20th Anniversary of the "Chronic Severe Weather Outbreak"

[Argus]

I know a lot of us old timers on the forum cut our teeth, chasing or being chased by storms during the first week of May of 2003. Since the outbreak was almost daily and rotating among the Southern states from Oklahoma to Georgia, maybe we would like to share our stories from that week.

I remember 5/7/03 and how crazy that storm was, just sitting over northeast Jefferson County. It was dark as night in the middle of the afternoon, and there was a brief clip of the storm during a 33/40 weather special years ago. The thing was that the day before, Georgia had the worst weather. I remember Brett Adair and Issac Williams in the Yahoo chat talking about the weather and chasing a storm in Talladega County on 5/7. Back then, I had one desktop computer and only dial-up!

We haven't had a week like that, since Brittany and I moved to Georgia. Been waiting every year, but no "chronic" outbreaks like 2003 yet.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Although it didn't impact me directly, I have a lot of memories of the May 2003 outbreak sequence, as it was the first major severe weather event that I followed as it unfolded (although doing so was a lot different than now - no live chaser streams or streaming TV coverage directly from the impact zone, and no GR Level 3 or Radarscope to track the radar myself). I was 17 in 2003 and I had just "discovered" the SPC website (previously throughout my child/teenagerhood my main source of national severe weather information had been The Weather Channel) the year before, and thought being able to get the information "straight from the horses' mouth," so to speak, was just supremely cool.

It must have been on May 4th when I saw, on TWC's thunderstorm outlook, a "white zone" indicating an unusually great threat of severe weather (it was around this time, or possibly because of this event, that I realized that TWC's thunderstorm outlooks were essentially repackaged SPC convective outlooks, with the orange "thunderstorms possible" shading matching the general thunder contour, and the red "severe" shading matching anything slight risk or above, and the rare white shading accompanying a high risk). I fired up our dial-up Internet connection and loaded the site, and there was a high risk - the first one I'd ever seen, accompanied by a Public Severe Weather Outlook.

...STORMS WILL RAPIDLY BECOME SEVERE IN THE FORM OF DISCRETE
SUPERCELLS. DEVELOPMENT IS EXPECTED TO OCCUR ACROSS ERN OK AND
INTO NRN/ERN TX...AS WELL AS INTO NRN LA/AR AND POSSIBLY NRN MS/WRN
TN THROUGH THE LATE AFTERNOON/EVENING AS UPPER JET BECOMES MORE WLY
AND STRONG HEATING ERODES CAP ACROSS THE WARM SECTOR. THIS
ACTIVITY WILL ALSO LIKELY REMAIN SUPERCELLULAR. THE THREATS OF
TORNADOES... INCLUDING LONG-LIVED TORNADIC SUPERCELLS...AND VERY
LARGE HAIL WILL OCCUR ACROSS THE ENTIRE REGION. VERY POTENT
COMBINATION OF STRONG INSTABILITY...LOW AND DEEP LAYER SHEAR AND
DEEP LIFTING INDICATE SIGNIFICANT TORNADOES ARE LIKELY FROM THE MID
AFTERNOON UNTIL WELL AFTER DARK.

Holy. Sh!t.

Of course, this setup verified all too well with one of the most prolific, destructive and deadly outbreaks of the 2000s (perhaps exceeded only by Super Tuesday, 2008) with multiple long-track F4s and F3s from several supercells across eastern Kansas and western Missouri. Jackson, TN was also struck by an F4 overnight.

May 5th also had a high risk issued, although not much in the way of significant tornado activity occurred that day. Just three days later, another high risk was issued in the Plains on May 8th, which saw Moore, OK's second violent tornado strike in four years (although much less impactful than 1999, or the one that would come ten years later) as well as several other strong tornadoes in eastern Kansas.

Just two days later, another high risk would be issued encompassing areas from eastern Oklahoma to northern Illinois to the OH/WV border. While the May 10th event didn't quite live up to its apocalyptic forecast wording in terms of impact (thankfully), with the maximum tornado rating reaching F3 and no fatalities, it was the only day during this outbreak sequence to affect Wisconsin. That night my parents and I were in the town of Brodhead with my aunt and uncle, watching my cousins perform in one of their high school plays. On the way home there was spectacular lightning all around, but it wasn't until we got home and I got back online that I realized that there was a PDS tornado watch in effect for our area, and that lightning had been from supercells (even though we were barely within the edge of the slight risk)! Tornadoes were later confirmed near Benton and Belmont, WI, about 50 miles west of Brodhead. They were rated F1 for impacting farm outbuildings, trees and powerlines but based on video from a law enforcement officer that I didn't see until years later, at least one of them was rather large, substantial and likely capable of a higher rating had it hit (a) frame house(s). Not your typical Wisconsin "weak"-category, brief spin-up.

Although the longwave trough associated with this sequence finally moved off the East Coast on May 11, within a few days another event set up that warranted a high risk over the western Plains, and produced several strong and photogenic tornadoes in the Texas Panhandle on May 15th.

This was still the pre-social media era, and many storm chasers maintained their own websites to post their photography and often well-written, detailed, and gripping chase accounts. Within a few weeks the accounts of this sequence began to appear (although, sadly, most of them have long since gone offline now).

Five high risks in twelve days, four of them verified. I thought all Mays were like this, and that SPC was that good. Ah, to be young and naive.

 

[tennessee storm chaser]

Remember the night of May 4. 2003 very well …. Had a ef4 come right through my hometown jackson Tennessee…. Remember the power flashes off from the distance…. I was chasing that night when a big lighting flash came through the sky showing a huge monster wedge tornado just off the west of me …. It was total mass construction, with a total of 23 fatalities in my county alone ….

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Remember the night of May 4. 2003 very well …. Had a ef4 come right through my hometown jackson Tennessee…. Remember the power flashes off from the distance…. I was chasing that night when a big lighting flash came through the sky showing a huge monster wedge tornado just off the west of me …. It was total mass construction, with a total of 23 fatalities in my county alone ….

Wasn't Jackson hit twice that night?

Also, do you have video from that chase? Haven't seen anything, video or otherwise, of the Jackson tornado as it was happening so if you were recording this would likely be the first.

 

[notsoencrypted]

I, sadly, do not remember this event. I was 16 (about a month short of being 17) and while I was interested in weather (I had already been told that I wasn't "good enough" at math for meteorology and so had discarded that dream), I was more focused on getting ready for my senior year of high school and really only paid attention to local weather stuff. Anyway, it's interesting to read folks' experiences/memories of historical events!

 

[tennessee storm chaser]

Wasn't Jackson hit twice that night?

Also, do you have video from that chase? Haven't seen anything, video or otherwise, of the Jackson tornado as it was happening so if you were recording this would likely be the first.

Yea you are correct … there was a recorded ef2 on the western part of the county . Wish I had video

 

[Taylor Campbell]

Severe Weather & Flooding - May 7, 2003

Wedowee​

The final, and longest lived, tornado of the day touched around 440 pm down just south of the city of Wedowee, causing damage to several businesses near the intersection of Highway 431 and County Road 15. From there, the tornado moved east-northeast for at least 12 miles, through the Rocky Branch and Napoleon communities, and all the way to the Georgia State Line. This tornado was rated an F1 on the Fujita scale. Aside from the businesses near the initial touch down location, the tornado travelled across mainly wooded areas, with only a few other structures being hit.

Flooding​

Besides the tornadoes, the main feature associated with the thunderstorms on May 7 was the amount rain they produced, and the subsequent flooding that resulted. The tropical air mass that gave fuel to the thunderstorms provided an enormous amount of moisture, and the storms were able to efficiently produce an incredible amount of rain.

The north and northeast sections of Metro Birmingham were hit especially hard, as several waves of thunderstorms dumped as much as 11 inches of rain on the area in only a few hours. This caused historic flooding in much of northeast Birmingham and the suburbs. Flooding was reported across the whole width of of Alabama, from where the storms entered Lamar County in the west, to where they exited in Cleburne and Randolph Counties in the east.

All of that water flowed from creeks and streams into the larger rivers, causing even more flooding. The city of Wadley, in southwestern Randolph County, became nearly isolated by the flooded Tallapoosa River. As the river there rose to record levels, the Highway 22 bridge that connects Wadley to other cities and towns to the east became completely submerged. Other cities and towns near many of Alabama's major rivers reported similar flooding. Even areas that did not experience that much rainfall were threatened by flooding, as all the water carried downstream.

May 7th, 2003 was my 12th birthday. I’ll never forget how significant the weather was that day. I remember Glenn Burns talk about the ridiculous amount of lightning and rainfall totals over Randolph County, AL. Lake Wedowee overflowed its banks and huge logs sat on my parents dock. The F1 tornado hit the Hub restaurant which was a country kitchen buffet at the time.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the May 8, 2003 tornado outbreak, the third high risk in five days, which most famously produced Moore, OK's second violent tornado in four years (although considerably less impactful overall than the (E)F5 tornadoes of previous and later years, it was rated based on a small area of F4 damage). Several other strong tornadoes also occurred in the Plains, although they largely missed towns and cities and thus are not well remembered. The most notable after Moore was probably the F3 near Yates Center, KS.

20 years ago on this day, the Oklahoma City metro would be struck by its second F3+ tornado in two days. This one went over the northern part of the metro area. Sandwiched between high risk-caliber storm systems on the previous and succeeding days, the pattern that led to this tornadic supercell was rather subtle, in fact central Oklahoma wasn't even in the general thunder contour on the initial Day-2 outlook issued on May 8.