Odd Midwest Tornado Outbreak Creates Havoc, Damage

Massive tornado approaching Taylerville, Illinois
Saturday evening. Photo by Robert Wolfe.

UPDATE: DECEMBER 4:

This proved to be the largest December Illinois on record. So far, they've counted 26 tornadoes in Illinois on December 1, beating the previous December record of 21 set in 1957. Shout out to Mike Bettes at the Weather Channel for pointing this out.

The National Weather Service in Springfield, Illinois said Saturday's outbreak was the third largest tornado outbreak for any month of the year.

Tornadoes in Illinois are much more of a springtime type of event. The largest Illinois tornado outbreak had 39 of them on April 16, 1996. There were 32 twisters in Illinois on April 2, 2006.

The worst tornado, the one I describe in my pre-updated post, below, was an EF3 with winds of up to 155 mph. It was up to a half mile wide and stay on the ground for nearly 13 miles.

It thankfully killed nobody, but left 22 injured, destroyed 34 homes, left 66 homes too damaged to inhabit, and left another 406 homes damaged but inhabitable. says the Springfield NWS.  

On Sunday, the severe weather continued, this time in the Southeast. One twister tore through King's Bay Naval Base in Georgia, causing relatively minor injuries to five people and leaving a trail of damage.

It surprisingly hasn't been a particularly busy end of year tornado period. There were 42 tornado reports in November in the United States, which isn't far from average. We're up to about 30 so far in this young December month. If we don't get many more twisters before the end of the year, December, too, will come out pretty close to normal in the tornado department.

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Over the past two days, a rather out of season tornado outbreak has been causing big trouble from Oklahoma to Illinois to Georgia.

A strong, sprawling storm in the middle of the country is to blame.

Friday, the first day of the tornadoes wasn't much of a surprise. Forecasters had alerted people days in advance that eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri were under the gun. And these regions indeed got hit Friday.

One person died Friday night in a Missouri tornado, and another twister that might have tracked for as long as 60 miles through eastern Oklahoma caused a lot of damage, especially around Lake Tenkiller.

Saturday was more of a surprise. We knew there was the risk of severe storms and possible tornadoes in Illinois on Saturday. but things got out of control beyond what most people imagined.

So far there have been 22 reports of tornadoes in Illinois. Most of those tornadoes came from three or four supercell thunderstorms that kept dropping twister.

An especially strong one smashed the Illinois town of Taylorville, population approximately 11,000. Meteorologists watched in horror as radar indicated a strong tornado heading toward that town for as much as an hour before hitting. Everyone hoped it would weaken, but it didn't.

At least Taylorville residents got plenty of warning. The National Weather Service in Lincoln, Illinois  issued a tornado warning for the Taylorville area 42 minutes before the twister struck.

Another tornado spinning in Illinois yesterday.

Despite extensive damage to more than 100 homes, there were no deaths reported. About thirty people were injured.

Not necessarily fun fact: The high school sports teams in this town are the Taylorville Tornadoes.

The supercell responsible for this tornado lasted a long time, starting east of St. Louis and ending east of Bloomington, Illinois, a distance of 140 miles. As noted, this storm kept spitting out tornadoes along its path.

This morning, tornado warnings went up in parts of southern Georgia.

Tornado outbreaks do happen from time to time this time of year, if there's a strong enough parent storm system, as there was over the past couple of days.  It's a pretty odd to have such powerful tornadoes go as far north as central Illinois in early December, but it's not completely unprecedented.

Tornadoes have touched down as far north as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in past Decembers. However most twisters in the final month of the year are confined to near the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi Valley.

One ingredient for tornadoes is warm, humid air, which is something of a rarity during the first month of winter.

Tornadoes are especially dangerous this time of year because people tend not to expect them. Plus, they're more likely to happen in darkness, since days are so short. People might not be aware of a twister approaching under cover of darkness.

After today, tornadoes seem unlikely in the United States until at least next Saturday, when a new storm along the Gulf Coast might create some Deep South severe weather.

Today's Southeast Tornado Outbreak Could Be Especially Nasty

The elementary school in Goodman, Missouri was trashed by
a tornado Tuesday evening, marking the start of the latest
tornado outbreak. Photo via Twitter, Fox 23 News. 

UPDATE: The Storm Prediction Center has upgraded the tornado risk in part of the Southeast to "High" which is the most dire level of alert

The High Risk zone extends through central Georgia into part of South Carolina. Large, destructive tornadoes are quite possible in this area.

Already, a large, catastrophic looking tornado was already reported on the ground in southwestern Georgia as of 12:45 p.m.

As of 1 p.m., there was reports of extensive damage in a half mile to mile wide path with this tornado, so this is about as big as they come. Extremely dangerous, too. And with this type of weather setup, this tornado,and others like it, could stay on the ground for a long time. Which of course is really, really bad.

This extremely dangerous tornado was headed toward Plains, Georgia as of 1 p.m.  That's Jimmy Carter's home town. It was also heading for the bigger town of Americus, Georgia, population 16,000+.

Scary

Areas surrounding the high risk area are also in danger of powerful, deadly tornadoes for pretty much the rest of the day.

It's also beginning to look like there will be a tornado risk extending up the East Coast to as far as Virginia tonight.

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As of early this Wednesday morning, there was already a tornado watch up for a most of Alabama, western Georgia and the Florida panhandle.

That they would issue tornado watches this early in the day is an ominous sign that this could be a particularly destructive day in the Southeast and parts of the Tennessee and Ohio river valleys.

Forecasters are definitely worried there could be numerous tornadoes today, and some of them could be quite strong.

The power of a particular tornado outbreak is hard to pinpoint even a few hours in advance. Sure, you often know a day or two in advance whether there's potential for lots of strong tornadoes, or just a couple weak spinups.

The potential is certainly there today for some carnage, but tornadoes are all a matter of luck.

Maybe we'll get lucky and the atmosphere won't come together quite perfectly enough to produce a lot of dangerous tornadoes.

Or, a few very strong tornadoes will develop, but they'll go over rural and forested countryside and not hit any towns or cities.

We could also get unlucky, and a tornado could maraude through a population center, like in April, 2011, when a super outbreak trashed Tuscaloosa, Alabama and other populated towns in the South, killing more than 300 people, injuring nearly 2,800 and causing over $10 billion in damage.

I'm sure today's outbreak won't be as bad as the cataclysm of 2011, which was arguably the worst tornado outbreak in U.S. history.

There won't be as many tornadoes this time, the dangerous weather won't last as long, and we'll probably be luckier than in 2011.

Still, in one respect, our nation's luck with tornadoes seems to have run out this year.

After the very tragic tornado year of 2011, each of the five years from 2012 to 2016 were relatively quiet in terms of tornadoes. Those years had their share of tornado deaths and destruction, but not on par with how bad it often gets in the United States in the spring.

However, this year, we're on a near-record pace for tornadoes. As of a couple days ago,  U.S. Tornadoes says that the United States has had a reported 474 tornadoes so far in 2017, with 27 deaths.

And the season is still young. Tornado season usually peaks in May.

What will become this latest outbreak of tornadoes actually started in Missouri last night, when the town of Goodman was hit by a twister that badly damaged its elementary school, a fire station and part of downtown. Luckily, no deaths with that one, but there were two injuries.

People in the Southeast are taking few chances with their luck today. The governor of Alabama has already declared a state of emergency, and many schools are closed across Alabama, Georgia and other states.

Everybody in the region is being told to know where to go very quickly to a basement or a tornado shelter within a moment's notice.

The latest anticipated tornado outbreak will end Thursday when dangerous thunderstorms exit the Mid-Atlantic coast. After a brief break, there's a chance of more tornadoes in the Midwest Sunday. After that, who knows?

Maybe we'll get lucky and the season will quiet down. Don't bet on it, though.

No Gigantic Tornado Outbreak On Tuesday Defied Forecast, But Don't Complain

A tornado near Howe, Texas Tuesday night.
There were far fewer tornadoes Tuesday than
expected, and that's a good thing. 

I suppose you can say the forecasts for the central and southern Plains was wrong for Tuesday.

I, and NOAA's Storm Prediction Center and lots and LOTS of other forecasters said there was a good possibility of strong, long-tracked tornadoes for that region Tuesday afternoon and evening.

There were none.

Oh sure, there were some smaller tornadoes, And lots of big hail and thunderstorms with destructive winds. And flash flooding.

For the record there were 13 preliminary reports of tornadoes Tuesday, 388 reports of damaging winds and 273 hail reports, so it was definitely a stormy day out there.

But there were none of the expected huge, photogenic but unwanted tornadoes that literally tear communities apart. If a forecast is going to be inaccurate, this is the type of inaccuracy I like.

True, municipalities closed schools and made other emergency preparations that might not have been necessary, but that's good practice.

Hordes of storm chasers looking for their dream tornadoes came away disappointed, and wasted money and time chasing nonexistent storms.

But those are the breaks! And there will be other tornadoes to chase. Possibly in the next few days, in fact.

Look at this way. Communities are not in ruins. Families are not mourning dead fathers, mothers, children, aunts, uncles.

As noted, there is the possibility of dangerous thunderstorms, and tornadoes daily for the next week in different parts of the country. Don't let your guard down in those areas.

In fact, on Wednesday, there was an outbreak of tornadoes. Not the worst ever, but still bad. There were 19 reports of tornadoes in an arc from Iowa through Illinois into western Kentucky.  One tornado touched down in the Omaha, Nebraska metro area Wednesday and caused damage.

So it wasn't all good news on the tornado front this week.

The lack of enormous tornadoes on Tuesday, while definitely a very good thing, highlights the fact that we still have a lot to learn about forecasting severe weather.

Forecasts have gotten much, much better, but we still can't forecast precisely where tornadoes will hit more than a few minutes or at most, an hour, before they strike.

And overall storm systems sometimes "over perform" dropping more, and more dangerous tornadoes than expected. And sometimes we get days like Tuesday, where it's not as bad as feared.

One preliminary look at what made Tuesday's forecast gratefully wrong was a subtle feature in the air mass over places like Oklahoma and Kansas.

You need massive updrafts as one important ingredient in the formation of supercell thunderstorms that produce tornadoes. That was certainly in place Tuesday. But there was a subtle layer in the atmosphere where the updraft wasn't as violently upward as expected. In fact, there was a little layer of sinking air in spots.

That might be one reason that tornadoes were stifled. And another lesson learned for forecasters.

The lack of tornadoes Tuesday just might have made forecasting future tornado outbreaks just a tiny, tiny bit better in the future.

Here's a video of a funnel cloud/tornado lurking behind a building in the Omaha, Nebraska area Wednesday:

Will The Nation's Good Luck With Tornadoes in 2014 Run Out This Weekend

After arguably the worst year for tornadoes in the nation's history in combined terms of death and destruction in 2011, the years 2012 and 2013, and so far 2014 have been comparatively painless in the tornado department.

A deadly EF5 tornado sweeps through Moore, OK in May, 2013.
Luckily such strong tornados have been relatively
rare for the past year, but that could change this weekend.  

That's not to diminish the terrible effects of deadly tornado outbreaks in March 2012 in the Ohio Valley, May, 2013 in and around Oklahoma; and in the Midwest in November, 2013.

Those outbreaks spread incredible pain and tragedy in the areas they hit.

But still, the number and breadth of deadly tornadoes was below normal.

So far in 2014, nobody in the United States has died in a tornado, so we've broken the record for the latest first tornado death of the year for any year.  (The old record for the first tornado death was April 21, 2003 in Illinois.

Plus there hasn't been an EF3 or stronger tornado in the United States yet this year. That breaks the record for the latest first occurence of a strong tornado in the nation. An EF3 tornado has winds of between 111 and 135 mph.

Our luck with tornadoes looks like it will probably run out this weekend. Forecasters are increasingly confident of an outbreak of tornadoes Saturday through Monday in the Great Plains and southern Mississippi Valley.

It's starting to look like some of those tornadoes might be strong, as all the weather patterns seem to be coming together to produce those dangerous storms.

There might be a some severe weather, and maybe a tornado or two today through Friday out in that part of the nation, but watch out starting Saturdy.

We can hope the tornadoes that form this weekend spin up over open country, yieldiing dramatic videos from storm chasers, but no destruction to houses, or death to anybody.

First Real Tornado, Severe Weather Outbreak Of The Season This Week

Tis the season, unfortunately.  

A huge tornado roars through Xenia, Ohio
on April 4, 1974. It was part of what was
until 2011 the largest tornado outbreak in U.S.
history. Another tornado outbreak is
likely this week, the 40th anniversary
of this one, but luckily it won't be nearly as big.  

Tornado season.  Which looks like it might get underway in earnest this week.

In March and April, the nation's midsection is very often raked by a lot of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.

This year has so far been rather quiet tornado season, thanks to the very chilly March in much of the eastern two thirds of the nation.

(Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes need warm, humid air to form, something that was mostly lacking this March)

According to the the National Storm Prediction Center, there had been 46 tornadoes in the nation through March 26, compared to an average of about 130 by then.

It looks like we might catch up and get closer to the normal count by the end of the week.

There will probably be a few tornadoes in the Midwest today, especially around Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas, areas that generally are most likely to get tornadoes this time of year.

It doesn't look like there will be too many tornadoes today, but there will probably be a number of reports of big hail and strong winds.

The chances of tornadoes increases on Thursday and there could be quite a few of them, possibly a dozen or more. That's not the biggest outbreak you can get, but that's still cause for concern.

The most likely region for tornadoes Thursday is in the lower Mississippi Valley, from southern Illinois south.

Tomorrow's likely tornadoes come on the 40th anniversary of what was until recently the worst, biggest tornado outbreak in U.S. history.

On April 3-4, 1974, 148 tornadoes raked a big area of the country's midsection in less than 24 hours. 

What was scary about that storm is that 30 of the tornadoes were very strong, (EF4s and EF5s with winds of at least 166 mph.

The only tornado outbreak bigger and worse than the one in 1974 was on April 25-28, 2011, with 358 tornadoes, including 211 on just one day, April 27. The death toll was 348 in that one, compared to 330 in the 1974 outbreak.

Of course, with better radar and equipment, some tornadoes that wouldn't have been noticed in 1974 were caught in 2011.

In any event, this week's tornado outbreak doesn't look like it will be nearly as bad as 1974 or 2011, so we can take some comfort in that.

Still, let's hope all the tornadoes this week go through open country and not neighborhoods.