Path of EF2 tornado in Illinois on November 22, 2010. (NWS)
November is not normally the time of year for tornadoes, least of all in states in northern latitudes like Illinois and Wisconsin. That however did not stop a mini-outbreak yesterday as at least two tornadoes struck and as many as seven were possible.
Watch video of the twister below
Severe thunderstorms were spawned yesterday by a strong cold front moving across the upper Midwest. The twisters were the first in 26 years to strike the area in November – you have to go all the way back to November 9, 1984 to find the last one.
The National Weather Service has confirmed that the strongest of the tornadoes yesterday was an EF2 packing winds of 135mph. It covered a path of 16.4 miles and had a maximum width of 200 yards. The twister overturned a bus, caused significant damage to buildings and injured six people.
Below you can see a video of the twister as it passed near Loves Park, Illinois.
Crews pick up debris from Chickamauga Creek Oct. 27, 2010. (USACE/ Richard Scott)
An extraordinary severe weather outbreak on Tuesday, October 26th brought Mother Nature’s fury to a large part of the nation stretching from Mississippi to Michigan. Of the dozens of tornadoes reported that day, one ripped through Chickamauga Lock near Chattanooga, Tennessee and was captured on surveillance video.
Watch the amazing video below
The twister ripped through an area near Chickamauga Dam Tuesday evening where the Army Corps of Engineers is constructing the lock. No injuries to the employees working at the sight were reported but the Corps said some barely escaped.
The video, captured by a surveillance camera, initially gives no indication of the destruction that is about to come as conditions appear calm and vehicles are seen driving on a nearby road. 40 seconds into the video the winds and rain begin to pick up and 10 seconds later two construction trailers are flipped over and reduced to rubble.
Wayne Huddleston, project manager at Chickamauga Lock, said “The Corps is relocating personnel to other buildings on site and repairs and cleanup are ongoing. We are extremely pleased that no people were hurt and that operations were not seriously affected by the storm.”
The video clearly shows why mobile homes and other structures without permanent foundations are never a safe place to take cover during severe weather. Residents should always seek sturdier shelter in a permanent structure.
For all the latest on all types of natural disasters, be sure to check out the Natural Disasters Examiner.
In a rare occurrence, two tornadoes struck the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens on Thursday, September 16, 2010. View more images in the slideshow below.
Severe weather struck the Big Apple this past Thursday and brought with it only the sixth and seventh tornadoes to strike New York City since record keeping began in 1950. Accompanying the storms were straight-line winds packing a 125 mph punch.
Funnel clouds were spotted in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn from the storms that also brought extraordinary winds and driving rain. The severe thunderstorm toppled trees and power lines and left one woman dead.
The National Weather Service sent a team to look at the damage and determine if the winds were the result of a tornado or straight-line winds. The answer is that two tornadoes -one an EF0 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, the other an EF1 – struck Brooklyn and Queens.
Video – One resident captured the storm as it struck Brooklyn. Click here to watch it – Video contains adult language.
In the Park Slope Neighborhood of Brooklyn, the tornado touched down at about 5:33pm and ripped across the cityscape for two miles. It generated winds of 80mph, an EF0, and had a maximum width of 75 yards.
The second twister struck the Flushing / Bayside area in Queens and was stronger and longer lived. That tornado packed winds of 100mph making it an EF1. It reached a maximum width of 100 yards and was on the ground for four miles. One fatality is attributed to the twister as Iline Leuakis of Pennsylvania was killed when a tree fell and crushed her car.
Also notable were significant straight-line winds caused by a macroburst. In the Middle Village and Forest Hills areas in Queens, winds reaching 125 mph with a path five miles wide and eight miles long contributed to the damage.
The two tornadoes mark only the sixth and seventh tornadoes to strike in the five counties that make up New York City since 1950 – Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond. The strongest occurred on August 8, 2007 and was an EF2 that caused nine injuries.
A monstrous hailstone measuring 7.75 inches in diameter fell near Wichita on September 15, 2010, setting a new record for Kansas. (National Weather Service / Melissa McCarter)
Severe weather rolled through south-central and southeastern Kansas on the evening of Wednesday, September 15, 2010 and dropped tornadoes and potentially record-setting hail. The supercell thunderstorms developed in the late afternoon and caused significant damage in the Wichita area.
Watch video of the hail pounding Wichita below
In Sedgwick and Cowley counties one supercell generated monstrous hail on the western side of Wichita. The largest stone, right, was measured at 7.75 inches and fell at about 6:00pm in West Wichita. According to the National Weather Service the chunk of ice weighted 1.1 pounds and was 15.5 inches in circumference.
Hail from golf ball to softball sized swept across a large area breaking windows in homes and smashing vehicles. At Mid-Continent Airport the hail broke through skylights and damaged the facilities airport. Several planes sustained damage as well.
Strong, straight-line winds up to 80 mph were recorded in Cowley, Wilson, Labette and Cherryvale counties. Downed power lines resulted in 10,000 people being without power at one point.
Five tornadoes were reported south, southeast and east of Wichita. The twisters were on the ground for short periods of time and did not appear to directly cause any damage. All have been rated EF0 with winds from 65 mph to 85 mph by the National Weather Service.
Colorado storm chaser Roger Hill was shown on the Drudge report and that led to appearances on most major TV networks.
Roger Hill is considered quite famous among storm chasers as he has a proven, uncanny ability to place himself right where severe weather will strike. A recent headline on the Drudge Report featuring Hill has now shined the national media spotlight on him and his profession as co-owner of a storm chasing tour company.
Hill is no stranger to the media as his amazing videos and photos have been featured on the Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and all major news networks. For nearly a decade Hill and his company Silver Lining Tours have been showing thrill seekers what it is like to experience severe weather at closer range than what may be possible otherwise. Interest in “storm chasing tours” however has hit a fevered pitch in recent weeks.
Crews from Inside Edition and Nightline then followed by riding along with Hill and Silver Lining Tours as they crisscrossed the Great Plains on the hunt for tornadoes.
The Nightline piece aired this past Friday and gave a good idea of what it is like to be on tour with Hill (watch the video below). From the frenzied pace to the seemingly endless ingestion of fast food and of course the thrill of the tornado chase, reporter Eric Hong experienced it all.
A tornado that struck the Bronx in New York was rated an EF-1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. (ThorntonWeather.com)
A common myth is that tornadoes don’t strike cities. That myth was dispelled again this past Sunday when a twister packing 100 mph struck the Bronx in New York.
The tornado, rated an EF-1 by the National Weather Service (NWS), struck at 2:55pm. The service said that at its biggest the twister was 100 yards wide.
Initially touching down on the grounds of the Hebrew Home for the Aged on the east bank of the Hudson River, the tornado tore a path one half mile long. Seven people were injured by the storm and a variety of damage was documented by survey teams.
A flagpole was toppled as were numerous trees. Some large trees were stripped of their leaves.On West 254th Street across Netherlands and Arlington Streets “significant damage occurred.” One residential home sustained roof damage.
The National Weather Service this was only the second tornado to strike the Bronx since 1950. The first occurred on September 2, 1974.
From the National Weather Service:
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
216 PM EDT TUE JUL 27 2010
…TORNADO CONFIRMED NEAR NORTH RIVERDALE IN BRONX COUNTY NY…
LOCATION…NORTH RIVERDALE IN BRONX COUNTY NY
DATE…JULY 25 2010
ESTIMATED TIME…255 PM TO 300 PM EDT
MAXIMUM EF- SCALE RATING…EF1
ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED…100 MPH
MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH…100 YARDS
PATH LENGTH…0.6 MILES
BEGINNING LAT/LON…40.91N / 73.91W
ENDING LAT/LON…40.90N / 73.90W
* FATALITIES…0
* INJURIES…7
A 'cold air funnel' was spotted over Leadville, Colorado on Sunday morning. (NWS Pueblo)
At an altitude nearly two miles high, one would not expect a funnel cloud to appear in the sky over a town like Leadville, Colorado. On Sunday however, Mother Nature treated visitors and residents to a rare ‘cold air funnel’ over the town high in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
At approximately 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, the funnel was spotted over Leadville where it continued to rotate for nearly 20 minutes, according to observers. The funnel never touched down, thus never becoming a tornado, but it serves as a reminder that twisters can occur just about anywhere on earth.
Funnel clouds and tornadoes typically need four conditions to form – Shear, Lift, Instability and Moisture (SLIM as famed storm chaser Roger Hill calls it). With a cold air funnel, those conditions also exist, although they aren’t associated with a supercell thunderstorm like is seen on the plains.
According to the National Weather Service’s Pueblo office, a cold low pressure system over northwestern Colorado provided the instability part of the equation. Strong upper level winds over the southwestern part of the state and slower winds over the northwest provided shear. The difference in lower and upper level temperatures and a passing thunderstorm provided the lift and moisture for the funnel.
One Denver-area television station is incorrectly reporting on its website that “Leadville was never in any danger because he says cold-air funnels do not turn into tornadoes.”
This is wholly inaccurate. While cold air funnels do not typically touch down, they can reach the ground and as the National Weather Service states, they “can bring damage in a small area.”
The Memorial Day tornado in Baca County, Colorado near Campo was the highlight of a week of storm chasing but it wasn’t the only exciting thing to happen. (Tony Hake / ThorntonWeather.com)
We have said before that storm chasing is as much an art as a science and it can very much be feast or famine. Both extremes were seen over the course of a week of storm chasing on the Great Plains by ThorntonWeather.com.
We hope our site visitors were checking out the Storm Chase 2010 Examiner where we were documenting our chase across America’s heartland. With stories, photos and video, the entire incredible week has been described in detail.
The first tornado of that day near Pritchett, Colorado allowed chasers to witness the complete tornado genesis. As massive amounts of air were sucked into a storm cell and the clouds swirled menacingly above, a small funnel cloud soon grew into a powerful tornado.
Two other tornadoes and an incredible hail storm on the virtually barren ranchland followed. The main event was yet to come however.
About eight miles south of Campo, Colorado, a massive supercell seemed poised to generate a tornado. Chasers waited anxiously as the sky grew darker on the plains. A funnel cloud formed and was cheered on as it grew closer to the ground.
Before long the tornado was on the ground moving at a leisurely 10 mph – its slow pace allowing for plenty of time to capture amazing photos and video of the event. The Baca County tornado would draw national media attention and will possibly go down as the most picturesque of all twisters during the 2010 tornado season.
While the Memorial Day tornadoes would be the last seen during the week, they were not the last extraordinary weather event witnessed by the storm chasers.
Storm Chase 2010 intercepted a flying saucer over western Kansas at the end of a very long chase day. (Tony Hake / ThorntonWeather.com)
Central Nebraska proved to be the backdrop for another day of weather beauty. Waiting patiently at a small town gas station, multiple super cells moved across the area and chasers were on the move. From highways to dirt roads, the chasers saw the storms generate amazing shelf clouds and funnel clouds.
In the end, the group of storm chasers covered over 2,500 miles across five states. They witnessed many funnel clouds and amazing storm structures and of course five tornadoes, two of which were at close range. For many it was truly a once in a lifetime experience that allowed them to see Mother Nature’s fury up close and personal.
Complete stories, photos and video from Storm Chase 2010:
Hail covers the road at 104th Avenue and Chambers Road on Wednesday afternoon. (Chelsea Kovach)
Colorado’s severe weather season is upon us and it paid a visit to the north Denver metro area in spades on Wednesday. Brief, heavy rain, large hail and a few tornadoes were reported with the fast moving storms.
Isolated thunderstorms began popping up along the Front Range after lunchtime, quickly turning severe in nature.
Hail nearly three inches in diameter pounded vehicles and homes in north Denver, Commerce City, Thornton and unincorporated Adams County. Enough hail fell in the Reunion development area of Commerce City to cover the ground like snow. Residents used snow blowers and state highway crews used snowplows to clear the frozen water.
An untold number of vehicles sustained heavy damage in the area northeast of downtown Denver. Reports of broken windows, roofs with damage and trees stripped of leaves were commonplace. In the central part of Thornton there were reports of hail up to 1.75 inches in diameter.
Operations at Denver International Airport were affected as flights were delayed while the severe weather passed. Delays of 30 to 60 minutes were experienced and those inside the airport were instructed to go to designated tornado shelters for a time.
Brief, weak tornadoes were reported in some areas and strong winds caused damage further northeast of the area. In Larimer County, multiple structures were reportedly destroyed and a 15 foot silo was knocked down.
The severe weather was enough to draw the attention of the VORTEX 2 tornado study. The research study is the largest field study of tornadoes with hundreds of scientists and dozens of vehicles roaming the plains to learn more about the severe weather. The teams tracked the storms as they moved from near DIA to the plains further to the northeast.
Are you ready for severe weather? Do you know what to do to keep you and your family safe? Review our Severe Weather 101 series to learn more:
ThorntonWeather.com's chief amateur meteorologist will be on the hunt for tornadoes starting next week. Be sure to follow along!
Severe weather season brings danger and destruction to the Great Plains of the United States. No other place on earth sees as many tornadoes as this region and now ThorntonWeather.com is going to go on the hunt in an attempt to witness Mother Nature’s fury up close and personal.
As we have pointed out before, the owner and operator of ThorntonWeather.com writes weather, disaster and climate news for Examiner.com. This allows Tony to share his passion for the topics and also helps to pay for all the great features ThorntonWeather.com visitors enjoy.
Starting Sunday, May 30th and for the six days following, one Examiner will seek out and attempt to witness and document these events. World famous storm chaser Roger Hill will serve as tour guide and teacher for the Examiner and a group of weather enthusiasts as they hunt the ultimate prize – tornadoes.
An average of over 1,300 tornadoes have struck the United States in each of the last three years claiming more than 200 lives total. These devastating events can strike with little warning and with a fury unseen with any other natural phenomena.
We will be bringing along Examiner and ThorntonWeather.com readers on this great chase. There are no guarantees because as we all know, Mother Nature is far from reliable – six days on the plains could yield little more than rain. However, confidence is high that you will be taken on a virtual ride unlike any other with videos, photos and more from the road.
To keep things simple, ThorntonWeather.com’s chief amateur meteorologist will be primarily posting things to the Storm Chase 2010 Examiner’s home page. To be sure you don’t miss a thing, check the Storm Chase 2010 Examiner’s home page regularly. Be sure to click the “Subscribe” link at the top of the page and you will be emailed whenever a new story is posted.
