That Tornado Outbreak Killed 30 People; Major, Sometimes Weird Destruction

Just a slab is left of this house in Mississippi after this weekend's tornadoes,
and nobody is sure where it or its debris ended up. Photo by
Steven Macleroy, @SMacleroy on Twitter.

The weather system that caused all those tornadoes across the South has largely moved on, but people will still be picking up the pieces of this for a long time.

At last count, at least 30 people died in these tornadoes in the past couple of days.

There are at least 70 preliminary reports of tornadoes from this outbreak, and some of them were exceptionally strong. That accounts for the high death toll.

As in all major tornadoes, the damage can be extreme and very weird.  Three people were killed in a Mississippi cafe, where the only thing left was a concrete slab and debris piled up against fallen trees a few dozen feet away.

Another Mississippi house was also gone, with just a foundation and some floor boards. Drone footage taken at the scene appeared to show almost no debris around the house. I asked photographer Steven Macleroy, @SMacleroy on Twitter what he saw:

"We are not sure where any of that house ended up. There was very little that the homeowner's brother could find. The homeowner actually lives in Louisiana. Thankfully he and his family were not there."

Thankfully, indeed.  My guess is the house just got bodily sucked up into the tornado, pulverized in the air and rained down as small pieces of debris miles away.  Radar did show debris from this tornado nearly 30,000 feet in the air.

And Alabama meteorologist James Spann said a photograph that landed near Tuscaloosa, Alabama came from a tornado-destroyed house 120 miles away in Mississippi.  Another house in Mississippi had its house and most of its walls torn down, but a freshly baked cake in a glass container sat untouched on an island counter in the middle of what was left of the kitchen.

Some severe thunderstorms will linger in northern Florida today and perhaps tomorrow, but there are no new big tornado outbreaks in the immediate forecast.

Still, there has already been more than 60 tornado deaths in the United States, just a smidge under average for an entire year.  This is shaping up to be the worst yeaer for tornadoes since the epic year of 2011, which saw more than 500 tornado deaths.

We are still in the early parts of tornado season, with May usually being the worst month. Which means more outbreaks are likely.  We just don't know when, where and how bad.  You want tornadoes to hit open areas with little population, but as we saw in the South over the past couple days, that's more often than not impossible.

Videos:

Many of the areas hit by the strong tornadoes on Easter have a lot of mobile homes, which are especially dangerous in twisters. This aerial view includes some shots of just brown rectangles in the landscape. That's where mobile homes were. In some cases, where they are now is anybody's guess:



This video by Gage Shaw demonstrates one of many reasons why tornadoes in the Deep South are often more dangerous than a lot of twisters in the Great Plains.

In this video, the mile-wide EF-4, powerful tornado is in there. You have to know what you're looking for. Look carefully and you can see the back edge of the massive tornado in the video.

Around 2:00 into the video, the tornado is relatively apparent, but is barely visible, but just as strong, a minute later:





Here, a house in Georgia was bodily moved from its perch atop a small hill, perhaps 100 feet to a spot in the middle of the road:

Death Toll Rising In Latest Tornado Outbreak

Huge tornado near Soso, Mississippi Sunday. Photo via
Twitter, @ConnorWx

As of early this morning, at least 18 people have died in that long anticipated tornado outbreak in the South, and things were still very rough as dawn broke Monday.

As of around 7 a.m. this morning, a destructive, very long squall line stretching from Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and the Florida panhandle was unleashing dangerous thunderstorrms with embedded tornadoes.

That risk will continue there until the squall line moves off the coast later this morning.  Another line of severe thunderstorms, and maybe a few tornadoes, might form toward noon or early afternoon, we'll see.

The death toll was rising this morning and I worry it will continue to do so. The 18 deaths would mean 51 people have died in tornadoes in the United States so far this year, and we haven't even hit the peak of the severe weather season yet.  On average 69 peopl lose their lives to U.S. tornadoes annually.

Just looking at the radar images yesterday last evening was terrifying enough. Judging from those images, two strong tornadoes, one following the other by less than an hour, too parallel paths through the Soso, Mississippi area.

Those radar images showed pieces of debris thrown 30,000 feet into the air, then raining down over a 60-mile radius. Soso appears to have been in the path of a monstrous supercell thunderstorm that dropped a string of tornadoes across southeastern Mississippi.

Other destructive tornadoes caused lots of damage around Monroe, Louisiana and near Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Weather Channel said five people were killed when a tornado struck a mobile home park near the Tennessee-Georgia border.

The storms then continued into northern Georgia. Radar picked up what appeared to be a tornado passing within about a mile of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

The orange stripe  uo usee on this map is from
early this morning. The orange stripe is all
severe thunderstorm warnings. The red
spots are tornado warnings. 

Flooding was widespread as well, with all of northern Alabama under a flood warning this morning. Flash flooding was occuring across the central and southern Appalachians, with reports of downtown Roanoke, Virginia under water.

Once that squall line goes offshore, the action shifts to the Great Lakes and Northeast during the day today. No tornadoes are expected up in places like New England,   but forecasts for strong winds still hold.

High wind warnings and wind advisories cover most of the nation east of the Mississippi River except for parts of Florida, northern and central Vermont, and parts of New Hampshire. Even in those areas without advisories, winds will be strong enough to knock over a few trees and power lines.

As you can tell, this powerful storm behaved as expected, which is too bad.  I think every meteorologist out there would have preferred a forecast bust.

However, I'm sure days of alerts and warnings leading right up to the severe weather saved lives, since people were made aware of the danger before it hit.

Weather will always throw a few curves and surprises at us, but forecasting continues ot improve. This storm was a great example of some spot-on predictions.

Video:

An overview news report helps capture the extent of at least part of this outbreak:

Severe Weather Outbreak Hits Vermont: Damage, Oddities, Photos, Analysis

Mobile home shoved off foundation by severe thunderstorm near
Highgate, VT Tuesday. Note the mobile mobile home knocked
over kerosene tank, causing a leak. 

Well, that was an exciting afternoon Tuesday in Vermont, wasn't it?

I have to say the severe weather outbreak that hit the Green Mountain State was the most intense of this summer. It overperformed, in my opinion.

It doesn't take much to push a lackluster setup for severe weather to something relatively impressive, at least by Vermont standards. We're not exactly the Tornado Capital Of The World, as we all know.

Some relatively meager ingredients for severe storms really came together nicely to produce Tuesday's wild weather. It made it a bigger storm day than many of us anticipated.

There was some big time damage in a few spots in Vermont, and one tragedy possibly caused by the storm.  A kayaker drowned and another is missing after they disappeared in Malletts Bay in Colchester. The storms were blowing through the area at the time, but it's unclear whether the storms caused or contributed to the deaths.

Car smushed by fallen tree after the severe storm in St Albans, Vermont.
My house is two miles from this location and not so much as a twig
fell. Very localized damage.

A home in North Hero caught fire, probably because it was struck by lightning. I saw a mobile home pushed off its foundation in Highgate. The mobile home pushed over a kerosene tank and the fuel was leaking.

I also saw trees down throughout the northern part of St. Albans and the surrounding towns of Highgate, Swanton and Sheldon.  There are many other storm reports from the NWS/South Burlington.

Trees are also down on houses in Burlington's New North End. Lots of trees came down on Grand Isle. No wonder: Winds gusted to an incredible 76 mph in North Hero

Yeah, this was impressive.

We knew there would be some severe storms. We knew in advance Tuesday would be hot and humid, one good ingredient to destabilize the atmosphere to produce the risk of severe storms. It turned out the heat got hotter than some of us expected, because the intense sunshine lasted into mid-afternoon.

That led to temperatures in much of Vermont to get above 90 degrees, a couple degrees warmer than expected. That, in turn, made the atmosphere a bit more unstable than it otherwise would have been.

Numerous trees down around a house in Sheldon, Vermont after Tuesday's storm.
Miraculously, neither the house nor cars parked in the driveway were damaged.

We also knew winds were changing in speed and direction with height, which would promote a lot of storms some severe. I guess those conditions led to an even better setup for storms than at least I suspected.

As the event unfolded, instability was highest in a narrow Champlain Valley band from Burlington northward. And that's where the worst storms hit. This system certainly produced!

LUCKY AND UNLUCKY

Big disaters and little hiccups, like we had today, bring winners and losers.

As is always the case, a few places got nailed, while others, nothing. Note that the National Weather Service in South Burlington only had a gust to 36 mph and a trace of rain, while they got nailed across town in the New North End of Burlington.

I was certainly alarmed when I found myself trying to drive through a blinding microburst on Interstate 89 just two miles north of my house. Tree branches flew by in the wind that was trying to shift my truck off the road into the median. It was rather frightening.

My house is surrounded by large trees, some of which could fall on my house and perennial gardens full of fragile plants. I went home to check. Despite the microburst being just two or three miles from my house, no so much as one twig came down. The day lilies danced happily in a light lingering breeze as the violent storm rumbled off toward Sheldon and points beyond.
At one home in Sheldon, several large trees fell on one property. Aside from a few twigs on the roof, the house was undamaged. A half dozen trees were across the driveway. The trees fell around the cars, but not on them, leaving them unharmed.

Meanwhile, a single tree fell into a small parking lot behind Danform Shoes in St. Albans.  The tree crushed a car.  Had the owner parked in any other space at the store, things would have been just fine. Go figure.


ROTATION? PROBABLY NOT

Looks like a funnel cloud as the storm approached St. Albans, Vermont
Tuesday, but the National Weather Service says this was probably
just an eddie and convective debris ahead of the strong downburst.

I want to first emphasize that it appears all the damage from these storms appear to be from straight line winds. The problems I saw after the Franklin County storm all literally pointed that way.

In areas where there were numerous trees and branches down, they all fell in the same direction, indicating straight line winds, and not a tornado.

The same was true for a flattened corn field near Highgate. All the corn stocks had fallen in the same direction.

That said, many strong to severe storms rotate, and most of those rotating storms actually do NOT produce a tornado.

However,  I thought I might have saw some interesting things as the storm moved across Lake Champlain toward St. Albans and Sheldon.  An area of dark clouds on the southern end of the storm appeared to be rotating and I might have caught a funnel cloud.

Or not.

I showed the photo to the National Weather Service in South Burlington. They got back to me very quickly and said, "It would likely be some convective debris caused by eddies and cooling from the downburst winds. Funnel clouds typically do not form ahead of downburst winds."

Proof that not every "funnel cloud" is indeed a funnel cloud.

Still, it was fun to watch Scud clouds rose rapidly into and near this area into the storm, which you sometimes see with a rotating storm. Then again, scud clouds often get caught in storm updrafts, so I'm sure that it was just the typical big storm ingesting more warm, humid air to feed on.

Gorgeous rainbow after the storm in Sheldon, Vermont Tuesday

Too bad I wasn't videoing when I saw this, but oh well. You can't think of everything.

It's more proof that as destructive as these storms are, they are beautiful.

As I was checking out the damage in Sheldon, a second, weaker thunderstorm passed through. It delivered a beautiful parting shot: A brilliant rainbow, with lightning streaking through it.

TODAY

More showers and thunderstorms will be scattered around today, but things won't be nearly as bad as yesterday in Vermont.  (It could get a little interesting today in the Mid-Atlantic states and southern New England.)

Some thunderstorms could produce heavy downpours, frequent lightning and gusty winds especially in the southeastern half of Vermont, but it will be relatively manageable.

Tonight the cold front will have moved through, and Thursday will prove to be a beautiful Vermont summer day, with sunny skies, low humidity and temperatures for all of us staying at or below 80 degrees during the afternoon.

Why You Need To Heed Warnings: Mild Storm Escalates To Tornado In Seconds

An enormous tornado nears a man's house as he films the twister
in 2015. The tornado ended up hitting his house, severely
injuring him and killing his wife. The outcome was less
tragic, but nearly as scary in the video at the bottom of this post.

I'm not sure where the video at the bottom of this post was shot, but it was somewhere in the South recently.

As it starts, you see what looks like a fairly benign thunderstorm. It doesn't even look all that dark or ominous.

At about 20 seconds in, you hear tornado sirens in the distance start to moan. The woman keeps filming. The weather doesn't seem to be getting any worse. Until it does.

With shocking swiftness, what is apparently a tornado turns everything upside down in just a few seconds. Somehow, the woman manages to retreat inside as the tornado rips her house apart.  Spoiler: She survives.

And just as suddenly, the tornado is gone, and everything has calmed down again. Except now everything is in ruins.

The woman was extremely lucky. There surely was a tornado warning in her area, which a weather radio or local media would have mentioned if she was listening for it. And while you shouldn't rely on tornado sirens, they do give you an alert.

As incredible as the video is, she should have taken shelter at the first notice of a tornado warning.

These kinds of tornado films have ended in tragedy. In 2015, a man filmed a large tornado from an upstairs bedroom in his Fairdale, Illinois home. He thought the tornado would go by a little ways fto his west, but it swerved right into it, severely injuring him, killing his wife and destroying his house.

The only bright side to the tragedy is tornado scientists regarded the film as an excellent twister research tool.

So don't film.

I'm saying this because it still looks like the middle of the nation is in for quite a tornado outbreak over several days, starting Friday. Heed those warnings!

Here's the video:

Deadly Cyclone Disaster In Africa

Devastating Cyclone Idai as it was about to make landfall
in Mozambique late last week. 

In yesterday's post, I mentioned in passing a deadly cyclone in Africa, and it deserves a closer look today.

That's because, tragically it has become the deadliest weather event in the world so far in 2019. At last count, Tropical Cyclone Idai had killed 239 people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and South Africa. The toll could easily rise.

Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall last Thursday in Beira, Mozambique, on the east coast of Africa. With top sustained winds of 110 mph it was the fourth strongest tropical cyclone on record to hit Mozambique, according to Dr, Jeff Masters wrote the Category 6 weather and climate blog.

The BBC said there is widespread destruction in and around Beira, with massive flooding and roofs blown off many, many homes. In neighboring Zimbabwe, the storm triggered landslides, a couple of which slammed into boarding school dormitories, killing some students.

Like most hurricanes, water killed the most poeple when Idai hit. (A tropical cyclone in this part of the world is what we would call a hurricane if it hit the United States. They're both the same thing).

A storm surge blasted into the area around Beira, Mozambique, causing the most damage and deaths. Flooding from the storm caused widespread damage and misery in much of southeastern Africa.

Tropical Cyclones (hurricanes) do occasionally come off the Indian Ocean and hit eastern Africa, so you can't say this is a weird, previously unheard of tragedy caused by climate change. However, Tropical Cyclone Idai is one of the worst and deadliest such storms to hit Mozambique on record, said Masters in the Category 6 blog.

Here's a news video of the disaster. You might not understand the language, but you'll certainly get a sense of the destruction:

Tornado Death Toll At 23 In Worst Such Disaster Since 2013

Tornado destruction in Lee County, Alabama Sunday. Photo
by WKRG-TV via AP.

Overnight, the death toll from the tornadoes in the Southeast rose to 23, making this the nation's worst tornado disaster since the infamous EF5 Moore Oklahoma tornado in 2013.

Reports are still a little confused, but at this point it appears all of the deaths occurred in the town of Beauregard in Lee County, Alabama.

This suggests, like in Moore, all the deaths were from a single tornado. Some of the deaths from Sunday included children. Dozens of people were injured, some severely.

In all of 2018, there were only 10 deaths nationwide from tornadoes, the lowest number in history. So, in a matter of minutes in just one town Sunday, there were more than twice as many deaths from tornadoes than all of last year.  Our lucky streak with twisters is tragically over. (There was another death from a tornado in the South last month.)

In all, there were 39 reports of tornadoes in the Southeast yesterday, though that number will change as damage is assessed and meteorologists figure out which damage was caused by tornadoes and which destruction was caused by straight line winds.

As high as Sunday's death toll was, I'm sure it would have been worse if not for excellent forecasting and warnings from the National Weather Service.

A large cell tower fell across this highway in Alabama
during Sunday's tornadoes.

Lee County was among the areas known to be at highest risk of tornadoes yesterday. The tornado struck the county at around 2:20 p.m. Sunday.

At 1 p.m., the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma put out a statement saying a supercell thunderstorm east of Montgomery, Alabama was heading into a zone very favorable for tornadoes and warned a strong tornado in or near Lee County was a good possibility within 30 to 60 minutes. This is well before there was any sign of an actual tornado..

At 1:58 p.m., the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama issued a tornado warning that included Lee County. At 2:09 p.m., that office upgraded the warning to a tornado emergency, which signaled to people this is a very big, serious deal. Then the tornado roared through the area about 2:20 to 2:30 p.m.

That is as good a series of warnings as humanly possible.

Another thing to note: I don't know if this happened or not, but if people were looking for visual confirmation of the tornado as it approached, they might have been caught unprotected until it was too late. Like many tornadoes, especially in the Southeast, this one was wrapped in rain, and hard to see.

Plus, again like many strong tornadoes, this to the naked eye didn't have classic funnel shape, but looked like a mass of angry black clouds. There's the potential to underestimate things when they look like that.

However, my guess is most people who died were actually sheltering in places like closets and bathtubs, but the tornado was so strong those protections were not enough.

There's no doubt the tornado was powerful. There's one report that a sign from a billboard was blown nearly 20 miles from its starting point.

There were plenty of other tornadoes or storms that looked like they would produce tornadoes. At one point, I counted a dozen simultaneous tornado warnings in central and southern Georgia. It's amazing the National Weather Service was able to keep track of them all.

On the negative side, there were dozens of posts on social media complaining all those warnings were interrupting coverage of a golf tournament on TV. So I guess to some people, a few tornado deaths are worth it, if one gets to enjoy a televised golf tournament.

This tornado outbreak is over. However, the current weather pattern favors more severe weather and tornadoes. The next chance is this coming weekend, probably in the southern Plains, lower Mississippi Valley and maybe the Gulf Coast states.

I'm guessing that round of severe weather won't be as bad as what happened Sunday, but you never know.

Next up, videos. Here's a storm chaser's encounter with the Lee County monster tornado:



Here's raw video of the utter destruction, and the search for victims:

Snowy, Fatal Missouri Highway Pileup Illustrates Danger Of Speeding In Snow

Part of a fatal pileup Friday on Interstate 70 in Missouri. Big part of the
problem was people driving too fast for the conditions

This is really a pet peeve every time we get winter weather.

Why, oh why do people insist on driving as fast as possible when the road is icy or snowy? Why do people who've lived through dozens of winters not understand that ice is slippery?

As a result, there was another awful, tragic highway pileup in a snowstorm. This time in Missouri.

It was cold and snowing along Interstate 70 near Oak Grove, Missouri Friday when 47 cars and trucks piled up on the icy highway. Graphic video from a truck driver caught in the wreck showed vehicle after vehicle bashing into the already wrecked cars.

Sadly, one person died in this crash and several others were hurt.

In the video at the bottom of the post, you can see cars driving too fast for the conditions slamming into each other.

The truck driver who shot video of the crash can be seen trying to seek help for a person in a badly crushed car. I believe the person in that car is the one who passed away. If only the speed demons on highways during winter storms could understand the pain they are causing maybe they would slow down.

Or maybe they don't care.

True, visibility was poor and the weather was too cold for salt to work effectively on the highway, which is all the more reason why people should have been driving more slowly, or if possible, not at all.

It's certainly possible the chain reaction crash started when somebody who was driving slowly enough for the conditions still lost control and hit a guardrail or something. This can happen to the best drivers. But the carnage was certainly compounded by speeding motorists, as is the case in most if not all of these pileups.

This wasn't the only crash in Missouri in what was really not the biggest winter storm ever. Only three to six inches of snow fell. But during the day the Missouri State Highway Patrol said there were no fewer than 125 crashes with 19 injuries and that one death in the Interstate 70 pileup, says the Weather Channel. 

Please, when driving in the winter, remember this cliche or adage or whatever you want to call it: "It's better to drive slowly and wish you were going faster than to be driving fast and wish you were going more slowly.

Here's the video. Again, a warning: It's quite graphic, especially after the truck driver gets out of his rig. But I hope the video scares people into taking it easy on the highways during winter.

California Burns Tragically, Winter Settles In Further East

The news out of California kept getting worse and worse all day Friday as immense wildfires kept chewing their way across parts of that state.

Malibu,  California on Friday. Photo by Grant Denham,
@GrantDenham on Twitter.

I started the day fearing they would find bodies in the zone affected by the Camp Fire in northern California, which destroyed the town of Paradise.

The fire moved in so fast that people couldn't get out of the way in time. At last report, nine people had died in that fire.

Five people were found burned to death in cars. They were trying to flee and got caught in the firestorm. Local officials say they will probably find more casualties. It's all so sad.

There's some videos of the fires at the bottom of this post you should watch.

I mentioned this trend of increasingly destructive wildfires yesterday, and true to form, the Camp Fire is now the most destructive wildfire in California history, claiming more than 6,700 structures so far. The previous record for most destructive wildfire in California was set just last year.

This fire will continue growing as the weather is not giving anyone a break Gusty winds and very low humidity will keep the Camp Fire spreading. It was only 5 percent contained at last report, and spreading into the city of Chico, population 90,000.

It was just as bad in southern California, where fires were chewing through many homes, especially around Thousand Oaks and in ritzy Malibu, which has been entirely evacuated.

Homes and mansions are going up in flames there. The weather forecast for southern California today is even worse than in the north. Lots of wind gusts today and tomorrow, with the relative humidity staying right around 5 percent - bone dry.

At least 75,000 homes have been evacuated in southern California. Statewide, the figure is 250,000 homes evacuated. You can imagine the kind of chaos that created. Where are all those people going to go? As the fires spread, more evacuations are inevitable.

Fire crews are exhausted. There's not enough people to deal with all these blazes. Some firefighters have reportedly been working 36 hours straight. You can't be effective working such long hours, so this disaster is just going to grind on as long as the weather remains terribly dry.

A hellscape look to California. This is Zuma Beach near Malibu.
Smoke turns the sky red. Horses, llamas and other animals were
brought here to get them away from the wildfires raging
through the region. Photo by @WallySkalij   from LATimes

By this time of year, wet Pacific Ocean storms begin to affect California, at least northern parts of the state. Over the next seven days, sprinkles might affect the extreme northwest corner of California, but the rest of the state is expected to remain bone dry.

WINTRY EAST

Things aren't nearly so dire in the rest of the nation, but the weather pattern that's helping to create the fiery hell in California is contributing to an early blast of winter across the eastern two thirds of the nation.

A strong northward bulge in the jet stream is keeping California hot and terribly dry and steering storms away from the West Coast. Downstream from this ridge is the inevitable dip, or trough in the jet stream.  That's opened the door to record cold and large areas of snow from the Great Plains east to New England.

Temperatures this morning were in the single numbers in parts of North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. Some towns in this region actually got below freezing.

 Freeze warnings extended in a broad band from Oklahoma to South Carolina.  Snow will fall as far south as Oklahoma and Texas Monday. This after a broad band of snow extended from Kansas and into Illinois and Michigan Friday.

The seasonal lake effect snow machine cranked right up with this cold blast. Up to a foot of snow might fall downstream of the lakes, especially in western New York. Dunkirk, New York, south of Buffalo reported a thunderstorm with heavy snow at 7 a.m. this morning.

The cold, snowy, wintry weather will continue in most of the eastern half of the country for the better part of next week.

Here in Vermont, winter is settling in, too, at least for now. One to four inches of wet snow fell on a number of communities, mostly above 1,000 feet in elevation, yesterday and last night. Mountain snow showers will continue today.

We'll have to watch another cold front this afternoon and evening across the northern  half of Vermont. This front could touch off some snow squalls. They will be hit and miss, but have the potential to briefly drop visibility to near zero, ice up the roads really quickly and produce wind gusts to 45 mph.

So be careful on the roads. Yes, it's getting to be that time of year.

Sunday will be a decent day in Vermont - by January standards. High temperatures will only be in the 25 to 35 degree range, and wind chills will be in the upper teens and 20s.

We're still watching a storm for Tuesday. As of this writing, some indications are pointing to a slightly "warmer" storm than first thought. That would increase the chances of a cold rain rather than heavy snow, at least in the lower elevations. There's still a lot of uncertainty with this storm, so be prepared for anything.

Midwinter condition will continue on into Wednesday and Thursday of next week.

Here's another scary video of somebody trying to flee the wildfires and having drive right through the flames. This one is in Malibu:



In this video, with an understandably breathless reporter narrating, homes burn in a neighborhood while firefighters try to spray curtains of water between flaming buildings and still-standing homes to stop the fire from spreading. As you can see with all the wind, this is one tough job:



A haunting scene of abandoned vehicles belonging to people who were trying to flee the Camp Fire in Paradise, California:

Are Swept Away Building Sites Gravestones From Hurricane Michael?

Dozens upon dozens of homes and businesses swept away in
Mexico Beach, Florida after Hurricane Michael

SATURDAY P.M. UPDATE

Some rather hopeful news from Reuters:

Searchers are really beginning to dig deeper into the nook and crannies in the worst of the Hurricane Michael zone and finding plenty of survivors

More than 500 of the roughly 2,100 people reported missing have been found alive. Officials expect to find many more survivors over the weekend.

Many of the missing were simply cut off by debris, wrecked homes, and cellular service cut off  by the storm.

Roughly 1,700 search and rescue workers were combing the wreckage this weekend. When they find survivors, they take pictures of them and forward the photos to worried relatives to ease their minds, Reuters said. .

Some of the stories are still harrowing, though. As Reuters reports:

"Rescue crews heard cries for help and cut into a mobile home crumpled by the storm in Panama City, freeing survivors who had been trapped inside for two days, Matthew Marchetti, co-founder of the Houston-based CrowdSource Rescue, said on Saturday."

This tells me the search is still definitely a rescue mission more than a body recovery mission, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the death toll is still expected to rise, however.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

One of the most haunting images I've been seeing from the areas of Florida wiped out by Hurricane Michael are the swept-clean concrete slabs.

Aerial photos and videos show dozens and dozens of these flat slabs in Mexico Beach, Florida and elsewhere.

Each slab is where a house, condo, business or other building stood. The winds and storm surge swept everything away. You'd never know buildings stood there, save for those thin, flat slabs.

I'm getting more and more worried those slabs are symbolic gravestones. How many people stayed behind along the coast as Hurricane Michael roared in? And how many died?

At last check the death toll from Hurricane Michael was 17. Those deaths hit from Florida to Virginia, where Michael's last swipe unleashed high winds, tornadoes and flash flooding. The death toll of 17 is terrible, but seems relatively modest for a storm that ferocious.

But there are increasing signs that possibly, a lot more people died, which makes this whole story even more tragic.

There is so much debris and destruction in Mexico Beach and surrounding towns that relief workers and searchers are only just beginning to arrive and poke through the rubble.  If people died, I'm not sure they will ever find the bodies. Were they swept out to sea in the departing storm surge toward the end of the hurricane? Are they lost in the broken logs and sticks that before Michael were dense pine forests just inland?

ABC News reported yesterday there are a "tremendous number" of people still unaccounted for after the hurricane. Perhaps some of them are safe, scattered in shelters across the Southeast with no decent post-storm cell phone service to tell relatives where they are. That would be the best case scenario.

There are extreme challenges in the search for the dead and injured, Bay County, Florida Emergency Services Chief Mark Bowen told ABC on Friday. 

"Fire stations are destroyed, police stations are destroyed... Public safety agencies are only taking highest priority calls right now -- heart attacks, you know, major trauma. An enormous amount of 911 calls are going unresponded to because we've got this priority to search and rescue. So it's a terrible thing."

The Associated Press reported that one body had been found in Mexico Beach. But in one glimmer of hope, the AP says authorities have canceled plans, at least for now, to set up a temporary morgue to handle casualties. That suggests there might not be a huge number of deceased.

This is one of the most grim weather blog posts I have written, but it is facts, and we have to deal with them.

Here's a heartbreaking Washington Post video of Mexico Beach, showing the destruction, interviews with shell-shocked residents, all with the haunting background sounds of dozens of alarms blaring in shattered buildings:

No, The Tragic Missouri Duck Boat Storm Did NOT "Come Out Of Nowhere"

Duck boat sinking in a severe Missouri thunderstorm on
Thursday, killing 17 people.

Investigations are just starting on what led to the disaster near Branson, Missouri in which a duck boat sank in a severe thunderstorm, killing 17 people.

But there has been one very, very nagging question.  What was that rickety thing doing out there in such a bad storm?

Ripley Entertainment, owns Ride the Ducks company in Branson. Jim Pattison Jr, president of Ripley, told CBS News he'd been told that it was "an almost micro storm event.....It was a fast-moving storm that basically came out of nowhere...The storm was moving at a higher rate of speed than expected."

Sorry, Jim. I think what you're doing is trying to create a new reality to possibly influence a jury during the inevitable lawsuits that will come out of this tragedy. Meteorologists will talk about what really happened during the litigation, but I have to wonder if Pattison was trying to plant a seed of doubt into whoever will make rulings and decisions in the likely lawsuits.

Pattison did say that given the conditions, the boat should not have been in the water.

Still, as many in the media reported: No, the severe thunderstorm did NOT "come out of nowhere." It was moving fast, but meteorologists were tracking it and had a good handle on the timing of when it would hit. It was not a "micro storm." It was a pretty big and nasty thunderstorm complex.

Also, as the Kansas City Star reported, there were lots of warnings about the oncoming storm rushing in from the northwest.

A severe thunderstorm watch has been posted as of 11:30 a.m. Thursday, more than seven hours before the storm hit. A watch means keep an eye to the sky, as there's a good possibility of severe thunderstorms somewhere in the area. That means think twice about launching rickety duck boats, folks.

The complex of storms formed in Kansas, and reports of wind damage began coming in from eastern Kansas more than nine hours before the storm hit Table Rock Lake. National Weather Service meterologists closely tracked this thunderstorm complext during its entire lifespan.

Roughly an hour before the storms hit the Branson area, Springfield, Missouri, to the north, reported a wind gust of 74 mph.

The National Weather Service office in Springfield, Missouri issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 6:32 p.m for an area including Branson and Table Rock Lake, where the duck boat was.
The warning mentioned likely wind gusts in the 70 mph range were on their way.

It's still unclear exactly what time the duck boat departed from shore. It was scheduled to leave at around 5:30 p.m., according to a Weather Channel time line, but might have left as late as 6:45 p.m., says the Kansas City Star.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued for an area just northwest of, but not including Table Rock Lake at 5:45 p.m., according to the Weather Channel time line.

Even if the duck boat left shore before the severe thunderstorm warning was issued, the operators should have known bad storms were looming to the north and northwest, Reports say the duck boat left the dock for the lake excursion as late as  around 6:45 p.m. Was anybody watching the weather? The sky? Did anyone associated with Ride the Ducks review weather radar or check for storm warnings?

They should have, that's for sure.  A lot of attention went to a tweet and Forbes article from Marshall Shepherd, the Director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia that stated what should have been the obvious:

"It is 2018, not 1901. The meteorological community has advanced weather satellites, weather radar and models. Storms like this do not 'come out of nowhere.'"

Shepherd, ever the polite, competent scientist, isn't nearly as nasty and rude as I am, but his Forbes article should be required reading for anyone planning on doing anything outside. At any time.

Shepherd also highlighted guidance developed by NOAA and the National Safe Boating Council. The guidance, again,  should be obvious to everyone, including people who conduct duck boat tours:

"Before going boating, fishing, diving or enjoying other water sports, check the forecast from weather.gov or your favorite weather source...If severe weather is predicted, stay home or go earlier than normal. Be prepared to head to shore quickly."

The guidance says you should have a NOAA weather radio with you which would sent immediate alerts if a storm warning is issued.

Shepherd, a former president of the American Meteorological Society, also highlighted a report from that organization in his Forbes article that basically says organizers of outdoor events and attractions don't really have an excuse when bad weather causes tragedies. Although the AMS puts it in much more sober terms than I am doing. Members of the AMS are a bunch of serious scientists, after all.

According to the AMS report:

"A common theme in the after-action reports and service assessments for these disasters is that the weather plan was inadequate to deal with a comprehensive portfolio of weather risk, or a weather plan didn't exist. In many instances, organizers simply 'hoped that we wouldn't get hit.'

Reducing the weather risk to life and property at venues and public gatherings is a priority for the weather enterprise and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Knowledge of, and investment in, pre-event planning and mitigation serves the nation economically as well as socially."

In other words, my admittedly blunt, sarcastic words, careless event organizers really need to pay attention to weather hazards and stop killing people because they don't. It's not all about making money, you know.

Not all the facts are out yet in the Missouri Duck Boat tragedy, so it's hard to draw exact conclusions as to who is at fault and to what extent. But I believe there was a big time screwup, with awful results.

This is especially true given the vessel: Duck boats need calm water, and the canopies overhead tend to trap people when the vessels sink. That's probably what happened in Missouri.

The lesson learned: Always be cognizant of the weather if you're organizing an outdoor event. And if you plan on going to an outdoor concert, a duck boat excursion or anything else outside, bring along a weather radio. Adjust your plans if there are weather alerts.

And if your gut tells you the weather is too iffy to do what you planned to do, definitely trust your gut.  

Developing Odd Weather Pattern Creates Tragedy In Midwest

Tornado destruction in Marshalltown, Iowa Thursday. 

A key ingredient to an odd weather pattern that seems destined to bring flooding rains to the East Coast has already caused tragedy and destruction in the Midwest.

An unusually sharp trough of low pressure for this time of year touched off tornadoes and severe storms, especially in Iowa and Missouri.

As you probably saw on the news already, one of the severe storms swamped a so-called tourist "duck boat" on a Missouri resort lake, killing at least 11 people. Five are still missing.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued about a half hour before the boat sank. Winds in the area gusted to 63 mph.

In Iowa, a swarm of tornadoes caused extensive damage, especially in and around the towns of Marshalltown and Pella. Ten people were injured in Marshalltown, which had widespread, extensive damage to homes and businesses. Video showed the tornado ripping the steeple off an iconic courthouse there.

Two tornadoes spin simultaneously near each
other in Iowa Thursday.

Seven people were injured in Pella.

Parts of South Dakota were swamped by heavy rain and flash flooding. More than eight inches of rain fell in Brookings in just a few hours.

Some videos are at the bottom of this post.

This storm will bring a threat of more tornadoes and severe thunderstorms today, especially in an area including Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and northern Alabama.

A map of the risk area resembles something you'd see in during the spring tornado season, not July, when severe storms are usually more isolated and sporadic.

The trough to the west will inspire what will amount to be a way out of season nor'easter Sunday, which will bring gusty winds and heavy rain to parts of the Northeast.

Even here in Vermont, they're talking about fairly strong downslope winds on the west slopes of the Green Mountains, something that's common in winter, but almost unheard of in July.

The low pressure to the west, and the Bermuda High strengthening to the east will result in a stalled weather pattern over the East most of next week. This pattern is still expected to bring boatloads of tropical moisture through the East with the risk of flooding rains.

It's still too soon to say which areas are most at risk for flooding.

Here's a video of the duck boat in Missouri being swamped by the severe storm as onlookers in a restaurant look on with increasing worry and horror:



A compilation of tornadoes destroying houses in Iowa:



Two simultaneous tornadoes near and in Bondurant, Iowa:



Tornado wrecking a courthouse in Marshalltown, Iowa:

U.S. Plains Braces For Severe Storms, While Epic, Weird Mideast Storm Proves Fatal

There hasn't been a tornado in Oklahoma yet this year, which is very bizarre and record breaking.

Massive flooding in Tel Aviv
this week. 

It looks like there's a good chance that Oklahoma's good luck in the tornado department will come to an end next week. (Of course, Oklahoma has had terrible luck with wildfires and droughts this year.)

A classic mid-spring weather pattern is unfolding, especially in the middle of the country, and that means there's the risk of severe storms and tornados across the Plains and Midwest.

Meteorologists are confident this will happen. But they're not confident as to how bad this might get. The main ingredients for a severe weather outbreak are certainly there in the middle of the week:

Dry air coming in from the west, wet air coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, a decent sized storm and winds veering with height.

That's a standard recipe for spring tornadoes in the United States.

Those ingredients must come together though just perfectly to cause a significant, scary, deadly and destructive tornado outbreak. You really can't tell if that will happen often until hours before the event.

With a decent amount of luck, maybe there won't be many tornadoes, and those that do form will be relatively weak. That would mean just your standard issue damage -- local power outages, trees down, barn roofs blown off, a few broken windows - bad but they'll deal with it.

Or, if there are strong tornadoes, there's a lot of open space in the middle of the country. If a strong tornado forms, we can pray that it stays over open farm country and causes little damage.

The worst-case scenario in this one is a strong tornado goes through a populated area, like Moore, Oklahoma in 1999 and 2013, or Joplin, Missouri and Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 2011. Not likely, but possible this time.

MIDDLE EAST CHAOS

Outbreaks of severe weather and tornadoes are pretty common in the United States during the spring. But extreme storms aren't so common in the Mideast, and they had a doozy this week.

An unusually strong storm came off the Mediterraneann Sea during the week. As the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang put it, few countries in the region were untouched.

Ten teenagers died when caught in flash flooding near the Dead Sea in Israel. Four other youths died in the region during the flooding. Huge amounts of hail buried parts of Syria. Massive dust storms engulfed Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Parts of Israel had a third of the normal year's worth of rain in a day or two. Tel Aviv, Israel, had an inch of rain in an hour. Jerusalem had two inches. Both cities were awash in destructive flash floods.

Severe flooding also hit Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

The storm that hit the Mideast had plenty of cold air aloft, and plenty of moisture from the Mediterranean. The combination made the air extremely unstable, which caused the massive downpours and winds.

If there was a bright side to the chaos and tragedy from the weather in the Mideast, it's that the strom hit during a serious drought, so it partly re-filled reservoirs and alleviated the dryness.

Videos of the Mideast show the chaos.

Here's a view out of a plane window as the aircraft flies into a massive dust storm this week in Saudi Arabia. The plane landed safely:



Check out this incredibe hailstorm in Arad, Israel:



Here's a street in Jerusalem overrun with water. Notice tables and chairs floating by:



Tel Aviv, Israel was chaotic, too, in the hail and flooding:

Two More Videos Showing How Terrifying This Week's California Mudslides Were

A firefighter on the roof f a house engulfed in mud
and rocks and the mudslides and debris flows in
southern California this week. Photo by
Marcio Jose San Sanchez/AP

There's a lot of videos out there of the terrible mudslides and debris flows in California earlier this week, and more keep popping up.

At last report, 17 people had died in the mudslides and eight others were still missing. While the rain has stopped and is not expected to start again for more than a week, the damage is clearly done.

It'll take a long time to recover from the worst of the mess in California.

Here's one video of a mud and rockslide shoving a car own a road in Burbank, California. The occupants of the car are reported to have escaped without injury. Video via the Weather Network:



Next video is the increasing terror as the mudslides engulfs Montecito, California in the pre-dawn hours Monday. At first, the person taking the video is outdoors, warning a van driver to get out now because the debris flow is coming.

Then, he goes inside, while the house rapidly fills up with mud:

California Storm Claims At Least 13 Lives, System To Cause Trouble All The Way To Northeast

A California house buried in mud yesterday after heavy
rains hit areas denuded by wildfires last month. 

The mudslides and debris flows spawned by the torrential rains in areas of California that experienced wildfires just a month ago has now claimed 13 lives, with other people still missing.

The rain has mercifully let up, with little if any rain expected over the next week.

But the damage is done, with incredible destruction in some communities, especially around the city of Montecito, where a wall of mud, boulders, trees and debris swept through town, carrying homes, cars and people with it.

At least 25 other people were injured in the disaster, according to the Los Angeles Times. As of late yesterday afternoon, at least 300 people remained trapped in their homes, but were safe for now. However, rescue crews haven't even been able to get into a more remote area in the debris flow zone to check for people who might be trapped.

The wet weather extended well inland. Las Vegas, Nevada had its wettest January day on record Tuesday,  with 1.33 inches of precipitation.

There's some pretty incredible videos of the destruction at the bottom of this post.

The storminess that hit California is making a cross-country trek across the United States, and will cause havoc in many areas, including Vermont. I'm not expecting anything like California, of course, but it's still going to get messy. At least that's the way it looks now.

Today, a vast area from Montana to Wisconsin and south to Kansas is under a variety of winter storm watches, warnings and advisories. The same is true for many parts of the Rocky Mountains. This is all part of a first wave of storminess that's heading northeastward through the central part of the United States.

This first wave will push a warm front through us here in northern New England tonight. Later on tonight, expect light, but messy precipitation - sleet, snow, freezing rain and rain.

Remember that the ground is quite frigid after that long subzero siege that just ended a few days ago. Which means even if there's plain rain where you are, it could still easily freeze on pavement. Could be a tricky commute to work in the morning.

Forecasters don't expect much precipitation during the day Thursday here in Vermont, but a real January thaw will surge in. By afternoon, it'll be in the 40s everywhere, maybe even touching 50 in the warmest valleys.

Meanwhile, the main storm system will be taking shape near the central Gulf Coast, and that one will start to head toward the northeast, toward us in New England specifically. This storm will have lots of moisture with it, so whatever precipitation comes down will probably come down pretty hard at times.

And there's the rub. We don't know what kind of precipitation we're going to get from this thing. It'll be a race between a cold front coming in from the northwest and the storm coming up from the south.

Which one wins will determine which type of precipitation we get. If the cold front gets here first, there will be an ugly mix of sleet, freezing rain and snow. If the storm gets here first, it's rain, which raises the possibility of flooding.

Either way we lose.

The forecast thinking now is rain will move in amid mild temperatures Thursday night and continue most of Friday. That could spell trouble with ice jams in rivers, and street flooding from ice-clogged drains.

Then - again, this is what forecasters are expecting at the moment - the cold air will come in from northwest to southeast Friday night, giving us the ugly mix of precipitation Friday night and Saturday.

This forecast has a huge bust potential. I really don't think the predictions will go exactly the way I've just outlined, but nobody really knows for sure which way it might go. Stay tuned on this one.

Meteorologists are more confident that precipitation will go over to snow later Saturday or Saturday night, then taper off. It also looks like we've got another couple of Arctic cold surges coming in, starting Sunday.

The good news is the cold doesn't look like it will be as intense as what we had the first week in January. The temperature will probably go below zero again but it won't go into the 20s below or anything like that.

This cold blast won't last as long as the previous one, either. It'll start Sunday, and begin to end probably four days later.

Here are some of those videos from California: You might want to turn off the sound in the first one. The narrator talks and talks and swears, too. NSFW:



The Santa Barbara Independent also has dramatic views of the disaster:


And here's the CBS overview of the storm:

Flooding In Greece Kills At Least 14 Damage, More Floods Feared

Destruction from severe flash flooding in Greece
this week

The weather across the United States is relatively quiet, other than quite a bit of wind and rain over the Pacific Northwest. 

However, as usual, the weather isn't staying quiet in other parts of the world.

The worst and most tragic situation is in Greece, where flash flooding has killed at least 15 people and has left widespread destruction.

The hardest hit area seems to be a heavily populated region called Attica, near Athens. The Greek government has declared three days of mourning because of the disaster.

Forecasters fear a that the weather pattern over the Mediterranean will encourage more heavy rain and flooding in Greece over the next couple of days.

Here's a video of a the powerful floodwaters, and a Greek highway overrun with water, with scary results. It reminds me of an even worse version of the extremely frightening 2016 flash flood in downtown Ellicott City, Maryland.  


This video shows the destruction in the aftermath of the powerful flood:

Portugal Fire Videos Show How Scary They Were

Wildfires menacing Braga, Portugal this week

The death toll from the wildfires in Portugal and Spain over the past couple of days has reached 36.

Between this fire and the ones in Portugal back in June, 99 people have died in wildfires in that country this year. Previously, the most fatalities from fire in a single year in Portugal was 25.  

It's been a bad year for wildfires in many parts of the world. Just ask people in northern California, where the death toll from fires this month is now at 41 and could still rise. And western Canada spent most of the summer on fire.

Here's the fire advancing on a bunch of people along a road in Portugal. I don't know how the guy with the big branch in his hand thought he was going to beat back the flames with it, but hope springs eternal, I guess:



Chaos and panic brought on by the fires in Galacia, Spain:



An amazing fire tornado in Portugal during the height of the fires. For scale, look for the person and the car to the left of the fire twister:

Weird Hurricane Ophelia, And No End To California Fire Catastrophe

The National Hurricane Center has a strange forecast
track for Hurricane Ophelia. It could threaten Ireland. 

As we've watched the fires rage in California (I'll have an update further down in this post and the news is terrible) we also have another hurricane out in the Atlantic Ocean.

OPHELIA

Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane yesterday and it's in a weird place. Ophelia is in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, well off the coast of Morocco, which is awfully far north and east for an Atlantic hurricane.

It's heading northeast, and oddly, could hit Ireland of all places. Ophelia will be transitioning from a tropical system to a plain old mid-latitude storm by the time it nears Ireland, but that doesn't make much of a difference as to what will happen.

Ophelia, or ex-Ophelia will be a very powerful storm once it blows by Ireland Monday or Tuesday, so we they are bracing for possible wind damage as gusts could easily exceed 80 mph on the Emerald Isle.

Although storms that are just completing transitions from hurricanes are rare in Great Britain, they have happened. According to the Category 6 weather blog, something like this happened in Ireland back in 1961, when Hurricane Debbie caused one of the most damaging wind storms in Irish history. Some sections of the country lost 25 percent of their trees with Debbie.

Ophelia has also tied another record for the Atlantic Basin. It's the 10th consecutive tropical storm that strengthened into a hurricane. That ties the record for the most consecutive hurricanes set in 1878, 1886 and 1893.

And remember, back in the 1800s, we didn't have satellites, so we might have missed a weaker tropical storm in between all the hurricanes that happened in those years.

So yeah, you can definitely say the 2017 hurricane season in the Atlantic has been pretty extreme. On the bright side, there's no immediate signs of any other new tropical storms or hurricanes forming in the Atlantic in the next seveal days.

CALIFORNIA FIRES

The situation with the wildfires in California just keeps getting worse and worse and the weather shows no signs of giving the state a break, at least through Saturday.

As expected, winds picked up and the humidity dropped in northern California yesterday and last night, and the fires resumed their rapid spread.

Wildfire destruction in Santa Rosa, California. Photo by Beth
Schlanker/Santa Rosa Press Democrat

At last check, the death toll had risen to 23, more people were missing and 3,500 homes have been destroyed. More homes are going to go.

Some of the fires are still completely out of control and all authorities can do at this point is try to evacuate people in the paths of the fires.

It's still breezy today, and after a slight lull in the winds tonight, it's going to get nearly as windy and dry Friday and Saturday as it was Sunday night, when the worst of the fires started.

Trouble is going to spread to the Los Angeles area, too, as hot, dry, strong Santa Ana winds are forecast to fan existing and new fires Friday and Saturday.

Back up in the San Francisco Bay Area, smoke from the fires has created an air quality crisis. Pollution levels set records in San Francisco and flights were delayed Wednesday for up to three hours due to the poor visibility in the smoke.