Historic Multi Day Tornado/Flooding Event 4/23-28/2011

[Texas Snowman]

Thought:

Today's violent tornadoes went through heavily populated areas and the death toll will almost certainly continue to rise with the light of day tomorrow.

Even so, whatever the final death toll turns out to be from today's horrific tornado outbreak, it would be an almost certainty that Doppler Radar; NWS early warnings; local and national media updates; Web sites like Storm2k.org and even social media usage (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) worked together to save countless lives today.

[Bunkertor]

From @TxStormChasers: "Already hearing today being called Wicked Wednesday by some of those in the South. Definitely a fitting name..."

How ´bout "Habs and Pens out Day" ?

[Texas Snowman]

From @TxStormChasers: "Already hearing today being called Wicked Wednesday by some of those in the South. Definitely a fitting name..."

How ´bout "Habs and Pens out Day" ?

You might have to explain that one to non-hockey fans...

[Dave]

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PEACHTREE CITY GA
1206 AM EDT THU APR 28 2011

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PEACHTREE CITY HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
NORTHEASTERN HARRIS COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL GEORGIA
SOUTHEASTERN MERIWETHER COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL GEORGIA
SOUTHEASTERN PIKE COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL GEORGIA
NORTHWESTERN TALBOT COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL GEORGIA
NORTHWESTERN UPSON COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL GEORGIA

* UNTIL 1245 AM EDT

* AT 1203 AM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR WAS
TRACKING A WELL DEFINED TORNADO ABOUT 4 MILES SOUTHWEST OF WARM
SPRINGS...MOVING EAST AT 40 MPH. PERSONS NEAR MANCHESTER AND
WARM SPRINGS SHOULD MOVE TO A SAFE PLACE NOW!!

* OTHER LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO WARM
SPRINGS...MANCHESTER...WOODBURY...MOLENA...CONCORD...THOMASTON...
ZEBULON AND MEANSVILLE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. THIS
STORM IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING STRONG TO VIOLENT TORNADOES.

[Dave]

This one is very close to my sisters house on US 441 outside of Knoxville TN

JEFFERSON TN-COCKE TN-SEVIER TN-GREENE TN-
1159 PM EDT WED APR 27 2011

...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1230 AM EDT FOR
GREENE...SEVIER...COCKE AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES...

AT 1156 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR CONTINUED TO
INDICATE A TORNADO. THIS TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR HARRISBURG...OR 6
MILES NORTH OF GATLINBURG...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 70 MPH.

THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...
DANDRIDGE AROUND 1205 AM EDT.
NEWPORT AND WHITE PINE AROUND 1215 AM EDT.
PARROTTSVILLE AROUND 1220 AM EDT.
GREENEVILLE AROUND 1230 AM EDT.

OTHER LOCATIONS AFFECTED BY THIS SEVERE THUNDERSTORM INCLUDE BIRD
CROSSING...CHESTNUT HILL...BYBEE...CANEY BRANCH AND MOSHEIM.

[Dave]

All clear for sis's place and all are ok. Going to talk with them for a little while and get some sleep. Everyone stay safe tonight who are in front of these storms and prayers go out to the people who came through it today. G'night!

[PTPatrick]

Have been studying where the tuscaloosa tornado and bham tornado...Univ of Alabama was probably within .5 to 1 mile of utter devastation. Looks like th highly commericial areas along 15th and Mcfarland took a direct hit. DCH looks to have been on the edge of devastation as well.

I am not believing that it hit the same NW areas destroyed int he 1998 F5. Talk about bad luck. I cant imagine living through 1 F5 in my life, let alone possibly 2(this hasnt been confirmed yet as f5 in the bham areas). Oddly enough it looked worse on video in bham...much bigger wall cloud/wedge than in tuscaloosa on the footage I saw, but perhaps it was just dispersing and really more of a wall cloud. based on reports, while the pleasant grove area is in bad shape, reports make it sound not as bad as tuscaloosa. remains to be seen. If I had 2 f5s hit my house in a 15 years, i would def consider moving...

[cheezyWXguy]

Have been studying where the tuscaloosa tornado and bham tornado...Univ of Alabama was probably within .5 to 1 mile of utter devastation. Looks like th highly commericial areas along 15th and Mcfarland took a direct hit. DCH looks to have been on the edge of devastation as well.

I am not believing that it hit the same NW areas destroyed int he 1998 F5. Talk about bad luck. I cant imagine living through 1 F5 in my life, let alone possibly 2(this hasnt been confirmed yet as f5 in the bham areas). Oddly enough it looked worse on video in bham...much bigger wall cloud/wedge than in tuscaloosa on the footage I saw, but perhaps it was just dispersing and really more of a wall cloud. based on reports, while the pleasant grove area is in bad shape, reports make it sound not as bad as tuscaloosa. remains to be seen. If I had 2 f5s hit my house in a 15 years, i would def consider moving...

yeah i watched the storm on radar as it passed by birmingham, and during that time, it appeared that the structure of the storm temporarily fell apart, although soon after it quickly regained its incredible presentation. In all the times Ive spent watching radar, I dont think Ive ever seen a storm with such an impressive radar presentation as this one. If it is deemed an EF5 at some point along its journey I would not be surprised the slightest bit.

[Brent]

Everyone must watch this if you missed it earlier... ABC 33/40 catches Tuscaloosa tornado on camera... 5:00 is particularly epic

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA7TKSHJ_wM[/youtube]

[Extratropical94]

Incredible...
Does anyone know if there had been a deadlier single tornado in the last decades?
I can not remember any with 25 deaths...

btw: 144 reported tornadoes @ 0610Z
--> still 6 hours to add to the Apr 27 numbers

[Calasanjy]

Incredible...
Does anyone know if there had been a deadlier single tornado in the last decades?
I can not remember any with 25 deaths...

There have been a couple of tornadoes with over 25 deaths in recent decades. The Evansville, IN tornado during the night of November 6, 2005 killed exactly 25 people. In addition, the F5 which struck the Oklahoma City area on May 3, 1999 killed 36 people, according to Wikipedia. The Jarrell, TX F5 tornado on May 27, 1997 killed 27 people. This tornado will likely be the deadliest since at least Evansville, and unfortunately there's the chance it could approach Bridge Creek/Moore (OKC) figures.

The number of tornado reports is now 144-145, whereas the "Super Outbreak" of 1974 had 148 total tornadoes. I wonder how many individual tornadoes will verify from this event? While this outbreak likely featured more activity concentrated within a region (MS/AL/extreme southern TN), the April 3, 1974 outbreak was more widespread.

[HurricaneBill]

Incredible...
Does anyone know if there had been a deadlier single tornado in the last decades?
I can not remember any with 25 deaths...

btw: 144 reported tornadoes @ 0610Z
--> still 6 hours to add to the Apr 27 numbers

The Evansville (IN) Tornado in 2005 killed 25.

The Macon County (TN) Tornado in 2008 killed 22.

The Picher (OK) - Neosho (MO) Tornado in 2008 killed 21.

[bob rulz]

Don't forget that this outbreak isn't yet finished either. It looks like there's still at least 6 tornado warnings in effect.

[Extratropical94]

Thanks for those stats.
You're very right, this outbreak is much more concentrated on a small area making it far more dangerous for cities in the MS/AL region.
Confirmed numbers wont reach 148 in my opinion, maybe the prelims do.
But still, a confirmation rate of around 80 percent would result in a total of ~120 tornadoes in ONE SINGLE DAY

[Extratropical94]

148 reported tornadoes!

Got another question:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/newm.html says we had 846 tornado reports until Apr 25

Now including the Apr 26 & 27 events, shouldn't we be far beyond 900?
WCM page only shows 877 reports.
Does the SPC decrease the preliminary numbers every once in a while?

[Cyclenall]

I just counted 31 tornado warnings at once...beyond crazy...

I couldn't watch the whole outbreak today but I did see at around 3:00 pm EDT 15 tornado warnings at once on the map so I knew that was a very bad sign and thought this could get ugly quick. Was there this amount of TOR warnings at once straight to now?

CrazyC83, you went chasing today?

No, I was on vacation driving south! About 27% the way to Florida.

Wow, that was lucky (or unlucky depending on one's point of view ).

I wouldn't compare this outbreak of tornadoes to the Super Outbreak because I doubt the number of violent tornadoes (EF4 and EF5's) was anywhere close to that of 1974 SO. There were probably more than a few EF3+ for sure which is a huge deal.

This outbreak for April 27th will be remembered mostly as Alabama's worst tornado outbreak potentially ever (not sure yet) and for the very high death toll as a result.

The Tuscaloosa tornado also reminds me of the Andover KS F5 twister of 1991 which I saw mentioned somewhere else too. The colour and behavior of the twister matched pretty well and was only 1 day off from the 20th anniversary of it .

At 4:00 am EDT, there were 10 tornado warnings at once, seriously deranged.

[bob rulz]

The death toll has been updated to 183!!!

128 in Alabama
32 in Mississippi
11 in Georgia
6 in Tennessee
4 in Virginia
2 in Louisiana




There's no real specific info about how many were caused by tornadoes, winds, or flooding, although it's clear that the majority of these were caused by tornadoes, and how many people were killed specifically by certain tornadoes, but this makes it by far the deadliest outbreak since the Super Outbreak.

EDIT: Also, for those wondering, it appears that the deadliest outbreak since the Super Outbreak (until now of course) was one that hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ontario on May 31, 1985, killing 88 (76 in the U.S. and 12 in Canada).

[srainhoutx]

It’s not very often in the world of weather that we have a chance to witness such extreme meteorological events. It has been amazing to see the parameters and data we saw day after day come to fruition. Hopefully more lives were saved with the advanced warnings of the day. Regardless of the standing, (i.e. Super Outbreak/74) this will rank as one of the more destructive and deadly multi day events of modern US history. My thoughts are with all that have suffered from this event.

[PTrackerLA]

AP is reporting death toll is now 193. This is just horrific, I can't believe what I watched unfold yesterday afternoon. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims and those affected.

[MGC]

Terrible news. God bless those impacted by these tornadoes.....MGC