Severe Weather Threat June 15-23

[OH-IOan]

The derecho now has a Wikipedia article courtesy of a few others and I:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_outbreak_and_derecho_of_June_19–20,_2025
Note that it's still not finished.

 

[KakashiHatake2000]

Interested to see convective chronicles meteorological breakdown(s) from that event and also the ones from spring but would have to watch the forecast discussions first does anybody else do that

 

[KakashiHatake2000]

I know these are two different people Trey and Andrew but just curious to know but I’m glad to see it is a once in a few years if not much much longer I saw people say it was one since 15 years and such so long time i guess and everything rare with the event in general too

 

[KakashiHatake2000]

Seems like Andrew is making a thread

 

[Kds86z]

Seems like Andrew is making a thread

Woww

 

[N0mz]

And the forcing was really not that strong at all. IIRC it was a dryline?

 

[KakashiHatake2000]

I’m not too sure I can try and find out

 

[KakashiHatake2000]

I’m guessing it was a dry line looking back at wtus posts

 

[OH-IOan]

I keep seeing people say that the Enderlin train car lofting "isn't that impressive"; is this true??

 

[TheSuckZone]

I keep seeing people say that the Enderlin train car lofting "isn't that impressive"; is this true??

Seems pretty impressive to me? How many records of that do we have happening? I know train cars being derailed from being knocked over happens all the time but I sure don't recall many cases of cars being lofted and thrown.

 

[slenker]

Train derailments aren’t difficult to achieve for intense tornadoes, I recall hearing about at least one from this past May 16 outbreak. But throwing train cars is definitely not common. I believe the Mayfield tornado did throw a rail car as well, that might be the last instance of its occurrence outside of this. I’m unsure of the validity of that statement.

Honestly, though? I don’t support Enderlin being rated EF5 because of this damage feat. It wasn’t as extreme as past examples of this occurring, like Tuscaloosa 2011, and even that instance wasn’t given an EF5 rating from it. Mind you, this was a time where Philadelphia was given a context-based EF5 rating that would have never have occurred today. Also, in Enderlin’s example, I can see a high-end EF4 inflicting that damage, so if they use it as a justification for a 190 EF4 I wouldn’t be too upset about it.

 

[OH-IOan]

Train derailments aren’t difficult to achieve for intense tornadoes, I recall hearing about at least one from this past May 16 outbreak. But throwing train cars is definitely not common. I believe the Mayfield tornado did throw a rail car as well, that might be the last instance of its occurrence outside of this. I’m unsure of the validity of that statement.

Honestly, though? I don’t support Enderlin being rated EF5 because of this damage feat. It wasn’t as extreme as past examples of this occurring, like Tuscaloosa 2011, and even that instance wasn’t given an EF5 rating from it. Mind you, this was a time where Philadelphia was given a context-based EF5 rating that would have never have occurred today. Also, in Enderlin’s example, I can see a high-end EF4 inflicting that damage, so if they use it as a justification for a 190 EF4 I wouldn’t be too upset about it.

I'm not saying it will be rated EF5 (that obviously won't happen) but saying it was an EF3 tornado despite it throwing train cars is questionable.

 

[jiharris0220]

I’m guessing it was a dry line looking back at wtus posts

No, the OWS super cells initiated on a boundary, the dryline convection is what eventually became a derecho.

Forcing was actually quite substantial, and obviously so was vertical instability.

Very warm mid levels can be overcome with enough buoyancy, which came from the combined factors of high vertical instability, strong forcing, and divergence aloft.

Otherwise there’s no way those two supercells that managed to form would have sustained themselves in such an environment.

 

[KakashiHatake2000]

No, the OWS super cells initiated on a boundary, the dryline convection is what eventually became a derecho.

Forcing was actually quite substantial, and obviously so was vertical instability.

Very warm mid levels can be overcome with enough buoyancy, which came from the combined factors of high vertical instability, strong forcing, and divergence aloft.

Otherwise there’s no way those two supercells that managed to form would have sustained themselves in such an environment.

gotcha thanks jiharris0220

 

[TH2002]

Just chiming in now...

I don't think anyone is surprised Enderlin didn't get a violent rating.

After seeing the home damage I predicted (in a private convo with another user) we would end up with a 160-165MPH EF3, and evidently that guess was spot on.

Could it get upgraded? Maybe, especially since there are past tornadoes that have been rated EF4 or EF5 based on non-traditional DI's (Pocahontas and Piedmont 2011, for example). But don't hold your breath...

To quote a now former user of this board, "I promise you, tornados and meteorology are a lot more interesting (and you’ll have more fun) once you learn to stop giving a s**t about ratings."

 

[OH-IOan]

To quote a now former user of this board, "I promise you, tornados and meteorology are a lot more interesting (and you’ll have more fun) once you learn to stop giving a s**t about ratings."

For me and others, though, the rating is part of what makes tornadoes interesting. What goes into a rating? Who are the experts? Why do F/EF5 tornadoes not happen past Pennsylvania? Stuff like that. It's annoying when people say things like "the rating doesn't matter, be glad nobody died" and "we should be glad it didn't get a higher rating, because that means loss of life" when the rating itself is what interests people like me.

Tornadoes are more than just a violently-rotating column of air, y'know. Someone, can't remember who, said that tornadoes are an entire science, and I really agree.

 

[jiharris0220]

Just chiming in now...

I don't think anyone is surprised Enderlin didn't get a violent rating.

After seeing the home damage I predicted (in a private convo with another user) we would end up with a 160-165MPH EF3, and evidently that guess was spot on.

Could it get upgraded? Maybe, especially since there are past tornadoes that have been rated EF4 or EF5 based on non-traditional DI's (Pocahontas and Piedmont 2011, for example). But don't hold your breath...

To quote a now former user of this board, "I promise you, tornados and meteorology are a lot more interesting (and you’ll have more fun) once you learn to stop giving a s**t about ratings."

Yea, at some point, you learn to stop caring.

The F scale in general isn’t exactly what one would call “objective” obviously. And how a tornado is rated is completely at the mercy of whoever is doing the surveying, for better or worse.

At the end of the day, a tornado rating is just a rudimentary number which outside of passionate persons and historical documentation, doesn’t mean anything.

Everyone with even an elementary understanding in tornadoes can tell which ones are violent are not, and tell between ef4 vs ef5. Other than the specific construction of a structure and how it fairs, you don’t really need engineers/surveyors to know how strong a tornado was.

Contextual damage is, and will be by far the most useful indicator of how violent a tornado was. Building damage can “lie”, ground scouring, tree damage, wind rowing/granulation, and debris sweeping cannot, regardless the construction of whatever building in the vicinity.

 

[Grand Poo Bah]

Train derailments aren’t difficult to achieve for intense tornadoes, I recall hearing about at least one from this past May 16 outbreak. But throwing train cars is definitely not common. I believe the Mayfield tornado did throw a rail car as well, that might be the last instance of its occurrence outside of this. I’m unsure of the validity of that statement.

Honestly, though? I don’t support Enderlin being rated EF5 because of this damage feat. It wasn’t as extreme as past examples of this occurring, like Tuscaloosa 2011, and even that instance wasn’t given an EF5 rating from it. Mind you, this was a time where Philadelphia was given a context-based EF5 rating that would have never have occurred today. Also, in Enderlin’s example, I can see a high-end EF4 inflicting that damage, so if they use it as a justification for a 190 EF4 I wouldn’t be too upset about it.

I'm not sure using Tuscaloosa as precedent is the best call. That is a top 5 underrated EF5 candidate and it threw a million pound railroad tressle 100 feet uphill in the same area. If anything it sets the precedent that only the most insanely powerful tornadoes can achieve that feat. Using really terribly established precedent to rate current tornadoes is kind of the whole reason we've ended up where we are currently.

Also I think the Mayfield tornado only threw (or rolled) the car about 25 feet

 

[AJS]

I just have always found it baffling how a lot of NWS WFOs use contextual damage indicators to downgrade instead of upgrade. If they can use them to downgrade a lot of tornadoes, why can’t it be used to upgrade them?

 

[N0mz]

For me and others, though, the rating is part of what makes tornadoes interesting. What goes into a rating? Who are the experts? Why do F/EF5 tornadoes not happen past Pennsylvania? Stuff like that. It's annoying when people say things like "the rating doesn't matter, be glad nobody died" and "we should be glad it didn't get a higher rating, because that means loss of life" when the rating itself is what interests people like me.

Tornadoes are more than just a violently-rotating column of air, y'know. Someone, can't remember who, said that tornadoes are an entire science, and I really agree.

Don't let them fool you, Worcester 1953 was an f5