OT - Tornado/Flood Warnings
Anybody else in the Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County/Metro Detroit area enjoying the Biblical flooding and tornado warnings/sirens? Any truth to the rumors that Denard is running laps around the tri-county area producing tornados?
Everything just barely went around us in Adrian.
btw whatever happened to him?
Denard produces dilithium crystals.
Zoltan, on the other hand, must be troubled by something...
I thought Zoltan's domain was space. Couldn't Denard run so fast that he reverses time, Superman-style? Also, I thought he was MADE of dilithium.
Just looked at the radar map. There's more coming, from Coldwater to Battle Creek. More red and yellow than I would care to see on the radar. My guess is that it will probably hit between 3-4 AM, maybe closer to 5 AM for you guys.
Think you're right. The latest tornado warning for Washtenaw goes until 1, though there's watches until at least 5 am. And of course, as if it needed to, the rain is picking up again.
I live in Battle Creek and it poured like an SOB for an hour. Kalamazoo got hit really bad with rain. They have cop cars that are floating in the streets!
F Yeah Coldwater!
This is crazy!
I shouldn't be surprised though, this is Michigan weather for ya. I was lucky enough to come down from Mt. Pleasant for the weekend back home to the Deuce to experience it front and center...
I'm south of Toledo and I was at a grad party. On my way home I had to reroute because the road was covered in barn. Sounds like Lake township east of Toledo really got hammered. High school destroyed along with the city administration building. Scary.
+1 for the combination of "covered in barn" and your avatar.
I live in Toledo and it was just reported that there are at least 2 confirmed deaths in Lake Township. The shit really hit the fan out there. There were several homes destroyed in Millbury as well. I'm hunkering down here with the wife and foster baby waiting on the 2nd round. I hope all of my MGoFriends make it through all of this okay. Good Luck to you all!
Upon further review (NOT an official UFR), the wall of storms runs from west of Fort Wayne all the way northeast to Okemos. There's some red all the way through that. It's going to be a bumpy night, weatherwise.
Hopefully this turns out properly, but this is what I see:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/homeandgarden/home/map/interactive/49221
1. Stand near a window to get a good view of the tornado
2. You're more likely to get a good view upstairs
3. Protect the TVs and video game consoles at all costs
4. If the power goes out and you can't read MGoBlog, drive to wherever Brian is staying in Chicago and demand new content
that i sat outside Brian's room until he UFR'd the last four meals he had eaten for me
And don't forget Big Will doing jumping jacks!
these radar coupled cells they talk about...
i wonder what the &age of these radar cells leads to a confirmed on the ground tornado
Meteorologist here...
The age of the cells doesn't really matter too much. If it is organized enough and shows the standard TVS (tornado vortex signature), the NWS will put out the warning. There is actually no way, from the radar alone, to determine if the tornado is in fact touching the ground. That all comes from storm reports that are called into the NWS. The tornado warnings indicated are radar-indicated, in that they show the rotation necessary aloft at the lowest radar angle in a "couplet" that includes both inbound and outbound flow in a very small proximity.
Couldn't pass up a good opportunity to drop some weather knowledge.
actuall i meand %age (percentage, didn't notice my own typo.
so i repeat my question
thanks
PS: addressing your response... so is the only factor preventing remode detection the resolution of the doppler equipment?
Hard to tell in real-time, but going back over the storm reports would give you a good representation of the percentage.
The current radars are only engineered to certain capabilities, and to a point the resolution is responsible for the lack of remote detection. However, remote detection of tornadoes on teh ground will always be near-impossible/improbable in my opinion, because while the rotation of the column of air that produces the TVS on the radar may be present, this may not be extrapolated to the ground. And it would be very difficult to get a radar angle that appropriate level to measure ground speeds as elevation is constantly changing throughout the range of a radar. Thus, remote detection is very difficult and heavily reliant on spotter data.
You learned that from Twister .... :-)
I hope the MGoServers can float...
Yeah, Ann Arbor is getting thumped right now.
Take care and be safe, gentlemen.
With another one on the way in 1-2 hours or so
Yup. The next one is just west of Jackson right now. I think a good storm moves at ~30 mph, so that's about 90 minutes or so, correct?
these seem to be moving at 40-50 mph
the fields will be flooded?
not at concordia
I've seen severe storms move anywhere from 10 mph to 70 (slower tend to be isolated severe spots in a big area of rain, lines of storms usually are at least in the mid-range). Tornadoes tend toward the upper middle of that range (40-50) but can cover the whole range, and they can turn or change speeds pretty much at random.
Yeah, once I saw how fast the radar was moving, I knew immediately I miscalculated. If they're moving that fast, they're probably going to be nasty. 50 MPH is flying for a front.
Speed of motion of the storm doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the severity, at least with tornadoes. (Straight-line winds, there is a better correlation, as the worst of those storms tend to get pushed along by the downbursts they produce; worst I've ever been in was a downburst with a bowed-out line of storms moving close to 65 mph, producing sustained winds in the 80 mph range and gusts probably pushing triple-digits. But even there it's not perfect.)
Been watching it all night, ready to herd up the cats and head to the basement if necessary. Be safe, MGoEveryone!
and its pooring again.
the warning end? i thought this was gone at 1
The tornado stuff is gone, but there's a line stretching back to Kalamazoo that you have to deal with as well.
this thread made my heart flutter a little bit. I've been out on VORTEX2 the past few weeks, and of course today we didn't see shit in Iowa while there were tornado warnings all over in Michigan.
As for the storms themselves, at first glance looking at radar it didn't look like much more than heavy rain, until I saw all the rotation in the velocity output. I've never seen so many tornado warnings in Michigan in my life, and it wouldn't surprise me if a few of those warnings verify.
Dang it! GR has manage to dodge the severe stuff the past few days. Just a lot rain and some rumbles of thunder and that's about it. The storm junkie in me is disappointed, while the sane side of me is a little relieved. To anybody in the hard hit areas be safe.
Help !
Today was the first time I've ever felt compelled to get in my basement rather than grab my ham radio and a camera and hit the road. Around 2:30am they reported the highway patrol confirmed a funnel/touchdown just south of the Ohio Turnpike about 5 miles directly west of my house. Scary stuff had to wake up the family and move the dogs down. Yeesh time for sleep.
near kzoo last night when we ran into it around midnight. couldn't see more than 20 feet in front of me because it was raining so f'ing hard.
There was one reported funnel touchdown in Dundee last night around 2:30 am. Cabelas and Splash Universe was damaged and several tractor trailers were swept off the road. There is also reports of flooding in Ann Arbor around the Packard/Eisenhower area.
We had major storms last night, and I wake up with my printer turning on/off five times in ten minutes.
Well, I woke up this morning and I wasn't in Kansas, nor was I surrounded by munchkins, so I think we made it.
I thought it was going to be worse than that. It blew and made noise until just before 2 AM, and I don't know what happened after that, as that's about when I fell asleep.
I live in Temperance, my power went out at about 2, sirens were going off around 3. This was one of the first times I was really scared about a storm. Power just came back on at 10:30 thank god.
I was in Ypsi last night. We were more worried about our beer pong baseball game than the weather.
The weather wasn't realy that bad by us though. It was pouring. The wind picked up but died down about a min after. The only thing odd was the orange sky to the south of us. I actually went through the '07 Fenton tornado. Not fun.