DFW Tornado Radar Analysis & The Crystal Ball
First off, a big WOOT for my bud and fellow SDS researcher Glenn Dixon passing his Technician Class license today!! Way to go!!!! Glenn is making a grand re-entrance into chasing storms again after a brief hiatus. He brings alot of fun and humor to this hobby which has been missing for a while. He is quite the gadget and techno geek too, so I look forward to seeing what he comes up with. I'm kinda lazy on the technical gadgets...doing just enough to get me what I need to chase. Maybe he'll rub off on me. :-) He'll also be helping the Denton County EM folks as well which I know he'll be a big asset for them.
I put together a radar analysis of the DFW tornado (or tornadoes) event:
http://texastailchaser.com/special/20070413/
There are some truly fascinating things going on with the storm. From what I can tell, the tornadic circulation was associated with the synoptic scale surface low as it translates along the warm front. It would appear that the surface low and cool front trailing south of it moved abit faster than forecast. This would account for the rapid linear squall line developing and storms being undercut. With parallel flow aloft and weaker instabilities in the warm sector, storms would erupt from the frontal lift and immediately move behind it. Nothing had a chance to get rooted as the front was moving at a pretty good clip. The surface low was moving slower to let that big storm get rooted.
DFW was spared a major disaster on Friday. The worst case scenario almost came true. The traffic in DFW was gridlocked as the worst period for traffic is 3-6pm on a Friday. The warm front and surface low stretched right across the heart of the DFW metroplex. Had a large, wedge tornado developed like we often see with such synoptic scale setups, it would have plowed through heavily populated areas with tens of thousands of cars jam packed on the roads tossed around like toy models. Then, it would have moved over downtown Dallas and plowed along I-30 once again tossing thousands of cars everywhere. You can do the numbers yourself and figure out the fatalities and injuries.....not to mention the mass nightmare of logistics and communications as search and rescue crews try to reach the devestated areas. Our resources would have been severely overwhelmed and mutual aid would be needed from just about every part of the country.
The North Central Texas Council Of Governments did and impressive "what-if" worst case scenario which eerily came close to paralleling what unfolded Friday.
http://www.nctcog.org/weather/study/
OK...so what lies ahead? We'll, since we have been stuck in an early March airmass for the past week and a half, moisture return is going to be horrible with only modified air spreading back in this week. A couple of pretty strong storm systems will affect us this week with the one next Tuesday looks like a big event of S and SE TX at this time and yet lots more rain for Texas. Still some uncertainties with the track of the upper low, but I like the NAM solution so far. It seems like decades since I've seen such an active southern stream storm track into mid April. I've gotten used to the ridge setting up and storm systems tracking into Nebraska by mid April. LOL!!
Another system appears to affect my neck of the woods by Thursday with modifed Gulf air making it up here for at least marginal instabilities for th dryline to smack into. Recovery is again going to be a big challenge with the early week system bulldozing moisture across the coastal areas and the GOM basin. However, Thursday's system won't scour out the moisture which will allow some decent moisture return for the weekend. Maybe we can finally get into a typical late April pattern instead of the first week of March. We had another good snow event in the TX PH with about an inch on the ground at my place.
By then, the pattern looks more favorable for a good W TX/PH setup for both Saturday and Sunday with dryline and warm front in the area. Stay tuned for that because there are some strong hints that it will be a good chase weekend....no more work to get in the way! LOL!!!
I put together a radar analysis of the DFW tornado (or tornadoes) event:
http://texastailchaser.com/special/20070413/
There are some truly fascinating things going on with the storm. From what I can tell, the tornadic circulation was associated with the synoptic scale surface low as it translates along the warm front. It would appear that the surface low and cool front trailing south of it moved abit faster than forecast. This would account for the rapid linear squall line developing and storms being undercut. With parallel flow aloft and weaker instabilities in the warm sector, storms would erupt from the frontal lift and immediately move behind it. Nothing had a chance to get rooted as the front was moving at a pretty good clip. The surface low was moving slower to let that big storm get rooted.
DFW was spared a major disaster on Friday. The worst case scenario almost came true. The traffic in DFW was gridlocked as the worst period for traffic is 3-6pm on a Friday. The warm front and surface low stretched right across the heart of the DFW metroplex. Had a large, wedge tornado developed like we often see with such synoptic scale setups, it would have plowed through heavily populated areas with tens of thousands of cars jam packed on the roads tossed around like toy models. Then, it would have moved over downtown Dallas and plowed along I-30 once again tossing thousands of cars everywhere. You can do the numbers yourself and figure out the fatalities and injuries.....not to mention the mass nightmare of logistics and communications as search and rescue crews try to reach the devestated areas. Our resources would have been severely overwhelmed and mutual aid would be needed from just about every part of the country.
The North Central Texas Council Of Governments did and impressive "what-if" worst case scenario which eerily came close to paralleling what unfolded Friday.
http://www.nctcog.org/weather/study/
OK...so what lies ahead? We'll, since we have been stuck in an early March airmass for the past week and a half, moisture return is going to be horrible with only modified air spreading back in this week. A couple of pretty strong storm systems will affect us this week with the one next Tuesday looks like a big event of S and SE TX at this time and yet lots more rain for Texas. Still some uncertainties with the track of the upper low, but I like the NAM solution so far. It seems like decades since I've seen such an active southern stream storm track into mid April. I've gotten used to the ridge setting up and storm systems tracking into Nebraska by mid April. LOL!!
Another system appears to affect my neck of the woods by Thursday with modifed Gulf air making it up here for at least marginal instabilities for th dryline to smack into. Recovery is again going to be a big challenge with the early week system bulldozing moisture across the coastal areas and the GOM basin. However, Thursday's system won't scour out the moisture which will allow some decent moisture return for the weekend. Maybe we can finally get into a typical late April pattern instead of the first week of March. We had another good snow event in the TX PH with about an inch on the ground at my place.
By then, the pattern looks more favorable for a good W TX/PH setup for both Saturday and Sunday with dryline and warm front in the area. Stay tuned for that because there are some strong hints that it will be a good chase weekend....no more work to get in the way! LOL!!!
Labels: DFW Tornado Radar Analysis
posted by Steve Miller TX at 4/14/2007 11:16:00 PM
6 Comments:
But are we having fun yet? ;-)
Nothing happened in my area, or at least nothing worth driving through blinding rain at night to find. We had a nice "right mover" cross Southern Alabama, come into Georgia and get one county away from me and then it swept off to the Northeast a vanished. The "Rick curse" is still intact. (banging head on computer desk)
Great analysis, Steve... I guess if you can't chase them, analyze the fool out of them! Glad it wasn't one of the what-if scenarios.
Love the tag line under the title!
Steve you asked earlier with what Kanani and I saw on 820 in Richland Hills what would have happened if there had been a wedge. Thats easy. Probably the highest tornado death count in US history. From the time we got on 820 in FT Worth all the way east it was bumper to bumper both directions and people were stopped under the bridges due to hail making 820 a giant parking lot. There would have been thousands of deaths along the highway alone without even counting the people in the surrounding structures. I had to do some fancy driving and grass hoping to get on the service road and clear of that mess. I came super close to using my lights/siren.
This was a worst case scenerio barely dodged. They are beyond lucky. it was only divine inttervention that saved them. Hopefully all the hail damage these people sufferedn on their vehicles will make them mnore aware of how close they came to disaster.
I'm glad ya'll enjoyed the analysis. It would be even better with Level 2 data though. Still, some fascinating stuff. I hope the NWS FTW does an analysis on it...and I'm sure Gary Woodall or Al Moller will. That will be some pretty juicy stuff to sink your meteorological teeth into.
Jay,
Thanks for that account. It's about what I expected. In DFW, where it's always every person for themselves...screw the next guy, they have no problem parking under the bridge in the middle of the highway and backing up traffic for 15 miles so they don't get their Beemer dinged with hail. It's unbelievable, but it happens all the time and pretty quickly. They'll viciously fight for their "right" to do so too. Amazing. I'm glad to have gotten the hell out of that place.
Yep, as horryfying as it sounds, a tornado of even moderate intensity churning up the freeway like it did on I-30 east of Dallas would have resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries just from cars getting tossed.
But, what if anything can be done about it? I'm drawing a blank except to draw up a response plan involving the military to descend upon the area from the air with aid and assistance.
Hopefully it will never happen.
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