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Severe Weather 2025

Clancy said:
00Z HRRR for March 15. (This is old everybody don't sully your pants please)
View attachment 43266
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Seeing this now, you can tell the HRRR was slowly leaning into a more messier mode than a perfectly spaced supercell swarm Aka 4/27/11. This run also had the big rain shield that indeed happened that absolutely saved northern Mississippi, Northern Alabama, and Southern Tennessee from a memorable event.

I still am curious on what caused that rain shield considering most everyone believed subsidence from the 3/14 frontal passage would have prevented that until the cap broke.
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
most (if not all) of the tornadoes were short tracked.
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If all of the tornadoes from 3/14 were short tracked, does that make Mayfield a "short-medium" tracked tornado? Because there definitely was a 118.95 mile long EF4 from that event, as well as two others with path lengths of over 50 miles on the 14th alone.

EDIT: Nevermind that statement was solely referring to the northern risk. Oops.
 
Lake Martin EF4 said:
If all of the tornadoes from 3/14 were short tracked, does that make Mayfield a "short-medium" tracked tornado? Because there definitely was a 118.95 mile long EF4 from that event, as well as two others with path lengths of over 50 miles on the 14th alone.
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He said the northern part of the event, you’re taking what was said out of context.

North of all those supercells in Arkansas and southern Missouri was a large MCS that had typical spin ups attendant with it.
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
By contrast it seems like almost every single event in 2011 was a 10/10. Even 5% tornado days produced monsters like Joplin. The kinematics were upper echelon, and the systems' performance maximized them as well.
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Actually there is one 2011 event that didn't hit its ceiling and ironically that event was 4/27/11. There was a HUGE MDT risk across TN/KY into the Midwest that got screwed up by the midday MCS. Had that MCS not happened you would have seen significant/violent tornadoes throughout much of that region. I'd rate 4/27/11 an 8.5/10 or 9/10 on your scale.
 
Lake Martin EF4 said:
Actually there is one 2011 event that didn't hit its ceiling and ironically that event was 4/27/11. There was a HUGE MDT risk across TN/KY into the Midwest that got screwed up by the midday MCS. Had that MCS not happened you would have seen significant/violent tornadoes throughout much of that region. I'd rate 4/27/11 an 8.5/10 or 9/10 on your scale.
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This is an interesting take, because without the help of the outflow boundary produced by the midday MCS, the northern tornadoes in Alabama and Mississippi (Smithville, Hackleburg, Cullman, Flat Rock, etc.) probably wouldn't have been as violent and storm evolution would have been much different. Just because the massive MDT up north didn't verify doesn't mean the event didn't hit its ceiling, because I am unsure that the tornadoes would have been as violent (or even formed in the first place) to the south if the northern MDT hit its ceiling. Very hard to say what would have happened instead - I would reserve that to the experts.
 
slenker said:
This is an interesting take, because without the help of the outflow boundary produced by the midday MCS, the northern tornadoes in Alabama and Mississippi (Smithville, Hackleburg, Cullman, Flat Rock, etc.) probably wouldn't have been as violent and storm evolution would have been much different. Just because the massive MDT up north didn't verify doesn't mean the event didn't hit its ceiling, because I am unsure that the tornadoes would have been as violent (or even formed in the first place) to the south if the northern MDT hit its ceiling. Very hard to say what would have happened instead.
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I think a true "ceiling buster" was a scenario the SPC had when they expanded that MDT. IIRC the MCS was coming through at that time, and the SPC stated that there was a chance that the MCS would perform the outflow boundary magic in both the southern (MS/AL/GA) AND northern (TN/KY/IN/OH) risks. If that had happened......
 
slenker said:
This is an interesting take, because without the help of the outflow boundary produced by the midday MCS, the northern tornadoes in Alabama and Mississippi (Smithville, Hackleburg, Cullman, Flat Rock, etc.) probably wouldn't have been as violent and storm evolution would have been much different. Just because the massive MDT up north didn't verify doesn't mean the event didn't hit its ceiling, because I am unsure that the tornadoes would have been as violent (or even formed in the first place) to the south if the northern MDT hit its ceiling. Very hard to say what would have happened instead.
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This is a good point. You wouldn’t have had those supercells so focused in one area and jam packed in there. In my opinion You would’ve been looking at something more similar to 4/3/74 with supercells widely spaced across a large area. The windfields and SRH were actually more impressive around western KY vs Alabama due to its proximity to the secondary low.

Tony Lyza’s research paper on storm interactions and supercell behavior IIRC identified 15 supercells that formed along that MCS outflow boundary. Most noteworthy being the Hackleburg storm that went from its first radar return to producing a tornado in under an hour. That thermal boundary really gave those supercells something to latch to, but even absent of that, the Cordova and Tuscaloosa storms still were monsters. I would imagine you would have those types of very spaced supercells all the way up into southern Indiana
 
Lake Martin EF4 said:
I think a true "ceiling buster" was a scenario the SPC had when they expanded that MDT. IIRC the MCS was coming through at that time, and the SPC stated that there was a chance that the MCS would perform the outflow boundary magic in both the southern (MS/AL/GA) AND northern (TN/KY/IN/OH) risks. If that had happened......
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I was wrong, actually. This was the exact wording:

REMNANTS OF THE MORNING MESOSCALE CONVECTIVE SYSTEM AND ITS
ASSOCIATED SURFACE COLD POOL...JUST EAST OF UPPER PORTIONS OF THE
LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY INTO THE TENNESSEE VALLEY...REMAIN A
COMPLICATING FACTOR CONCERNING CONVECTIVE POTENTIAL. HOWEVER...
LATEST OBSERVATIONAL DATA SUGGEST THAT THE COLD POOL MAY BE IN THE
PROCESS OF WEAKENING. AND BOUNDARY LAYER MOISTENING ASSOCIATED WITH
THE PRECEDING RAINFALL...COUPLED WITH LATE AFTERNOON INSOLATION AND
MODIFYING LOW-LEVEL THERMODYNAMIC PROFILES ASSOCIATED WITH STRONG
DYNAMIC FORCING FOR UPWARD VERTICAL MOTION...PROBABLY WILL
CONTRIBUTE TO SUFFICIENT DESTABILIZATION TO JUSTIFY EXPANDING
MODERATE RISK SEVERE PROBABILITIES NORTHWESTWARD AND NORTHWARD
THROUGH MUCH OF THE REMAINDER OF THE OHIO VALLEY.
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So they expected significant destabilization to result in multiple supercells (presumably with rapid upward motion like what happened further south) across the entire Ohio Valley.

That is the ceiling for 4/27/11. The Ohio Valley recovers quicker after the midday MCS, which does exactly what it did in MS/AL/GA. The South explodes into the armageddon we saw IRL, and the Ohio Valley is raked by multiple supercells producing strong/violent tornadoes all the way up to southern Indiana or even further north.
 
A little very interesting tidbit.

We have MCD #995 currently.
May 26th, 2024: MCD #995 was issued concerning TOR Watch 320
You have to go all the way back to May 23rd, 2008 to find where we reached 995 Mesoscale Discussions by late May.
 
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