Severe WX March 30th- April 1st 2023 (South, Southeast, Ohio Valley, Upper Midwest)

[andyhb]

Yeah, that survey in the Robinson area from ILX was pretty poor. These surveys with a number of missing, potentially higher end DIs are becoming too common as of late.

 

[pohnpei]

so the March 31 event now tied with Easter outbreak, becoming the third largest outbreak of all time in terms of tornado counts in 24 hours. The number of significant tornados is now stand at 45, which also second only to two super outbreaks in history.

 

[ColdFront]

so the March 31 event now tied with Easter outbreak, becoming the third largest outbreak of all time in terms of tornado counts in 24 hours. The number of significant tornados is now stand at 45, which also second only to two super outbreaks in history.
View attachment 19967

I think we had at least 3 EF4s, maybe a 4th. But as Andy pointed out, at this point, do just a handful of WFOs even care about putting in the bare minimum effort on correct surveying? Does anyone at those offices even care?

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Found a DAT entry for just south of IA-92 at Keota that by all indications has to be the debris seen in my video. Glad it wasn't a house.

stormdate	3/31/2023, 4:17 PM
surveydate	4/10/2023, 9:22 AM
event_id
damage	1.00
damage_txt	Small Barns or Farm Outbuildings (SBO)
dod_txt	Total destruction of building
efscale	EF2
damage_dir	N/A
windspeed	131
injuries	0.00
deaths	0.00
lat	41.34
lon	-92.00
office	DVN
image
gps_horiz_accuracy
qc	Y
dod	8.00
surveytype
comments	Outbuildings destroyed

 

[CheeselandSkies]

DVN now has tallied fifteen EF2+ in their CWA alone. While only two of those were from a really discrete, classic cyclical supercell (it continued to produce strong tornadoes after being absorbed as a "bookend vortex" into the QLCS, not unlike the Alabama beast on Jan. 12), that's still an unusually intense/prolific outbreak for the region and well worth the high risk.

 

[notsoencrypted]

I would really like to know if ARX did any surveying. It looks like there could have been some low-end damage where their area borders on MKX's (and DVN's).

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

RE; Robinson: though Lincoln probably crudded the bed in this case, I'd wager CRH might have been involved too (CRH was apparently also responsible for conservative ratings in Rochelle and Mayfield)

 

[TornadoFan]

 

[TH2002]

RE; Robinson: though Lincoln probably crudded the bed in this case, I'd wager CRH might have been involved too (CRH was apparently also responsible for conservative ratings in Rochelle and Mayfield)

TBH I think it was just a combination of laziness and not caring. They saw what was very obviously violent damage, but didn't want to have to go through the necessary process to go above EF3 (calling in a QRT) so they just came up with some half-baked excuse along the lines of "Well we saw some potentially violent damage but couldn't get to it, EF3 case closed".

Although the aerial footage showed that the obliterated farmsteads were literally RIGHT NEXT DOOR to one of the buildings they surveyed, so that excuse doesn't hold much water. Either way, now they'll just ignore criticism completely or play the "lol weather weenies" card when anyone dares to question their horrifically botched survey.

 

[notsoencrypted]

Meanwhile...

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Meanwhile...

My parents live just northeast of Stoughton (a little to the west of that EF1 track), glad I called on my way back from my Iowa chase and told them to get to the basement. My mom said my dad didn't want to go, even after our close call with the F3 of August, 2005.

 

[cincywx]

hard to determine what the official count is as there's no centralized database of confirmed tors and wiki states 145 but lists out 149; regardless, an incredible day.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

149

Which would be 1 more than the 1974 Super Outbreak. Holy Moly...

 

[ColdFront]

Kind of funny looking back on it now. Someone on here the day of asked if this event would be historical and I said “ask us after”

I’m sure 1974 had a lot of smaller, weaker tornados go uncounted just because of technology and radar at the time. However, this outbreak was no pushover at all. I think the number of violent tornados in this outbreak was undercounted by 3-4, but that’s for another conversation.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

I didn't realize this until reading through NWS Chicago's summary page today...but apparently the Woodhaven Lakes campground near Amboy and Sublette, IL was hit by an EF2 on March 31...same as they were on June 22, 2015 which was one of the many "almost" tornado catches (aside from complete busts) that defined my chase career until Keota...this video frame grab is looking right at where it was, inside the wall of rain.

 

[JBishopwx]

NWS Memphis just put out its story map on this event. They are saying we now sit at 154 total tornadoes nationwide:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9b081d8c52514b73a83f194c794380ae

 

[cincywx]

NWS Memphis just put out its story map on this event. They are saying we now sit at 154 total tornadoes nationwide:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9b081d8c52514b73a83f194c794380ae

View attachment 20111

its always bothered me that there is little in the way of a centralized database for confirmed tors because all too often, and sometimes even years after the fact, it is very difficult to gauge what the true count of an outbreak is. intuition tells you that wiki is a great source for that, but with it being based off of public data, it unintentionally suffers from discrepancies such as the one above from MEG, or this one i highlighted below, in which the SPC's numbers differ from public data:

pretty incredible stuff.

though i do find this interesting - this graphic suggests that the storm prediction center's official records indicate 125 tornadoes during the 12z - 12z period. in contrast, wikipedia & supporting sources indicate & list 120. i did some minor digging and discovered no tornadoes on december 14 or december 16, so all of the 125 would have had to occur on december 15. the spc's online database here - which it suggests contains *finalized* data up thru dec 31, 2021 - even lists 119 tornadoes. the difference is somewhat negligible but i am curious as to what the correct count is.

normally, the difference in counts is very marginal, or say, the difference between a count of 50 and 55, and it is not worth mentioning. unfortunately, this is an exceptionally rare situation in which the variations in count could be the difference between <=148 and >148, and it's easy to understand why that is significant.

 

[buckeye05]

I didn't realize this until reading through NWS Chicago's summary page today...but apparently the Woodhaven Lakes campground near Amboy and Sublette, IL was hit by an EF2 on March 31...same as they were on June 22, 2015 which was one of the many "almost" tornado catches (aside from complete busts) that defined my chase career until Keota...this video frame grab is looking right at where it was, inside the wall of rain.

View attachment 20110

I thought that campground sounded familiar. That was the same outbreak that produced the Coal City, IL EF3 right?

 

[CheeselandSkies]

I thought that campground sounded familiar. That was the same outbreak that produced the Coal City, IL EF3 right?

Yup.

Also infamous (in my and other upper Midwest chasers' memory) as the day the NAM had off-the-charts STP (>10) over WI, leading Broyles to issue a Day 3 Enhanced risk...and multiple chasers including the TIV group to target Madison...and all the tornadoes ended up being in IL thanks to a morning MCS.

 

[tornado examiner]

Several of the tracks from this outbreak are now on google earth. Just looking at the track of the Robinson tornado…even though the imagery is from may 2nd…the track is still extremely evident in the intense ground marks and tree damage