slenker
Member
That Mountain View storm certainly got me - thought it was a lock for a tornado that was intense, coming from a supercell with a pretty impressive velocity couplet and a CC drop that lofted debris >10k ft, even with it being far away from the radar. It was another Hollister '24 situation, where many thought that was a violent tornado, only for it to be a complete dud on the ground. Perhaps the tornado, despite being weak on the ground, is just strong enough to loft stuff to the midlevels, where there is a much more impressive rotational component to the winds, which aids in lofting debris to high altitudes after the fact. I find it quite confusing as to why the debris signature was so impressive otherwise.The Mountain View tornado is a good reminder as to why a deep blue CC drop doesn’t equal automatic catastrophe. You often don’t know if you’re seeing airborne disintegrated houses, or just some tree debris and sheet metal roofing floating around. This is why me coming down hard on the user spewing hype-filled hyperbolic language during the Carlyle, IL tornado is not “nonsense” or an “attack”. It’s just reality and me learning to err on the side of caution after many years of me doing this. In the end, only minor to moderate damage was reported there.
Conversely, some innocuous looking signatures end up producing major damage. But generally, when **** is truly hitting the fan and lives are truly at stake, it’s often very apparent, like it was in Enid. I think some younger people come from circles (social media, Reddit, and live stream chats) where it’s the norm to whip each other up into a frenzy. Sure, I’ve been young and excitable, and I’ve been fooled by nasty looking radar signatures plenty of times, and probably will be again at some point in the near future lol. But generally that’s why it’s good to reserve that kind of language (“life threatening” “cataclysmic” etc) for situations where it’s very apparent that it’s the real deal, like Enid, rather than a QLCS spinup likely just hitting barns and trees.
Just shows that, unless it's overwhelmingly obvious that the tornado is intense-violent at ground level, jumping to judgment too quickly is not wise.