start.....and with the long term pattern being what it is this spring is liable to be rougher than any since 2011, and we wont EVER forget April 2011, and for us older folks March 1984.

Anyways sadly the Lee Co, AL tornado today killed more people in one tornado than 2018 had for the whole year......granted 2018 set the record for lowest tornado deaths in a year in the US with only 10 fatalities all year, the Lee Co, AL tornado today is already up to 23 an climbing.....

This right here tells you just how flat nasty that tornado in AL was today...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We&#39;ve got something pretty crazy to share.<br><br>We have found evidence that the Lee Co. Flea Market billboard along US Hwy. 280 traveled 20 miles(!) in today&#39;s Lee County, GA Tornado. It was torn off N of Smith Station, AL and landed 20 miles to the NE in Hamilton,GA. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/alwx?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#alwx</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gawx?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#gawx</a> <a href="https://t.co/eLmU4NznIX">pic.twitter.com/eLmU4NznIX</a></p>&mdash; U.S. Tornadoes (@USTornadoes) <a href=" ">March 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 

6mm250

Eight Pointer
I will never forget that 2011 tornado here in Croatan. I was lucky that all it did to my house was stole the chimney cap. Friends , neighbors & kin of mine in this community were not so lucky. Some of them lost their homes , it's a wonder no one got killed. It was like a bomb went off.
I'm not sure which was worse , the tornado itself , or the hordes of sightseers & gawkers that flooded this community afterwards hampering recovery & even looting.
Then 4 months later hurricane Irene came to see us.


Mike
 

302cj

Old Mossy Horns
High jacking here! During severe weather local channels always show the red and green (velocity)?? maps. It's usually red/green which sometimes shows debris fields. Where can I see that map at? I can't locate them.
 

Eric Revo

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
I contacted my buddies in North Florida when it calmed down and one of the guys who lives in Woodville, near Tallahassee Florida said he and his wife listened to the tornado that came down near Tallahassee go over his house. It went to ground less than 5 miles from his house and tore up those folks world. Lots of rural areas so at least it didn't hit near the campus or downtown.
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
High jacking here! During severe weather local channels always show the red and green (velocity)?? maps. It's usually red/green which sometimes shows debris fields. Where can I see that map at? I can't locate them.

Well there are several different ways to determine a tornado is on the ground from the velocity scans. I highly recommend RadarScope app for your phone its a one time 9.99 for the base model but that has all the below capabilities plus a lot of zoom etc features...

This is the big EF4 wedge that killed at least 23 people in AL

regular radar notice the bright pink ball in the hook part of the echo thats what houses, trees etc look like on radar.

26024

Here is the velocity scan at the same time showing GTG ( gate to gate meaning opposite directions) approaching 140+ mph

26025

And lastly if you have radarscope or other high end radar app on your phone you can access the correlation coefficient screen and that will show you debris as a blue pixal or in this case pixals with the actual center in it which is a 100% no doubt monster tornado on the ground.....

26026

And this video is shot from a drone of the tornado when it was very near the point the above images where taken

 

302cj

Old Mossy Horns
Yep the GTG is what I was looking for. Radar maps get to pixeled (if that's a word) up to zoom in some times
 

shaggy

Old Mossy Horns
The survey came In and it went 26 miles on the ground in about 29 minutes so damn near 60 miles per hour on forward movement. Then on top of that its max width was a whopping 1600 yards wide. That's massive and people probably didnt even realize a tornado was coming their way because of the trees and width of that monster.
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
Yep the GTG is what I was looking for. Radar maps get to pixeled (if that's a word) up to zoom in some times

Just remember that red on green just means there is rotation not that its a tornado.....the tighter and small the couplet usually the more intense the rotation but again still doesn't mean there is a TOG, in order to say there is a TOG you need to see bright blue returns right on the couplet....

Here is a good example of a no doubt TDS from the infamous Joplin tornado....the blue indicates there is a tornado on the ground

26028

The newest technology lets you actually see the tornado structure inside the cell and is making issuing warnings even better.....this is the Moore Ok EF5 from 5-19-13

26031
 

302cj

Old Mossy Horns
If you haven't guessed yet I'm also a weather nut. The stronger it is the more I want to be out in it. I'm just not up to speed on all the weather terms as you guys are. I know a lot of them but it's takes a few minutes to decode the others. Disney world a few times and Florida Keys were great vacations but I really want to head out to Oklahoma or Kansas for a Chase vacation at some point.
 

shaggy

Old Mossy Horns
If you haven't guessed yet I'm also a weather nut. The stronger it is the more I want to be out in it. I'm just not up to speed on all the weather terms as you guys are. I know a lot of them but it's takes a few minutes to decode the others. Disney world a few times and Florida Keys were great vacations but I really want to head out to Oklahoma or Kansas for a Chase vacation at some point.

Sometimes it borders on addiction.

One summer a storm was rolling up at 3am. I heard the thunder and my typical response is to get up and go out even at 3am. Next thing i know I feel my wife's hand covering my ears so I wouldnt wake up. I justlaughed and said i was already awake.
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
If you haven't guessed yet I'm also a weather nut. The stronger it is the more I want to be out in it. I'm just not up to speed on all the weather terms as you guys are. I know a lot of them but it's takes a few minutes to decode the others. Disney world a few times and Florida Keys were great vacations but I really want to head out to Oklahoma or Kansas for a Chase vacation at some point.

Me and Shaggy plan on a "chasecation" sometime in the future there are several tour groups but we will probably just free lance and rent a vehicle for the trip....I have successfully chased a few tornados in eastern NC and I had one miss my house by 200 yrds in Mar 2009....tough to chase around here with limited visibility etc.....this is the one I caught to just outside of Vanceboro I had to reverse the image as it was fairly rain wrapped.....

26074
 

302cj

Old Mossy Horns
Me and Shaggy plan on a "chasecation" sometime in the future there are several tour groups but we will probably just free lance and rent a vehicle for the trip....I have successfully chased a few tornados in eastern NC and I had one miss my house by 200 yrds in Mar 2009....tough to chase around here with limited visibility etc.....this is the one I caught to just outside of Vanceboro I had to reverse the image as it was fairly rain wrapped.....

View attachment 26074
Nice but like you said to many trees. I think chasing out west would be a dream job.
 

shaggy

Old Mossy Horns
Nice but like you said to many trees. I think chasing out west would be a dream job.

The only thing that worries me most out there is the traffic jams of chasers. I am much more concerned about being hurt in a car wreck than a tornado out there chasing.

I have a nice video of a tornado that went by my house in 2015 and a good wall cloud that went over highway 11 during the 2011 outbreak.
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
Classic late season nor'easter on tap for Tues night into Wed......the coast is going to get hammered pretty good, winds could approach 60 mph in gust, and even 40 ish on the IBX......plenty of cold rain to go around as well and there may even be some SNOW on the western edge.....might even be heavy fat flakes models show some accumulation of snow though there is still a lot of questions surrounding the if and when there will be flakes flying....
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
Wouldnt be surprised to see wind gust to hurricane force on the OBX Tues night into Wed.....might be some snow still over the I85 areas near Charlotte but its kind iffy it is April after all....but if it all works out there might even be a slushy inch or so on cars and roofs and grass....but again the bigger impact will be the storm force winds all along the coast and especially the OBX....
 

chef

Ten Pointer
Wouldnt be surprised to see wind gust to hurricane force on the OBX Tues night into Wed.....might be some snow still over the I85 areas near Charlotte but its kind iffy it is April after all....but if it all works out there might even be a slushy inch or so on cars and roofs and grass....but again the bigger impact will be the storm force winds all along the coast and especially the OBX....
Sleet in Hillsborough
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
So the first slight risk for severe storms is being predicted by the SPC for NC, the primary threat will be wind gust most due to straight line and downburst mode winds...the flow is fairly unidirectional so while rotation can occur in any storm the overall threat for tornados is fairly low....at least based on the latest soundings....overall this is not looking like a crazy weather day but there still will be some places that get hit pretty good.

SPC map and disco

27195

Elevated thunderstorms are forecast to be ongoing at the
start of the period along the surface trough in the southern and
central Appalachian Mountains. A moist and unstable airmass will be
located from Georgia northeastward across the Carolinas with surface
dewpoints in the mid 60s F. In response, moderate instability is
expected to develop across the moist sector with MLCAPE values
reaching the 1500 to 2500 J/kg range by afternoon from the
Appalachian foothills eastward onto the Atlantic Coastal Plains. As
surface temperatures warm, surface-based thunderstorms appear most
likely to develop in the Appalachian foothills with scattered storms
moving eastward into the stronger instability during the mid to late
afternoon. Forecast soundings from near Augusta, Georgia
northeastward to Raleigh, North Carolina at 21Z show 0-6 km shear in
the 25 to 35 kt range with 0-3 km lapse rates approaching 8 C/km.
This should be favorable for an isolated wind damage threat.
Although a supercell can not be ruled out, multicells should be the
favored storm mode. The severe threat spatial distribution will
likely be determined by the mesoscale setup including where outflow
boundaries setup and corridors of instability/moisture become
maximized.
 

NCST8GUY

Frozen H20 Guy
What happened with the storm off our coast to batter the outer banks? Did it ever form (I've literally been off the news grid for days now, just getting back on)?
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
What happened with the storm off our coast to batter the outer banks? Did it ever form (I've literally been off the news grid for days now, just getting back on)?

That was like last Mon/Tues.....but yeah it was the storm that gave the snow near Charlotte, the winds were not to bad on the OBX I think 50-60 mph max it waited till it was offshore to really bomb out....

New SPC map for today
27215

SPC disco

Generally speaking, modest destabilization is expected from Georgia
to southern Virginia, beneath weakly anticyclonic flow aloft.
Scattered storms are expected to develop over the region during the
afternoon as heights gradually fall, with some organization possible
-- aided by moderately strong south-southwest flow in the lower and
middle troposphere. Stronger storms will be capable of producing
local wind damage and some hail during the afternoon, with an
isolated tornado possible as well.
 

shaggy

Old Mossy Horns
Despite some decent instability the hi res models dont seem to do alot with the storms this afternoon which is surprising given the parameters. Still think we see some damaging storms but not on a widespread scale. Any lone supercell could spin up a tornado but would likely be the better chances of high wind and bigger hail.
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
SPC bumped a area up to enhanced and its the atmosphere is pretty unstable so look for storms to continue some quite strong throughout the day with the threat of severe storms spreading east all the way to the coast by this evening....

27223

Severe storm watch up as well for a lot of west central NC

27224
 

downeastnc

Old Mossy Horns
Good catch it is warned, though the tornado has probably lifted by now.....its a QLCS type rotation.....its been trying to form for a hr now but finally looks to have made it.....I will load a GIF where you can see it in a bit
 
Top