Day 120: Arkansas Tornado Outbreak
The night before the start of VORTEX II and a tornado outbreak is under way across portions of the central United States. The Storm Prediction Center upgraded the severe weather outlook to “High Risk” for central Arkansas and for good measure. At least 3 fatalities have 1 fatality has been reported in Scotland, AR and several other towns are reporting significant damage – including portions of Little Rock – with people still trapped. It’s going to be a long night.
Just to give you an idea of how many storms are rotating, at 10:50 PM CDT, there are still 6 tornado warnings in effect!
Day 119: Developing Man-Made Disaster
A large explosion aboard the offshore oil rig “Deepwater Horizon” (located about 52 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana) occurred around 03 UTC on 21 April 2010 which resulted in the sinking of the oil rig on 22 April 2010. Reports indicate that upwards of 210,000 gallons (~5,000 barrels) of oil a day are being released into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of several leaks that have developed in the broken pipe. If my math skills don’t fail me, that would amount to around 1.5 million gallons of oil that have been released into the Gulf of Mexico (by comparison the Exxon Valdez accident from 1989 released 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska). Attempts to use what amounts to an emergency shut-off valve have failed and oil continues to flow freely into the Gulf of Mexico, 5,000 feet below the ocean surface. Plans now are to dig a relief well to relieve some of the pressure into the pipeline to stop the rate at which oil is flowing into the Gulf. However, digging this relief well could potentially take months, allowing oil to continue to flow into the Gulf for the foreseeable future.
Tonight’s image (below) is a satellite image of the oil spill, taken today (image from the Cooperative Institute of Meteorological Satellite Studies). The oil spill can can be seen as the grey area in the center of the image below. As you can see, the spill is drawing closer to the fragile ecology of the Louisiana coast, where approximately 40% of the United States wet land exists.
For much of this spill, the winds in the Gulf of Mexico have kept the oil slick from getting too close to the shore. However with the approach of the large trough mentioned the last two days, winds have increased and become southeasterly throughout much of the oil spill area. This is causing the oil that has reached the ocean surface to be blown toward the Louisiana coast. The slow progression of this large trough will result in winds blowing the oil slick onshore for the next few days. According to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the state’s fishing industry is worth $265 billion at dockside and has a total economic impact of $2.3 trillion. Much of this will be impacted as oil contaminates the rich fishing, oyster, and shrimp waters just offshore.
In terms of total costs, this has the potential to surpass the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Day 118: Southeast Heavy Rain Event
For the past few weeks I’ve alluded to the fact I will have an extremely active spring. I’m involved in both VORTEX II (although my role has continued to evolve over the last few days) and the Experimental Forecast Program (a joint experiment hosted by the National Severe Storms Laboratory [NSSL] and the Storm Prediction Center [SPC] and held in the Hazardous Weather Testbed [HWT; I’m the one in the blue shirt in the image on the upper right!) This year’s experiment will have collaborators from the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) in Kansas City, MO and the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC) in the Washington D.C. / Silver Springs, MD area.
In preparation of this year’s experiment I was on a teleconference this morning with HPC and SPC so tonight I thought it appropriate to display a graphic produced by HPC. Above is the forecast precipitation totals over the next 5 days. As you can see, heavy rain is forecast for places that were hit hard by last weekend’s tornado outbreak. This does not bode well for cleanup efforts. This heavy precipitation is the result of another slow moving trough (#4 in last night’s post) that will move through the southeast late in the week into the weekend.
Day 117: Four Troughs
Last week was fairly quiet until a large, slow-moving trough moved through the United States. It was this trough that brought the severe weather to much of the southern United States last Thursday through Sunday (Thursday’s Post, Friday’s Post, & Saturday’s Post). In the wake of this trough, several more are in the process of moving through the United States, continuing the unsettled weather pattern.
The first trough is currently located in New England and is responsible for bring snow (yes, that’s correct) to portions of northern Vermont and New Hampshire.
The second trough is currently located in the southeast United States. It brought isolated severe thunderstorms to portions of of the Carolinas. (Brad Panovich WCNC kept busy this afternoon dealing with these!). In the wake of this second trough unseasonably cold air has filtered in, allowing for widespread frost and freeze advisories and warnings for the Midwest and Great Lakes region.
The third trough is currently located in northern Mexico and is slowly moving east at this latitude (roughly that of the US-Mexico border. This trough isn’t a big rain maker or anything, but the wind flow around it will wreak havoc in the transport of moisture northward into the central plains. This trough is what is helping to limit the severe threat somewhat on Thursday and Friday. Without it, the chances of severe weather would be much higher.
The fourth trough is another large, slowly moving trough that will cross the United States. The entire yellow circle can be though of as the main trough with the red circle being the most concentrated area. (In fact, the red circle would be what most meteorologists would incorrectly [or more precisely, lazily] refer to as a “piece of energy”. It’s actually a smaller shortwave trough rotating through a larger trough.) As this large trough moves slowly east it will be begin to draw moisture northward into the central plains. At this point it appears that severe weather is possible but a major severe weather outbreak is not imminent. As the trough moves into the eastern United States, widespread heavy rains appear possible and flash flooding will become a concern over areas of the southeast.
It’s going to be a busy end to the week…and this is before considering all I have to do before VORTEX II starts on Saturday.
Day 116: A Mother’s Love…
Tonight I will break from my usual posts about ongoing meteorological postings; tonight I want to share something else. In the wake of every significant tornado event stories of true courage emerge from the wreckage left behind. The tornado outbreak this past weekend is no different. The story below is a heart wrenching one, but one that every parent, those considering becoming a parents, or those loved by a parent should read. The original article can be found here, but is reposted below in case the link disappears.
(CBS) More than two days after a massive tornado tore across 17 Mississippi counties, Yazoo City resident Sherry Carpenter is still overwhelmed by the loss.
Her three grandchildren were in this house when the tornado picked it up and smashed it to the ground.
Their mother, 30-year-old Nikki Bradshaw Carpenter, covered them with a mattress and then laid on top of it to protect them.
She was found dead but her sons survived, sheltered underneath the mattress and the wreckage.
“She saved those kids and gave her life,” Carpenter told CBS News correspondent Don Teague. “But that was Nikki because those kids came first.”
Officials say nearly 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed when as many as 50 tornados swarmed across the southeast Saturday.
The largest, an E-F4 that struck Yazoo City with winds up to 170 miles per hour, measured 1.75 miles wide.
A typical tornado is just 50 yards wide.
Now the cleanup is under way and State and Federal agencies are doing what they can, with volunteers from near and far…doing the rest.
But some things can never be rebuilt. Like a family of boys whose mother died protecting them.
“They don’t know their mama’s gone and that they’ll never see her again,” said Carpenter of Nikki. “But she saved them. I have no doubt she saved those boys.”
Day 115: Sunday Night Baseball Rain Delay
Those who know me understand that I am an avid baseball fan. In fact, when I am not in the midst of preparing for multiple experiments, you can often find me at L. Dale Mitchell watching Park watching the Oklahoma Sooners’ baseball team.
Tonight my favorite professional baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, was on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball playing in New York City against the Mets. My wife and I planned our weekend around watching the game together since tonight is my last weekend night at home for the next two months. Unfortunately for us, the game entered a rain delay in the 6th inning. The radar image above doesn’t bode well for this game being completed any time soon.
Such are the breaks…
Mississippi Tornado Information
Below is from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jackson, MS. I thought it important enough for it to be it’s own blog post. EF4 tornado with a maximum width of 1.75 miles. Simply amazing…
000 NOUS44 KJAN 260230 PNSJAN PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS 930 PM CDT SUN APR 25 2010 ...PRELIMINARY INFORMATION FROM STORM DAMAGE SURVEYS TODAY... FOUR NWS STORM DAMAGE SURVEY TEAMS HAVE BEEN SURVEYING DAMAGE FROM AROUND THE REGION CAUSED BY THE DEVASTATING STORMS OF SATURDAY. THE FOLLOWING IS PRELIMINARY INFORMATION REGARDING THE MAJOR STORM THAT MOVED FROM NORTHEAST LOUISIANA ACROSS CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI. NWS SURVEY TEAMS SURVEYED THE PATH OF THE STORM FROM ITS START WEST OF TALLULAH, LOUISIANA TO AS FAR AS DURANT, MISSISSIPPI. TORNADO DAMAGE...MUCH OF IT STRONG...WAS FOUND ALONG THIS ENTIRE PATH...AT LEAST IN THOSE AREAS ACCESSIBLE BY ROAD. BASED ON THESE SURVEYS...THIS IS A SUMMARY OF THE INFORMATION SO FAR: PATH LENGTH: 97 MILES...THIS LENGTH WILL INCREASE AS MORE DAMAGE IS SURVEYED EAST OF TODAY`S SURVEY MAXIMUM WIDTH: 1.75 MILES RATING: EF4, WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 170 MPH CASUALTIES: 10 TOTAL FATALITIES WITH DOZENS OF INJURIES A NUMBER OF AREAS OF EF3 DAMAGE WITH ESTIMATED WINDS OF 150 TO 165 MPH WERE FOUND ALONG THE PATH. TWO AREAS OF EF4 DAMAGE WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 170 MPH WERE FOUND...ONE IN YAZOO CITY...AND THE OTHER IN HOLMES COUNTY. ANOTHER SURVEY TEAM IS STILL SURVEYING DAMAGE IN CHOCTAW COUNTY CAUSED BY THE SAME STORM. THIS DAMAGE HAS BEEN DETERMINED TO BE AT LEAST HIGH END EF3. WHETHER OR NOT THIS IS A PART OF A CONTINUOUS TORNADO PATH ALL THE WAY BACK TO ITS START IN NORTHEAST LOUISIANA HAS YET TO BE DETERMINED. NWS SURVEY TEAMS WILL BE IN HOLMES...ATTALA...AND CHOCTAW COUNTIES AGAIN MONDAY TO TRY TO DETERMINE THIS...AND WILL ALSO BE ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN AERIAL DATA TO HELP CONFIRM A CONTINUOUS PATH. IT MUST BE STRESSED THAT ALL OF THIS INFORMATION IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TO LATER ADJUSTMENT. A TORNADO OF THIS STRENGTH AND MAGNITUDE REQUIRES A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF DAMAGE SURVEYS AND DATA ANALYSIS. THE NWS WILL CONTINUE TO PROVIDE UPDATES AS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS OBTAINED...AND IS PLANNING TO HOLD A MEDIA BRIEFING LATER THIS WEEK TO PROVIDE A FULL ANALYSIS OF THE STORM AND THE DAMAGE SURVEY RESULTS. THE NWS WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL OF OUR PARTNERS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT FOR THEIR INVALUABLE ASSISTANCE IN PERFORMING OUR DAMAGE SURVEYS. $$ AEG/GRG/SCW/BK
About Patrick
Patrick Marsh is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Physics (cum laude) from the University of Arkansas in 2005 and a Masters of Science in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma in 2007. In addition to working on his doctorate, Patrick serves as the National Severe Storms Laboratory Liaison to the Hazardous Weather Testbed where his research interests lie in working with operational forecasters, data mining, data visualization, and all things high-impact weather. For more about Patrick's work, check out his complete CV!
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