I need to catch up on sleep and process some pictures from 5-19 (it has been a long ten days on the road with Trip 2), but I wanted to clear the air of some erroneous claims and facts that I have been hearing about yesterday's (5-20-2013) tornadoes in OK. I've heard everything from "no warnings were issued" to "lead time was 45 min."
First, let me preface by saying I was not chasing on this particular day. Sunday was the last day of
our trip and we *had* to come home Monday afternoon. However, the drive back to Chicago allowed me to watch the events in Moore, OK unfold with a keen eye. Luckily, I archived a lot of data and am just now starting to sift through some of it.
The media reporting of the warning aspect of this storm is particularly troubling to me (in addition to
many other rediculous claims certain local Oklahoma City stations were blurting out). That discussion is for another post.
Let's take a further look into the timeline of the Moore, OK tornado warning:
5-20-2013 19:40 UTC WFO OUN issues tornado warning (red polygon) including the city of Moore.
I have included the 19:40 UTC tornado warning polygon and the 19:38 radar suite (BREF image shown) that likely prompted the tornado warning.
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19:38 UTC BREF & Tornado Warning Polygon |
At 20:01 UTC, WFO OUN issues a
tornado emergency for the town of Moore.
At 20:16 UTC, the tornadic circulation was just southwest of Moore (probably just entering town around this time).
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20:16 UTC BREF and initial tornado warning polygon |
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20:16 UTC SRV (258 @ 23kts) and initial tornado warning polygon | |
Via radar, it appears the tornadic radar signature was in Moore around 20:20 UTC.
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20:21 UTC SRV and initial tornado warning |
So, taking this approach (which I will agree is not the "T"ruth), this puts the tornado lead time for the folks in Moore at roughly
40 minutes! Not this bull#$%* I am hearing about 10-15 min! Even the
tornado emergency had nearly a 20 minute lead time for Moore. This was a great tornado warning by the same great forecaster who issued a tornado warning back on 3 May 1999 for an eerily similar situation.
Obviously, not all locations in the warning receive the same lead time. It is a function of how far you are away from the tornado when the initial warning is issued. This can make the lead time for a particular warning tricky. If you score this on a city-by-city basis, then Moore has an amazing 40 minute lead time for this event. Hats of to the Norman, OK National Weather Service Office for a job well done!
It disgusts me how inaccurate journalists are becoming (see recent Boston Marathon bombing timeline). Everyone races to the answer without doing the important detective work. Ratings baby!
While I have your attention...consider donating to the central Oklahoma chapter of the Red Cross. I had a pit in my stomach most of the day yesterday after hearing about the situation with the elementary school children. The
photos speak for themselves.
This is why I'm a severe storms scientist.
Now back to regularly scheduled blogging.