Hope everyone is ok

[Ashfan]

19 hours ago, tcp said:

I still have pretty high standards for tornado terror. Old enough to remember the 1980 tornado outbreak in GI my last year in high school. that was insane. Not two month later, one would go right over my house in Bellevue, NE. Nutty tornado season that year.

 

 

 

I still remember sitting out on my mother's deck in east Lincoln that night. The storm over Grand Island was so high that I could see the lightning in it some 100 miles away. I have chased storms for decades, but that was only the second time I have seen lightning that was stop light red. KFMQ was playing a Doors retrospective so I was listening to Jim Morrison singing "this is the end" as I watched the storms. A surreal moment.

 

The storm in GI was so unusual that Tetsuya (sp) Fujita, of the Fujita scale, made a trip to GI to examine the aftermath in person. Although the official total of tornados was, IIRC, 4 or 5, there was evidence that there were a lot more, both in GI and nearby, including 2 anti-tornados. The brother of a former girlfriend came out of the bank where he worked and saw 2 tornados on the ground north of him. Then he went around to the west side of the building and saw 3 more that he couldn't tell if they were on the ground or funnels. At that point he went back inside the bank.

 

As badly as it was hit, GI got lucky in a way as there was debris evidence of an EF-4 or 5 on the ground some 20 miles west of GI that was 5 MILES wide and that stayed on the ground for 1 and 1/4 miles. 

[atskooc]

36 minutes ago, Ashfan said:

 

I still remember sitting out on my mother's deck in east Lincoln that night. The storm over Grand Island was so high that I could see the lightning in it some 100 miles away. I have chased storms for decades, but that was only the second time I have seen lightning that was stop light red. KFMQ was playing a Doors retrospective so I was listening to Jim Morrison singing "this is the end" as I watched the storms. A surreal moment.

 

The storm in GI was so unusual that Tetsuya (sp) Fujita, of the Fujita scale, made a trip to GI to examine the aftermath in person. Although the official total of tornados was, IIRC, 4 or 5, there was evidence that there were a lot more, both in GI and nearby, including 2 anti-tornados. The brother of a former girlfriend came out of the bank where he worked and saw 2 tornados on the ground north of him. Then he went around to the west side of the building and saw 3 more that he couldn't tell if they were on the ground or funnels. At that point he went back inside the bank.

 

As badly as it was hit, GI got lucky in a way as there was debris evidence of an EF-4 or 5 on the ground some 20 miles west of GI that was 5 MILES wide and that stayed on the ground for 1 and 1/4 miles. 

I've never heard of that 5-mile-wide guy...any links? I'd like to read up on it!

[jimmykc]

https://journalstar.com/entertainment/books/review-hargrove-captures-life-of-a-storm-chaser/article_5b260a7a-5cd5-5489-a6e1-a8ec4baa595c.html...….A good book for those who are into tornados.

[Ashfan]

1 hour ago, atskooc said:

I've never heard of that 5-mile-wide guy...any links? I'd like to read up on it!

 

Being a weather nerd I kept up on the information that came out when Fujita was in GI. I haven't seen anything else on the big one since then. I have noticed that the Wikipedia article on the GI tornados contradicts much of the info that came out from Fujita. It's possible that more information has come to light since then, making the Wikipedia article the most accurate source of info, but I tend to think that the information Fujita and his team released a month or so after the outbreak would be the most accurate. 

[Norm Peterson]

2 hours ago, Ashfan said:

 

I still remember sitting out on my mother's deck in east Lincoln that night. The storm over Grand Island was so high that I could see the lightning in it some 100 miles away. I have chased storms for decades, but that was only the second time I have seen lightning that was stop light red. KFMQ was playing a Doors retrospective so I was listening to Jim Morrison singing "this is the end" as I watched the storms. A surreal moment.

 

The storm in GI was so unusual that Tetsuya (sp) Fujita, of the Fujita scale, made a trip to GI to examine the aftermath in person. Although the official total of tornados was, IIRC, 4 or 5, there was evidence that there were a lot more, both in GI and nearby, including 2 anti-tornados. The brother of a former girlfriend came out of the bank where he worked and saw 2 tornados on the ground north of him. Then he went around to the west side of the building and saw 3 more that he couldn't tell if they were on the ground or funnels. At that point he went back inside the bank.

 

As badly as it was hit, GI got lucky in a way as there was debris evidence of an EF-4 or 5 on the ground some 20 miles west of GI that was 5 MILES wide and that stayed on the ground for 1 and 1/4 miles. 

 

Are they sure it wasn't a 1 1/4 mile-wide tornado that stayed on the ground for 5 miles?

[tcp]

21 minutes ago, Ashfan said:

 

Being a weather nerd I kept up on the information that came out when Fujita was in GI. I haven't seen anything else on the big one since then. I have noticed that the Wikipedia article on the GI tornados contradicts much of the info that came out from Fujita. It's possible that more information has come to light since then, making the Wikipedia article the most accurate source of info, but I tend to think that the information Fujita and his team released a month or so after the outbreak would be the most accurate. 

 

I believe the settled on count was 7 tornadoes during that sequence. That's how the event is written up by the NWS. Extremely rare this far north. 

[Coaches kid]

3 hours ago, Ashfan said:

 

I still remember sitting out on my mother's deck in east Lincoln that night. The storm over Grand Island was so high that I could see the lightning in it some 100 miles away. I have chased storms for decades, but that was only the second time I have seen lightning that was stop light red. KFMQ was playing a Doors retrospective so I was listening to Jim Morrison singing "this is the end" as I watched the storms. A surreal moment.

 

The storm in GI was so unusual that Tetsuya (sp) Fujita, of the Fujita scale, made a trip to GI to examine the aftermath in person. Although the official total of tornados was, IIRC, 4 or 5, there was evidence that there were a lot more, both in GI and nearby, including 2 anti-tornados. The brother of a former girlfriend came out of the bank where he worked and saw 2 tornados on the ground north of him. Then he went around to the west side of the building and saw 3 more that he couldn't tell if they were on the ground or funnels. At that point he went back inside the bank.

 

As badly as it was hit, GI got lucky in a way as there was debris evidence of an EF-4 or 5 on the ground some 20 miles west of GI that was 5 MILES wide and that stayed on the ground for 1 and 1/4 miles. 

As a freshman at UNL, I took a science course where we studied the GI tornadoes. I learned that the tornado that destroyed my home was anti-cyclonic. As ominous as it looked in Lincoln the other day, I have never seen cloud banks as high and black (with a weird green and yellow haze) as I saw in GI that evening. In fact, I still have tornado dreams every now and then. And yes, it does sound like a train when it's ripping off your roof.  

Edited May 8, 2019 by Coaches kid
Typo

[Ashfan]

Just now, Norm Peterson said:

 

Are they sure it wasn't a 1 1/4 mile-wide tornado that stayed on the ground for 5 miles?

 No. I remember that there was a great deal of discussion about it at the time regarding the amount of damage a 5 mile wide EF-4 or 5 could have done to GI if it had touched 20 miles or whatever it was to the east, even if it only stayed on the ground for a little over a mile. In one of the newspapers (probably the GI paper) there was even a small map showing what would have been destroyed if that tornado had touched down at the GI city limits and moved east into GI for a mile and a quarter.

[Ashfan]

31 minutes ago, tcp said:

 

I believe the settled on count was 7 tornadoes during that sequence. That's how the event is written up by the NWS. Extremely rare this far north. 

 

Thanks. The exact number I couldn't remember. But I know that people who were actually there and watching what was happening from their yards or, in the case of my ex-girlfriend, from a very open area around a school, are emphatic that there were considerably more than the official count. Of course, some of what they thought were tornados may have actually been funnels that never touched down. But the NWS has to be pretty sure that there was a tornado before they will call it one officially. I know that a number of years ago I followed 3 separate tornados near Giltner. I called 911 and reported where the 3 were. The NWS officially decided that there was only 1.

 

Edit. Upon thinking about it, I'm pretty sure my Giltner citing was just 2 tornados. The 3 was farther north on a different occasion. But still even though I reported 2 on the ground and not sisters, the NWS official says there was only 1.

 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Ashfan

[atskooc]

14 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

Are they sure it wasn't a 1 1/4 mile-wide tornado that stayed on the ground for 5 miles?

That would make a lot more sense.

[Silverbacked1]

Wasn't the GI Storm like one of the " greatest" storms of all time?  and didn't it do some never done stuff before or after?. Like the funnels going forward and backward and turning corners or something like that.

[atskooc]

3 minutes ago, Silverbacked1 said:

Wasn't the GI Storm like one of the " greatest" storms of all time?  and didn't it do some never done stuff before or after?. Like the funnels going forward and backward and turning corners or something like that.

Yup. They weren't on a straight track, that's for sure.

 

Edited May 8, 2019 by atskooc

[Ashfan]

12 minutes ago, Coaches kid said:

As a freshman at UNL, I took a science course where we studied the GI tornadoes. I learned that the tornado that destroyed my home was an anti-cyclonic. As ominous as it looked in Lincoln the other day, I have never seen cloud banks as high and black (with a weird green and yellow haze) as I saw in GI that evening. In fact, I still have tornado dreams every now and then. And yes, it does sound like a train when it's ripping off your roof.  

 

I don't remember the specifics, but I recall that the clouds over GI were almost unique in their height, going up to over 70,000 feet or something like that. That was the reason I was able to see the tops of them and all the weird lightning when I was sitting on a high ridge some 100 miles away.

[Ashfan]

5 minutes ago, atskooc said:

That would make a lot more sense.

 

Nope. Mr. Fujita rarely went out in the field at that time, sending his teams out instead. One of the reasons that Fujita actually visited GI was the destruction evidence of the 5 mile wide tornado. It wasn't officially confirmed as 5 miles wide, that's why I said evidence. Interestingly, for several years the widest tornado ever officially confirmed was the one that blasted Hallam, NE at 2.5 miles wide. However, that width was later surpassed by a tornado in, IIRC, OK that was officially determined to be 2.6 miles wide. But there are unofficial reports with destruction evidence of a number of tornados between 3 and 4 miles wide. The evidence of the one outside GI at 5 miles is the widest unofficial one that I know of. 

[atskooc]

51 minutes ago, Ashfan said:

 

Nope. Mr. Fujita rarely went out in the field at that time, sending his teams out instead. One of the reasons that Fujita actually visited GI was the destruction evidence of the 5 mile wide tornado. It wasn't officially confirmed as 5 miles wide, that's why I said evidence. Interestingly, for several years the widest tornado ever officially confirmed was the one that blasted Hallam, NE at 2.5 miles wide. However, that width was later surpassed by a tornado in, IIRC, OK that was officially determined to be 2.6 miles wide. But there are unofficial reports with destruction evidence of a number of tornados between 3 and 4 miles wide. The evidence of the one outside GI at 5 miles is the widest unofficial one that I know of. 

I don't doubt that Dr. Fujita rarely went into the field.

 

But I find it interesting that there was, as you say, evidence of a tornado of that size (twice the current record that was, yes, in Oklahoma a handful of years ago), but there is no official evidence of a tornado of any size 20 miles west of Grand Island during this outbreak.

 

The Wikipedia article for the Grand Island tornado outbreak mentions a twister as far away as West Virginia, but there is nary a mention that I can find of a tornado 20 miles west of Grand Island, regardless of size. How can there be "unofficial" evidence of a tornado being that size if there isn't even confirmed evidence that there was a tornado at all?

 

I'm struggling to grasp the concept of there being evidence of a tornado five miles wide when no one (Wikipedia or NWS) mentions even the possibility of there having been a tornado there? One would think that the possibility of having a twister of that magnitude (official or not) would be something worth reporting. It's not even mentioned in Wikipedia's page of tornado records which, as you say, has some unofficial tornadoes listed as more than 4 miles wide.  Wouldn't the word of Dr. Fujita himself be enough to include this (apparently non-existent) twister to that list?

Edited May 8, 2019 by atskooc

[colhusker]

El Reno tornado on May 31 now widest ever recorded in U.S. El Reno, Oklahoma tornado on May 31, 2013 is now widest ever recorded in the U.S. at 2.6 miles (4.2 km) wide, according to the National Weather Service

[colhusker]

I do know 3 of the 7 were spinning clockwise which is not normal.

[Ashfan]

4 hours ago, atskooc said:

I don't doubt that Dr. Fujita rarely went into the field.

 

But I find it interesting that there was, as you say, evidence of a tornado of that size (twice the current record that was, yes, in Oklahoma a handful of years ago), but there is no official evidence of a tornado of any size 20 miles west of Grand Island during this outbreak.

 

The Wikipedia article for the Grand Island tornado outbreak mentions a twister as far away as West Virginia, but there is nary a mention that I can find of a tornado 20 miles west of Grand Island, regardless of size. How can there be "unofficial" evidence of a tornado being that size if there isn't even confirmed evidence that there was a tornado at all?

 

I'm struggling to grasp the concept of there being evidence of a tornado five miles wide when no one (Wikipedia or NWS) mentions even the possibility of there having been a tornado there? One would think that the possibility of having a twister of that magnitude (official or not) would be something worth reporting. It's not even mentioned in Wikipedia's page of tornado records which, as you say, has some unofficial tornadoes listed as more than 4 miles wide.  Wouldn't the word of Dr. Fujita himself be enough to include this (apparently non-existent) twister to that list?

 

If you are dealing with Wikipedia as an authority on anything, then I can't help you. There are Wikipedia articles that cover events I was involved with or subjects I know enough about to have written chapters in books that are not even in the same zip code as accurate reporting. Also, the NWS doesn't, to my knowledge, report possibilities that haven't been confirmed. Evidence of a tornado is not included in the NWS official stats even if they conclude they don't have evidence to make a decision either way. The reports of tornados wider than the 2.6 mile wide OK tornado are anecdotal reports that the NWS may mention in their initial investigative reports, such as "observers estimated the wedge to be three miles wide, but verifiable evidence puts it at no greater than 1.8 miles wide" but that's all I have ever seen. And as I said, it may be that later investigation concluded that it was straight-line wind damage or a series of tornados that happened to run abreast at different times. I have not seen that reported. I only mentioned the 5 mile wide tornado as one of the several things that brought the Fujita to GI, along with the reports of multiple anti-cyclonic tornados which is very rare, and the almost unprecedented height of the storm cell. 

[Ashfan]

6 minutes ago, colhusker said:

I do know 3 of the 7 were spinning clockwise which is not normal.

 

I recall reading in one of my books that in America an average of 2 anti-cyclonic tornados are reported each year. So a single storm producing multiple anti-cyclonic tornados is unusual. Oh and atskooc. Rereading my reply to you and I realize I came across as more than a bit of a dick. Sorry. but Wikipedia is a trigger word to me. I just want to make clear I never claimed that investigation established a 5 mile wide tornado. Fujita may have gone back to California or Japan (I don't recall where he was at the time), examined the aerial photos more closely, and said "nope, straight line wind damage". And because straight line wind damage wasn't cool, the story disappeared.  

[colhusker]

2 minutes ago, Ashfan said:

 

I recall reading in one of my books that in America an average of 2 anti-cyclonic tornados are reported each year. So a single storm producing multiple anti-cyclonic tornados is unusual. Oh and atskooc. Rereading my reply to you and I realize I came across as more than a bit of a dick. Sorry. but Wikipedia is a trigger word to me. I just want to make clear I never claimed that investigation established a 5 mile wide tornado. Fujita may have gone back to California or Japan (I don't recall where he was at the time), examined the aerial photos more closely, and said "nope, straight line wind damage". And because straight line wind damage wasn't cool, the story disappeared.  

Yeah it was a rare storm indeed.

[cipsucks]

On ‎5‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 11:06 AM, tcp said:

I still have pretty high standards for tornado terror. Old enough to remember the 1980 tornado outbreak in GI my last year in high school. that was insane. Not two month later, one would go right over my house in Bellevue, NE. Nutty tornado season that year.

 

 

 

My dad and I were sitting on the front porch of our house in Hampton facing west that night.  "That doesn't look good", was all that needed to be said.  We stayed out and watched the clouds till it started pouring rain.  7 inches in less than two hours. 

 

My tornado story comes from 1964.  I was 3 years old at the time.  One of the worst tornados in Nebraska history was a mile south of our farmhouse.  All I remember is Mom making us go down in the basement.  My uncle's house, 3 miles away, was completely destroyed.  No one hurt, though.  They found his deep freeze, full of meat, (back then freezers had locking handles) near Seward 45 miles away.