A "particularly dangerous situation" tornado watch for portions of Arkansas, Louisiana and much of

Updated at 12:32 p.m.] The National Weather Service has issued a "particularly dangerous situation" tornado watch for portions of southeastern Arkansas, northeastern Louisiana and much of Mississippi until 7 p.m. (8 p.m. ET). A particularly dangerous situation watch is issued when there is a high risk of multiple strong tornadoes.

news.blogs.cnn.com...

I am on a meteorologist only chase forum and it looks like there may be multiples on the ground today - We have two major lows over Ohio and Miss. in areas cape values 4k (never seen them that high) and massive influx of warm moisture pushing in from the gulf. It's setting up at this point to be very bad. We could have 200,000 square miles of risk area from what I see right now.

If you are anywhere in the midwest to south today - be ready to take cover. Seriously. It's not just the states above who are at risk. VA looks pretty unstable too, so check your area on wunderground.com

I'll be watching chasers for part of the day on a live feed and will pop in here when I can for updates. But take care of yourselves.

Thanks for the heads up and I hope people can stay safe. I am curious about the 'cape value' mentioned, as in what it is and what it's significance. Is 4 a record?

Thanks,
spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


In meteorology, convective available potential energy, is available potential energy (APE), is the amount of energy a parcel of air would have if lifted a certain distance vertically through the atmosphere. CAPE is effectively the positive buoyancy of an air parcel and is an indicator of atmospheric instability. You need a high dewpoint to produce storms- regardless of CAPE values. And there is plenty of that.

4k Cape is not a record- the Plainfield tornado was in 7k. But that is the highest I have personally ever seen when checking radar/storm possibilities. Enough to make me go oooh.

Basically, take a line and draw it from Oklahoma City- to Lake Michigan - to New York- down along the eastern coastline and over to Louisiana. If you live inside that- be ready to hit the cellar or bathtub. It look very strange and it keeps drastically changing. That could be good or bad- but if bad- it's SHTF time.
And- Reed Timmer is chasing today. If that tells you anything.

Any updates? The storms this past year seem to be strangely large and severe. Like the New years eve storm that covered 1/3 of the whole U.S.

Originally posted by tinker9917
Any updates? The storms this past year seem to be strangely large and severe. Like the New years eve storm that covered 1/3 of the whole U.S.

I was too busy and there were way too many storms to keep up with. If any of you caught James Spanns ABC 33 Ustream you saw the Tuscaloosa tornado at formation and watched it via cams all the way through Birmingham.
I have never seen as violent a tornado as that cell was as it moved through Tuscaloosa. And I have been watching tornadoes a long, long time. When it got to Birmingham it was over a mile wide. There were two chasers on it- including the Discovery team. They had to backtrack though when they ran into downed trees and I am thinking they maybe just got the rain wrapped portion. I haven't been in to check though. Quite a few people and chasers got vids of this monster. But it was not the only monster out there today and this system is not done yet - watch Pennsylvania and up into NY - also still Virginia.

About the stronger storms. This is something that has been theorized for a while now - and something I have believed would happen as well. It's 3rd grade science at it's root.
The main problem is that the pacific waters are warmer- which moves the Jet Stream into a new track -higher latitudes in the northwest and then this odd dipping loop into the center of the country. This is pulling down colder air than normal from the upper atmosphere. At the same time the Gulf area is warmer and the Jet Stream is creating low pressure systems which act like a 'vacuum' - sucking the warmer very moist Gulf air into collision course with the cold air over a large area.

Basically it is a result of warmer ocean waters overall. But this pattern is now in place - possibly for the rest of the season.

I appreciate you being here., and thaanks for the information.
It's good to have your knowledge here with us.

Here is the fallout as of this morning.
I mentioned the Tuscaloosa / Birmingham tornado yesterday as being so violent. I watched this thing form on a live chase cam from one of our chasers and then from various city and weather station cams in TUS and BMH. While this thing (and the Cullman tornado) was on the ground I was just screaming inside for everyone there to take cover. There were so many reports for hours about this area being in great danger and I know the warning sirens were BLASTING for 10 minutes up to half hour in the areas it hit. People had plenty of warning yet - here is a video of the tornado as it came into Tuscaloosa taken by a man from the inside of the stadium at the University. Note what he says about 'not knowing what was going on'. It is unbelievable video and unbelievable that these people were unaware. Tuscaloosa Tornado

We have got to develop a better warning system than sirens if people are without power or simply not paying attention.

I think a system like the Japanese have where there are sirens and spoken warnings - and to make sure that if you have a building- store, office, etc that holds more than 20 people needs to have speakers installed connected to this system. It would not be any harder than wiring for internet or wifi.

A report from a chaser who stopped to assist after spotting major hit on a town said there were live people there with limbs- arms and legs torn off. That is how violent these storms were. And they will continue to get worse over time.

If you are interested in the best video and best reporting of this day in Alabama see this LiNK - scroll about halfway down the page to the tiny thumbnails- those are all videos and reports.
James Spann was amazing and deserves a medal at this point. There were thirteen hooks with debris at one time on my radar and he was clearly and concisely reporting locations and warnings on every one. Like herding cats.

The news is reporting hundreds of people are already dead from these storms. More destruction is expected and Virginia is under a state of emergency.

I have just heard my umpteenth report from survivors - in or from public buildings - who 'had no idea what was going on'. The university coliseum guy (from the video) included. I watched the cam and heard sirens from nearby chase vehicles - I know that outdoor warning sirens were going off up to 12 minutes before that bastard hit the outskirts of Tuscaloosa. And Birmingham had up to 20-25 minute warning.

I AM PISSED.

We have spent TRILLIONS in taxpayer dollars to pay mouthbreathers to feel up our grannies, wives and 6 year olds at the airport but WE DON'T HAVE INTERNAL EBS IN OUR PUBLIC BUILDINGS? NOTHING? Warning sirens are not loud enough to penetrate to internal offices in large buildings?

Are you #ing kidding me??

More people have died in weather related disasters in the past 3 years than we EVER lost to 'terrier' attacks- and despite the trillions spent to 'keep everyone safe' they have done NOTHING to remediate this. They do NOT give a # about saving lives.

Here is a great post-storm discussion between the Alabama meteorologists, storm chasers, spotters, videographers, etc who were in the middle of the Alabama outbreak:

www.alabamawx.com...

If you are interested in the on the ground events of the day and the particulars of how this storm happened- here it is.