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Severe Weather 2025

Tanner said:
I understand records are cool and all, but…doesn’t seem a bit strange that these “widest tornado” records are coming more frequently the past few years? Mississippi, Iowa, and Arkansas are the three I can think of that this has happened. It’s got to be technology advancements.
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I mean El Reno happened in 2013. Of course Mulhall happened in '99, but I understand what you mean.
 
Tanner said:
I understand records are cool and all, but…doesn’t seem a bit strange that these “widest tornado” records are coming more frequently the past few years? Mississippi, Iowa, and Arkansas are the three I can think of that this has happened. It’s got to be technology advancements.
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The record was 1.5 mi wide April 2011 @Tanner
 
tornado examiner said:
This is another Hollister situation.
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I know the radar presentation of the Hollister tornado was incredible, but at surface-level didn't they not find much of the high-end damage that was expected? I heard from someone, can't remember who, that the rotation at the base was apparently significantly weaker for some reason.
 
OH-IOan said:
I know the radar presentation of the Hollister tornado was incredible, but at surface-level didn't they not find much of the high-end damage that was expected? I heard from someone, can't remember who, that the rotation at the base was apparently significantly weaker for some reason.
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Yes. Velocity disconnect from the ground of some kind, less effective stretching of the vortex or something. But idk for sure.
The 200mph Scan on radar was not the tornado vortex but rather the upper level mesocyclone and it was very disconnected.
Until it began occluding the velocities were unbalanced and wonky and not violently tight.

Just saying…this tornado likely wasn’t capable of high end damage just like Hollister wasn’t. And Unless I see aerial imagery indicating any form of scouring of those fields. Saying that the tornado was capable of violent damage is very silly too me.
 
ColdFront said:
It’s always been prone to those iffy setups. I grew up on 1990s and 2000s storm stories where it seemed like every big tornado outbreak was plains based. However, for every 4/27/91 and 5/3/99, there are countless blue sky bu$ts lol
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When chasing started becoming a thing, those involved were used to a climatology that looks like this, from Howie Bluestein's book:

From Bluestein Tornado Alley.png

While IMO the late 40s to late 60s were unusually inactive in the SE, more recent climatologies like the 1982-2011 weekly charts on the SPC site are similar. People have built businesses and careers off reliable plains tornadoes. The reason chasers complain is the I-35 corridor's not only the historic locus of activity, but there and westwards are better terrain. Until recently chasers were reluctant to go to the SE because of its bad terrain and reputation for fast-moving, rain wrapped and often nocturnal outbreaks.

IMO geographically extensive outbreaks are a midwest and south thing and plains ones tend to be smaller and more concentrated. But even then there's a lack of major southern plains outbreaks between 14/4/12 and 27 April last year. Smaller events, which are more of a plains thing in general, are much harder to gauge, though I see complaints about lack of them too. 27/4/24 was nocturnal, like many recent events. Many past plains outbreaks have been diurnal. Historically most touchdowns are between 21Z and 2Z. I've lost count of how many times someone's said 'wait for the low level jet', but producing tornadoes in daylight usen't be a problem.

The other complaint I read (especially from Faidley) is lack of June events. AFAIK June was historically more active than April. While the 5:6 split of April being more active is close, June hasn't passed its 1999-2023 average (191) since 2014, April (190) has five times. The 1989-2013 averages were April-168 : June-234. These tend to be northern or high plains events, often slower moving and easier to chase.

I think I've a seen a paper or two suggesting a decrease in plains activity and increase in the SE, and one suggesting a trend to fewer tornado days (larger outbreaks less often), but the data are messy and the trends small. This isn't that surprising as tornado data aren't good quality until the era of doppler (and chasing becoming popular), making long term trends hard to find.

While rose-tinted glasses are always a factor, I'm not going to dismiss out of hand people saying the past decade or so has been unusually inactive on the plains.
 
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