Over 300 dead in historic tornado outbreak; one violent EF-5 tornado confirmed
Rescuers sifting through the twisted wreckage of countless towns ravaged by Wednesday's historic tornado outbreak continue to uncover bodies today, and the death toll has swollen to over 300 this morning, and may be as high as 319. Hardest hit was Alabama, with at least 213 dead. Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and Virginia are each reporting 11 - 34 deaths. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center logged 211 preliminary reports of tornadoes between 8am EDT Wednesday and 8am Thursday, and 346 reports for the full 4-day period of the outbreak, from April 25 - April 28. Twenty-two of these tornadoes were killer tornadoes; deaths occurred in six states. Damage surveys will take another week to complete, but preliminary surveys indicate that at least one of the tornadoes was an EF-5--the Smithville, Mississippi tornado, which hit at 3:44pm EDT on Wednesday. That tornado killed 13 people and destroyed 166 buildings, and reportedly sucked fire hydrants out of the ground. Some well-built modern 2-story homes that were bolted to their foundations were completely destroyed, leaving only the foundation. This type of damage is characteristic of an EF-5 tornado with 205 mph winds. The Smithville tornado is the first EF-5 tornado in Mississippi since the Candlestick Park tornado of March 3, 1966. Three other tornadoes from Wednesday's outbreak have been given preliminary EF-4 ratings, with winds of 166 - 200 mph. These include the Phil Campbell, AL tornado (26 deaths), the Ringgold, GA tornado (7 deaths), the Tanner, GA tornado (11 deaths), and the Apison, Tennessee tornado (13 deaths, and possibly the same tornado that hit Ringgold.) The violent tornado that ravaged Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Alabama, killing at least 46 people and injuring 600, has not yet been given an official rating. I expect this tornado will be rated an EF-4 (possibly an EF-5.) This tornado is likely to be the most expensive tornado of all-time, and damage from the April 25 - 28 outbreak is likely rank as the most expensive tornado outbreak in history. The current record is the $3.5 billion price tag, in 2005 dollars, of the April 3 - 4, 1974 Super Outbreak . According wunderground's weather historian, Christopher C. Burt in his post The World's Deadliest Tornadoes, the death toll of 319 makes the April 25 - 28, 2011 tornado outbreak the fourth deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history, and the deadliest since 1936. It is the deadliest of the past 50 years, surpassing the April 3 - 4, 1974 Super Outbreak (315 killed) and the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak (256 killed.)
Figure 1. Still frame from an animation showing the height and extent of the rain columns associated with the thunderstorms that spawned Wednesday's tornadoes. This data, taken from NASA's TRMM satellite, showed that some of these violent storms reached incredible heights of almost 10.6 miles (17 km.) Image credit: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce
The 4-day total of preliminary tornado reports of 346 from this outbreak is close to the 323 preliminary tornado reports logged during the massive April 14 - 16 tornado outbreak. That outbreak has 155 confirmed tornadoes so far, making it the largest April tornado outbreak on record, and 3rd largest in history. The numbers from this week's outbreak may be even higher, giving April 2011 the 3rd and 4th largest tornado outbreaks in history, and the deadliest outbreak in 75 years. According to a list of tornado outbreaks maintained by Wikipedia, only two other tornado outbreaks have had as many as 150 twisters--the May 2004 outbreak (385), and the May 2003 outbreak (401).
Figure 2. Storm chaser video from Reed Timmer and tornadovideos.net of four tornadoes that hit Alabama and Mississippi on Wednesday.
Figure 3. Storm chaser video of the tornado that moved through Philadelphia, Mississippi on Wednesday.
Unprecedented flooding predicted on Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
This week's storm system, in combination with heavy rains earlier this month, have pushed the Ohio River and Mississippi River to near-record levels near their confluence. The Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois is expected to crest at 60.5 feet on May 1. This would exceed 100-year flood stage, and be the highest flood in history, besting the 59.5' mark of 1937. Heavy rains of 10 - 15 inches have inundated the region over the past week. Additional rains of 1 - 3 inches are expected over the next five days.
Figure 4. Rainfall for the 7-day period ending at 8am EDT Thursday, April 28, 2011. Image credit: NOAA/AHPS.
Record 100+ year flood expected on Mississippi River
Snow melt from this winter's record snow pack across the Upper Mississippi River has formed a pulse of flood waters that is moving downstream. When this floodwater pulse moves south of Cairo, Illinois over the next two weeks, it will join with the record water flow coming out of the Ohio River, and create the highest flood heights ever recorded on the Mississippi, according to the latest forecasts from the National Weather Service. Along a 400-mile stretch of the Mississippi, from Cairo to Natchez, Mississippi the Mississippi is expected to experience the highest flood heights since records began 100 or more years ago, at 5 of the 10 gauges on the river along this stretch. The records are predicted to begin to fall on May 3 at New Madrid, and progress downstream to Natchez by May 20. Areas that are not protected by levees can expect extensive damage from the flooding, and it is possible that the Army Corps of Engineers will have to intentionally dynamite levees at Birds Point and New Madrid, Missouri to protect the town of Cairo from flooding. One unofficial estimate I saw on the Army Corps of Engineers web site put the cost of intentionally breaching the levees at Birds Point and New Madrid at $100 million dollars, due to damage to the croplands and structures in the flooded area. No levee has failed on the Lower Mississippi south of the Ohio River junction since 1950, and the Army Corp of Engineers has designed the levee system to contain a 500-year flood. This means that the Mississippi River flood of 2011--which will be somewhere between a 100-year and 200-year flood between Cairo and Natchez--is not likely to be a multi-billion-dollar disaster like the 1993 flood on the Upper Mississippi, where many levees failed.
The Mississippi River at New Madrid, MO, about 40 miles downstream of the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, is currently at 44.9', the 2nd highest flood in history. The river is predicted to crest on Tuesday very near the all-time record height of 48 feet. The NWS warns that at this height, "Large amounts of property damage can be expected. Evacuation of many homes and businesses becomes necessary." Previous record heights at this location:
(1) 48.00 ft on 02/03/1937
(2) 44.60 ft on 04/09/1913
(3) 43.60 ft on 04/04/1975
(4) 43.50 ft on 02/16/1950
(5) 42.94 ft on 03/17/1997
The timing of the floods crests will depend upon a complex mix a factors, including how much rain falls over the next month, the possible influence of southerly winds holding up the floodwater pulses, the potential opening of flood control structures and reduction of flows from flood control reservoirs, and potential levee failures. The Mississippi River is expected to crest at 17 feet at New Orleans on May 22, three feet below the top of the levees. This would likely require opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway 28 miles upstream from New Orleans, to relieve pressure on the city's levees. Opening the spillway drains 250,000 cubic feet per second of flow into Lake Pontchartrain.
Helping out tornado victims
For those who want to lend a helping hand to those impacted by the widespread destruction this month's severe weather has brought, stop by the portlight.org blog.
Related post: Are tornadoes getting stronger and more frequent? The answer is--we don't know.
Jeff Masters
Tornado damage at County Line Road near Old Alabama Road on the Bradley/Hamilton County line in Tennessee
Reader Comments
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Quoting PcolaDan:
The wind destruction from a hurricane rarely looks like the swath of damage we have seen from this tornado outbreak. Andrew is the only example I have seen. There is scattered wind damage, but not whole neighborhoods and/or towns leveled. The pictures we see from hurricane damage are usually from surge. At least that has been my (unfortunate) hands on experience. I saw first hand what the Red River tornado outbreak of 1979 did. Andrew is the only thing I have seen to best that (wind damage).
Was commenting last night that I find it amazing that a tornado can produce in seconds what hours of relentless sea / storm surge cause. I think Andrew is our best comparison because it is the one cat five landfall we have lots of documentation for but which also doesn't have most of the really bad wind damage "covered over" by the surge damage. I'm thinking about the Keys Hurricane as an alternate; the wind did basically do everything in there, but the storm surge would have overlaid most / all of it.
Hi Res image:Link
(WARNING: ~ 4 MB)
I upload my pictures to Flickr (there are other sites) then link to them.
Note that it doesn't have the organization of a hurricane; the term "inland hurricane" is used by the ignorant and the ratings seekers to freak people out.
I know what it looks like on the ground...I've walked them through fields and subdivisions when I was a kid and as an adult...the image is amazing though; to be that visible from orbit the largest of these was over a mile wide
Post your photos here and link from there
The similarity between these two maps is just coincidence... but I couldn't help noticing it. It triggered my curiosity, so I did a little searching regarding the correlation between earthquakes and hydrology and discovered that there's even a word for this branch of study: hydroseismology.
Indeed, there are some good physical reasons (e.g. - increase in pore pressure) to expect correlations between rainfall and earthquakes. From the linked article:
"The new results link flow in major rivers to the distribution of epicenters and reveal a clear correlation between the supply of water at the Earth's surface and the areal distribution of earthquake epicenters. In addition, the timing of three large intraplate earthquakes in Virginia and West Virginia with respect to hurricanes Camille and Agnes, together with the known or inferred values of crustal hydraulic diffusivity, suggests a causal relationship between the meteorologic impulses and the earthquakes."
I'm not saying these rains are going to trigger an earthquake on the New Madrid fault, but this is yet another reason why I'd like to see these rains move southwest to Texas where they're so desperately needed and away from our battered Midwest.
That's amazing. The image doesn't even have highlighted the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham monster; It's the path cutting through the center of the circular light-colored area a bit south of the two closest-space yellow arrows on the left side of the screen. I bumped up the contrast, and the path becomes pretty evident. And if I'm not mistaken, the path again becomes clear on the northeast side of the cloud mass over Birmingham, and is pretty much consistent on into Georgia.
Amazing, indeed! Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks Flood!
Wow, that thing is HUGE even if it really does not resemble an actual hurricane. The swirl behind that front is certainly large and impressive and had a lot of energy associated with it. WoW!
and Thanks!
You do realize, of course, that this same pattern has repeated itself numerous times in my life; having grown up in Missouri I can assure you that we haven't gotten "the big one" just yet. I try very hard to keep an open mind, but I'm thinking it would take a LOT of water to trigger a big temblor in the midwest. One thing to think about though: historically the fault goes off with a large event every 200 years or so, plus or minus 25 years...1811-1812 was the last big one...just saying
rtn flow detected
Link
No worries...anytime!
Any historical record that there was a major flood before the New Madrid earthquake?
Video
Here is a loop (caution: 13MB) from this webpage.
This is what cofuses me.. Survivors interviewed kept saying "there was no warning". I suppose they could have been in shock but seriously? You didn't know you had a 100% chance of severe weather?
Oh absolutely. If I weren't trying (sort of) to stay busy at work I would've filled that post with caveats and other details like that. The region around the confluence of the Ohio and the Missouri Rivers gets lots of rain every year. Like I said, it only caught my eye because the "bulls-eye" from the recent rainfall totals really did seem to be the right in the center of the New Madrid seismic zone.
But check out the linked article... they have, indeed, correlated high rainfall with earthquakes. A single straw won't break a camel's back, but that idiom is popular because, unintuitive as it often seems, there are times when a system is "ready to go" and just needs some final small push.
Again, I don't really expect these rains to trigger anything on the New Madrid... but after my reading this morning I certainly wouldn't be dumbfounded if they did.
"We anticipate that all of the river casinos will close at some point as the pig goes down the python," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.
From:
Flood may top 1927 record
...... Forecasts for key northeastern Louisiana crests include 53.5 feet in Vicksburg (flood stage is 43 feet) on May 18, 60 feet in Greenville (flood stage is 48 feet) on May 15 and 60 feet in Natchez (flood stage is 48 feet) on May 20. River levels late Thursday afternoon were 41.5 feet in Vicksburg, 48.7 feet in Greenville and 47.3 feet in Natchez.....
Scrub
Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:16:41 AM CST
Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach called off today's launch attempt, NASA Commentator George Diller reported. Diller said technicians will go into the aft compartment to investigate APU heaters that failed. "We know (launch) will be no earlier than Sunday," Diller said.
Here are the actual number of storms and the amount I predicted over the last 5 years. As you can see 2006 was big miss, but the last 4 seasonal forecast numbers have been pretty good.
Year
Allan Predicted
Actual
2006
16
9
2007
15
15
2008
13
16
2009
10
9
2010
18
19
Last season was a very active season with 19 named storms, the 4thmost active season since 1948. My prediction of 18 seemed a bit ambitious to some but the signals were all there for an active season. However, it was not an active season for US landfalls with Tropical Storm Bonnie hitting south Florida, Tropical Storm Hermine hitting south Texas, and Hurricane Earl skirting the east coast. It seems likely that we will have a neutral ENSO phase this hurricane season if the La Nina weakens as expected and as of now I do not expect an El Nino to form during the season. If you look back over the last 61 hurricane seasons, 21 seasons had an August-October period that averaged out as an El Nino state. Those seasons produced an average of 8.3 storms, while those that were in a La Nina state (18 seasons) produced an average of 12 storms, and those that were in a neutral state (22 seasons) produced an average of 13 storms. The most likely reasons for these numbers is that the atmospheric circulation pattern produced by El Nino forcing in the tropics, many times will favor higher wind shear in the Atlantic basin, thus limiting tropical development. However, in neutral and La Nina years, lesser shear is usually present on average. The fact that I am predicting a neutral ENSO for this hurricane season means that of the three ENSO states, I am predicting us to be in the most active state of the three.
However, ENSO is not the only story when it comes to forecasting a hurricane season. I also look closely at the sea surface temperature anomalies in the Atlantic Ocean. There are two main indices to follow with regards to this, one is the AMO (Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation) and the other is the TNA (Tropical North Atlantic). The AMO is a gauge of the state of most of the entire North Atlantic Ocean while the TNA is a measure of the state of the Atlantic between Africa and the Caribbean, where most of the Atlantic tropical waves or systems traverse in their early lives. Since 1948, when the TNA index has been positive (indicative of warmer than normal sea surface temperatures) during the heart of a hurricane season (August-October) the average # of storms has been 13 while when it has been cooler than normal the season has averaged 9 storms. The logic is simple hurricanes need warm ocean water to thrive and the warmer the ocean is compared to normal, the more energy that is available for storms to form and also become intense.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: 2011 Hurricane Forecast - Raleigh Weather | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-raleigh/2011-hu rricane-forecast#ixzz1KwCeEql6
-Numerous to widespread thunderstorms
-Severe hail, quarter to golfball-sized (1 to 1-3/4 inch) possible.
-Damaging wind sustained 40-73 mph and/or gusts 58 mph or greater possible.
-Weak tornadoes or waterspouts possible with typical intensity F0. Coastal Communities Palm Beach & Broward.
Nope...the trading post at St Louis reported flooding in the late 1780s and pretty severe flooding occurred in the 1820s. Not to say there wasn;t flooding, but nothing that is more than a blip on the historical radar
Does it say warning in the background during the first couple seconds?
Good question - I'll have to check it out. My limited searching this morning has lead me to no fewer than three abstracts from reputable sources discussing a theorized link between major rainfall events and seismic events.
Article #1
Article #2
Article #3
nevermind - already re ported ;)
Thanks for checking on that. I was doubtful that the last big one was related to high rain. To be clear, I'm not even remotely suggesting that most, or even very many, earthquakes ARE triggered by high rain. I just had noticed the recent high rains were centered over the New Madrid system and it got me wondering if it was even possible for rain to "lubricate" an already stressed epicenter. My searching yielded some interesting leads worth pursuing later, as time allows...
Not that I saw
Crew Walks Out from Operations and Checkout
Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:59:39 AM EDT
The astronauts of Endeavour walked out of the Operations and Checkout Building and are getting in the Astrovan.
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