News - Blogs - Weekend tornado outbreak forecasted days in advance

Weekend tornado outbreak forecasted days in advance
Published: 4/16/2012 2:47 PM
Last Modified: 4/16/2012 2:47 PM

A tornado moves on the ground north of Solomon, Kan., on Saturday evening, April 14, 2012, with I-70 seen in the foreground. (AP Photo/The Hutchinson News, Sandra J. Milburn)

What a weekend.

OK, first, the outbreak itself. The reports are preliminary so far, but there were 135 tornado reports on Saturday alone. Some of those are duplicate reports or not tornadoes. The NWS estimated a more precise number of touchdowns to be about 75. They were happening so quickly in a swath from western Oklahoma to Iowa and Nebraska that forecasters were having a tough time keeping up. Nearly every supercell that formed in along that line out west was tornado-warned at some point. Most of those were in Kansas.

The storms claimed six lives in Woodward, but those deaths weren’t from a supercell storm. The rotation appeared to be embedded in the squall line that swept across the region in the early morning. It was a monster tornado, too, with a preliminary EF-3 rating, with winds up to 165 mph. It hit about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Nighttime tornadoes are always difficult to see, especially those embedded in squall lines since they are often shrouded in rain.

Supercells are more apt to have rotation than squall lines, but with the atmospheric conditions

That same line came through Tulsa about 6 a.m. Sunday, with at least one tornado reported near Skiatook and another possible tornado in Cherokee County, but neither caused much damage, especially compared to the Kansas and Woodward storms.

The best news is that more people were not killed—or even severely injured—by the storms. At least part of that can probably be attributed to the fact that people in the plains knew what was coming Saturday.

This photo collage is the NWS Storm Prediction Center’s advisories and warnings for the week preceding the outbreak on Saturday.

They knew it was coming and were able to tell people and get the word out days in advance. That got media’s attention and hopefully people saw or read that and took notice and precautions.

Saturday’s outbreak was also our first chance to really see how the new enhanced tornado warning system the NWS is testing in Kansas would work. They implemented the new warnings earlier this month, and with tornado warnings all day long, there are plenty of examples.

The experimental warnings came out of a review of the Joplin tornado last year, which concluded that people likely didn’t take the warning seriously for many reasons, including too many false alarms, length of time from the warning to the event and a warning that did not fully convey how deadly the storm was.

The new warnings are meant to give the public a better understanding of what exactly is happening, what damage is possible from the storm and what they need to do to protect themselves. I snapped this photo of the tornado warning that was issued for central Kansas, near Salina and Lindsborg.

The interesting part is the “Impact” section. The warning that was issued for the tornado that struck the Wichita area had language in the impact section that said, "You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter.” It said it was “life-threatening.” It is much more descriptive than any warning you’ll see in Oklahoma, at least for now. The warnings are only being issued in Kansas and Missouri until the fall, when the NWS can regroup and see how they worked.

What do you think? Would a warning like that have a different affect on you? Tell me on the Twitter.

And here are some more photos from the weekend storms. Enjoy them with the peace of mind that you don’t have much severe weather to worry about, at least nothing like last weekend for the foreseeable future.

This is a preliminary map of tornado warnings issued Saturday and preliminary reports.

A truck drives along I-70 as a tornado moves on the ground north of Soloman, Kan., Saturday, April 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

A fire burns in the Pinaire mobile home park in Wichita, Kansas after a tornado caused massive destruction in the area on Saturday night April 14, 2012. Tornadoes were spotted across the Midwest and Plains on Saturday as an outbreak of unusually strong weather seized the region, and forecasters sternly warned that "life-threatening" weather could intensify overnight. (AP Photo/Travis Heying)

Careylyn Talley finds a photo of her children as she sorts through the debris at her law firm in Woodward, Okla., Sunday, April 15, 2012. A tornado that killed five people struck Woodward, Okla., shortly after midnight on Sunday, April 15, 2012. Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman

People stand by the remains of a business in Woodward, Okla., Sunday, April 15, 2012. A tornado that killed five people struck Woodward, Okla., shortly after midnight on Sunday, April15, 2012. Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman

--Jerry Wofford

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

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Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
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Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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