For years, meteorologists and the nostalgic among us have referred to the Super Outbreak of 1974 or the Palm Sunday Outbreak of 1965 as the worst tornado outbreaks in our nation's history. Unfortunately, we are going to have to add in a new outbreak to that list: the Late-April Tornado Outbreak of 2011 (which I'm sure will get a catchy name once CNN's dramatist/news editor returns from vacation). The outbreak, which stretched from April 25th in the central south and went through today, April 28th, with possible tornado touchdowns from Florida to New Jersey.
Search and rescue crews are still combing through the destruction in 15 states to find survivors and recover the deceased. As of now, 280 people are reported dead from the storms, over half of whom were caught in the Alabama tornadoes. News crews are still arriving at the damage sites, so we'll see increasingly more gruesome and disturbing images of the utter destruction left behind by these tornadoes as the day continues.
Keep reading...
Keep trolling, meta, political cheap shots and dickish comments out of here, the folks getting slammed by these storms appreciate it.
April 25th -- The Vilonia, AR Tornado
The Vilonia tornado (damage in image at left, from
CBS News) was part of a series of major tornadoes that struck Texas and Arkansas during the afternoon and overnight on Monday the 25th. The worst looking storm on radar that night was one going through Little Rock, AR off towards the northeast. There were reports of "significant damage" and injuries at Little Rock AFB, which grew concerns that a major tornado was on the ground. The National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the town of Vilonia shortly after these reports came out, and hoped that residents would get the warning in time and take cover.
The base velocity radar out of Little Rock (image at left) confirmed these fears, with extreme rotation and a probable tornado showing up coming right into the town. Original reports out of this tornado stated that the town of Vilonia was "completely destroyed" and that concrete outside of town was "scoured out of the ground," giving fears that this was an intense tornado of EF-4 or EF-5 strength. The National Weather Service determined that the tornado was only an EF-2, but the strength doesn't much matter to the families of the
4 who were killed in this small town of 2,100.
April 25th -- Texas Tornado Chasers
Everything is bigger in Texas, and that's exactly how KXAS-TV out of Fort Worth likes it. Thanks to the flat and wide terrain of east-central Texas, Mother Nature allows you to get pretty close to a few of her supercell thunderstorms to watch. Not only can you get close to them, but you can fly up to them in a helicopter. KXAS stayed on air for a very long time Monday afternoon to cover these tornadoes as they popped up. The helicopter didn't catch any damaging tornadoes, thankfully, but they did get some pretty cool pictures.
April 26th -- The Mabank, TX Tornado
On Tuesday, KXAS-TV yet again fueled up the chopper and headed out to look for twisters. They found one, but couldn't get a shot of it because the storm was so tightly wound due to rotation that the tornado was wrapped in rain, and made it almost impossible to see. This tornado was rated an EF-1, as it damaged buildings, snapped trees, and knocked out power.
April 27th -- Mississippi
The information in this section will be slim due to numerous copyright restrictions and the lack of reporting on the MS tornadoes due those in Alabama. Feel free to add stuff in the comments.
During the day on Wednesday the 27th, numerous tornadoes ripped through the state of Mississippi, killing 33 people. One tornado touched down in Smithville, MS and caused incredible amounts of damage and destruction. Another tornado ripped through Philadelphia, Mississippi, where one (absent minded) storm chaser decided to gun it and drive within a few hundred feet of the tornado. If you're a storm chaser or if you get caught in a tornado, do not freakin' drive into the thing.
April 27th -- Tuscaloosa, AL
The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado yesterday is one that will go down in the record books as one of the deadliest, one of the most damaging and perhaps one of the longest-track tornadoes (stretching from Mississippi possibly up through Rome, GA). The Storm Prediction Center had issued a high risk for tornadoes across all of northern Alabama, and Mother Nature certainly followed through. There were numerous deaths in Tuscaloosa when this tornado went through, and the beginning of the tornado was caught on live TV by ABC 33/40 out of Birmingham.
The tornado proceeded to destroy everything in its path, and caused unfathomable damage. Here's the tornado from storm chasers as it went through Tuscaloosa:
April 27th -- Birmingham, AL
The tornado that went through Tuscaloosa tore northeast -- possibly on the ground the whole time -- directly towards Birmingham, AL. The tornado arrived in the city a little while later, and again, it was caught on live TV by ABC 33/40 using an ALDOT traffic camera. Look at the top-right box in this screenshot and you'll see the mile wide monster going through Birmingham:
Here's a video of the intensely large Birmingham tornado as it went just north of the downtown area. The tornado is so big that the people taking the video don't realize it's the tornado until about halfway through:
Even before the storm got to Birmingham, you could see how intense it was just by looking at the winds on radar. This is a velocity image, showing winds moving towards and away from the radar. The radar is south of the tornado, and it measures winds by seeing how quickly the precipitation is moving in one way or another. In this image, the red it moving away from the radar, and the green is moving towards the radar. The darker red and brighter green indicate intense rotation, and when they get close together and form a "couplet" on the radar, it indicates a strong possibility of a tornado. This is probably the most well-defined rotation you'll ever see on a radar, and we'll probably (and hopefully) never see anything like this for a long, long time:
How Does It Stack Up?
This tornado outbreak won't be the deadliest or most active in US history, but it will go down in the record books for one of the worst we've ever had. The Super Outbreak of 1974, which has been the benchmark of all tornado outbreaks in the years since, produced 147 tornadoes and killed over 300 people in 24 hours. While there were 165 reports of tornadoes yesterday, many of these reports are for the same tornado due to the fact that these twisters were on the ground for a very long time. In terms of the death toll, hopefully we won't break the record, but crews are likely to find more bodies as they search through the debris. For the record, the deadliest tornado in US history was the Tri-State Tornado, which was on the ground for 234 miles and killed 685 people.
alpolitics has a diary up showing some of the amazing pictures of damage and destruction caused by the tornadoes yesterday.
Updated by weatherdude at Thu Apr 28, 2011 at 04:22 PM CDT
The National Weather Service confirms that the Smithville, MS tornado was an EF-4.
From Peachtree City GA NWS:
...AT LEAST AN EF3 TORNADO IN CATOOSA COUNTY...
...ONE EF-3 TORNADO IN DADE AND WALKER COUNTIES...
...ONE EF-3 TORNADO IN MERIWETHER...SPALDING AND HENRY COUNTIES...
...ONE EF-3 TORNADO IN POLK...FLOYD AND BARTOW COUNTIES...