Severe WX December 10 & 11, 2021 Severe Threat

[Sawmaster]

I think there is a case for an EF5 rating but not a strong one.

I'll chime in here agreeing. What PO's me most about Mayfield is there was very clear photographic evidence which was just as clearly ignored.

What I've also noticed that many WFO's which publish full survey reports take them down after a short time and apparently don't archive them, leaving you with only the overview or nothing at all. It's almost like Orwells "minitruth" in his book "1984" where information is altered and controlled and deleted or contrived at the whim of some invisible entity so you cannot question their judgement because you don't have the facts you did yesterday for proof.

Nobody benefits from having things like this hidden except those who have committed wrong and do not want to be tasked with their misdeeds. And nobody should do things as important as storm surveys without independent oversight to keep them accurate and honest.

Phil

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

I'll chime in here agreeing. What PO's me most about Mayfield is there was very clear photographic evidence which was just as clearly ignored.

What I've also noticed that many WFO's which publish full survey reports take them down after a short time and apparently don't archive them, leaving you with only the overview or nothing at all. It's almost like Orwells "minitruth" in his book "1984" where information is altered and controlled and deleted or contrived at the whim of some invisible entity so you cannot question their judgement because you don't have the facts you did yesterday for proof.

Nobody benefits from having things like this hidden except those who have committed wrong and do not want to be tasked with their misdeeds. And nobody should do things as important as storm surveys without independent oversight to keep them accurate and honest.

Phil

I don’t think the NWS is deleting old full surveys with malicious intent.

 

[Shakespeare 2016]

I don’t think the NWS is deleting old full surveys with malicious intent.

The EF4 rating for the Vilonia 2014 tornado was definitely done with malicious intent.

 

[tornado examiner]

The EF4 rating for the Vilonia 2014 tornado was definitely done with malicious intent.

agreed

 

[Sawmaster]

I don’t think the NWS is deleting old full surveys with malicious intent.

I don't think the work "malicious" applies here, but rather "self-serving" might be a better way to say it.

Phil

 

[tornado examiner]

does anyone have any ground pictures showing the anchoring for those homes in Cambridge shores? where they really well built? cause I've only really seen areal pictures and videos. my belief this tornado was an ef5 comes from bremen mostly. so i'd like to more from cambridge shores.

 

[TH2002]

does anyone have any ground pictures showing the anchoring for those homes in Cambridge shores? where they really well built? cause I've only really seen areal pictures and videos. my belief this tornado was an ef5 comes from bremen mostly. so i'd like to more from cambridge shores.

These from the DAT:

And while on the DAT, I can't help but mention that what appears to be a home that was unfinished before the tornado got a 170MPH EF4 rating. What?

Anyways, a couple others:

No, I never stopped pondering about 96 Kentucky Avenue. If I had to take a stab in the dark I would say it was probably well anchored, considering many other houses in Cambridge Shores had anchor bolts, the house wasn't exceptionally old as far as houses are concerned (1993) and it appears to have sill plating. I just wish there was a way to confirm it for sure, though if we haven't found out by now we probably never will.

 

[tornado examiner]

yes i would say that 200+ mph winds occured in cambridge shores. but the presence of still standing trees makes me doubt it a little. and honestly just forget about vehicle damage for this one. if a weak dinky little vortex can fling a car while only pealing shingles off the roof of a home, and a massive violent mile wide vortex doesn't even move some then i really couldn't care for vehicles being included when trying to determine a tornadoes strength. they are an extremally inconsistent item for determining that.

 

[Sawmaster]

I think something about vehicles could be useful, but not as a precise determinant. My current 5200lb van isn't going to behave like the very similar looking 3600lb van it replaced, and ditto compared to a Honda Civic. We don't need more or deeper 'rabbit holes' of determinants until the problems of inconsistency from office to office and the lack of decisions made with common sense are first addressed.

Phil

 

[CLP80]

As far as Cambridge Shores goes, I know that many of those homes were vacation homes without full time residents. Not all of them, but I did read that a few of them were owned by state politicians, doctors, etc… so this could explain the lack of vehicles in that area. I would also imagine a lot of them ended up in the lake.

 

[CLP80]

In the one picture above (Cambridge Shores) with the home that looks to be unfinished, is that just new construction on the house that was already started by the time the NWS surveyed the damage weeks later?

 

[TH2002]

In the one picture above (Cambridge Shores) with the home that looks to be unfinished, is that just new construction on the house that was already started by the time the NWS surveyed the damage weeks later?

NWS Paducah surveyed Cambridge Shores the next day, not weeks later. Survey in that area was pretty botched, to put it lightly.

 

[Sawmaster]

NWS Paducah surveyed Cambridge Shores the next day, not weeks later. Survey in that area was pretty botched most horribly mangled, to put it lightly.

There- fixed that for ya They glossed over much of that vast survey, doing a half-vast job knowing that nobody could do anything about it Were this private industry instead of government bureaucracy they would have been fired and the job re-done to acceptable standards.

Phil

 

[tornado examiner]

BLANKET RATINGS....i know its difficult and time consuming...but nws norman and nws nashville have done nearly 100% complete suveys in the past....moore 2013 for nws norman, and the march 3rd 2020 Tennessee tornadoes for nws nashville. why couldnt nws paducah do something even remotely complete for the most disastrous tornado since joplin???? like come on now. the fact that there are large areas with blanket ratings. mayfield, dawson springs, cambridge shores....with the only mostly complete area being bremen for some reason, shows how little some offices care for giving tornadoes proper ratings, and full scientific analysis via damage survey.

 

[tornado examiner]

There- fixed that for ya They glossed over much of that vast survey, doing a half-vast job knowing that nobody could do anything about it Were this private industry instead of government bureaucracy they would have been fired and the job re-done to acceptable standards.

Phil

i bet they surveyed less than 30% of the structures affected by the mayfield tornado alone....

 

[CalebRoutt]

i bet they surveyed less than 30% of the structures affected by the mayfield tornado alone....

please stop making illogical remarks when you weren’t on the survey

 

[CLP80]

NWS Paducah surveyed Cambridge Shores the next day, not weeks later. Survey in that area was pretty botched, to put it lightly.

The information I see shows they surveyed those homes (what few they did) on 12/22/21… not the next day.

EDIT: I do now see that it appears some of the homes back there were on 12/11/21 and others were 12/22/21. It seems odd that they wouldn’t have completed the survey for that whole neighborhood at once.

Seems like by the time they would have arrived that significant changes could have taken place to those damaged homes, especially when you’re talking about homes by people that have money to make things happen fast.

Also, despite how significant this event was, one has to wonder how focused a survey crew would be doing their job on a cold winter day, 3 days before Christmas (after 12 days of nonstop surveys).

 

[tornado examiner]

please stop making illogical remarks when you weren’t on the survey

okay. sorry....

 

[pohnpei]

The Vortmax

vortmaxblog.wordpress.com

Good article about Mayfield. One thing I notices in It was some pics near Flat Creek Road that I havn't seen before.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

The Vortmax

vortmaxblog.wordpress.com

Good article about Mayfield. One thing I notices in It was some pics near Flat Creek Road that I havn't seen before.

Very interesting how they go into some of the peculiarities of the environment, as indicated in the KHPX VWP hodograph, which may have promoted the particularly long-tracked nature of the Mayfield etc tornado. I've always tended to assume that an environment which is favorable for the genesis of violent tornadoes is also favorable for their maintenance (and so do the professional forecasters, hence the SPC wording in high risk/PDS setups usually calls for potentially strong-violent AND long-tracked tornadoes). However, this brings up some quirks of the hodograph that were particularly favorable for a very-long-track tornado, and highlights how that may not always be the classic "sickle-shaped" hodograph we think of as representing a violent tornado environment (apparently that actually promotes occluding and cycling, so you may get a long-tracked supercell that produces multiple tornadoes, but you're less likely to get a tornado that tracks for well over 100 miles without lifting).