[JohnfAclambrJA]

There were reports of tornadoes as far north as NJ, also.

Volunteers rush to help storm-torn towns in South as death toll climbs

BY Kathleen Lucadamo
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, April 30th 2011, 2:38 PM


Rogelio V. Solis/AP
James Nicholas surveys the damage in Hackleburg, Ala., Friday, April 29, 2011.

Tornado-torn towns have received desperately needed help from volunteers - including football rivals - as the death toll continued to climb.
The University of Alabama, housed in tornado-stricken Tuscaloosa, was offered volunteers from six big colleges, including sports nemesis Ole Miss.
The others are Auburn, Louisiana State, Mississippi State, Penn State and South Carolina, according to a spokesperson for the University of Alabama.
Students were collecting supplies they hoped to hand deliver and holding fund raisers for their college counterparts.
They joined scores of do-gooders who have flocked to tornado-ravaged cities where hundreds were ripped from their homes - and those whose houses are still standing have no electricity.

K9 Search and Rescue Specialists Inc.'s Tracy Sargent works with her dog Chance as they assist Tuscaloosa authorities, searching the rubble for survivors in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Saturday, April 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

The Red Cross set up two shelters in Tuscaloosa to house 240 people and feed hundreds more. The National Guard has stepped in to enforce curfews and residents lined up at relief stations for water, food and other necessities like flashlights.
"We feel like we've been blessed," Niki Eberhart, whose Tuscaloosa pad was annihilated in one twister, told the Associated Press. "If you don't have bad times, how are you going to appreciate the good times."
The storms have killed more than 330 across seven states, with the highest death toll in Alabama. It's the country's second-deadliest tornando since 1925, when 747 were killed in storms that swept the Midwest.
Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox said up to 446 people were unaccounted for in the city of 83,000, calling the wreckage "a humanitarian crisis."
President Obama, who toured the aftermath Friday, declared "I've never seen devastation like this."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...ll_climbs.html

[Peabelilt]

124 Dead as More Tornadoes Head Towards Joplin, Missouri


By RICHARD ESPOSITO, LEEZEL TANGLAO, KEVIN DOLAK and MICHAEL MURRAY
May 24, 2011

The death toll from the monster tornado that struck Joplin, Mo., rose to at least 124 today, even as a new system of deadly storms moved across the Midwest.
Two tornadoes passing through Oklahoma left at least two people dead and destroyed 30 or more houses, Canadian County Sheriff Randall Edwards said. Dozens of people were missing about 30 minutes after the storms hit.
News of the storm system gave the search for survivors in Joplin new urgency.
The storms are predicted to move into the Joplin area between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. tonight, according to Bernie Rayno, expert senior meteorologist at Accuweather.com.
The city is still staggering from the EF-5 tornado that tore through the city on Sunday, the deadliest single tornado in more than 50 years.
Rayno said that a strengthening jet stream combined with "directional sheer," meaning changing wind speeds at different atmospheric heights, are textbook factors in tornado creation.
"There are not enough quotes to describe what could happen tonight," Rayno told ABC News.
The threat of more tornadoes comes as search and rescue teams struggle to find survivors. More than 750 people were injured in the storm Sunday that caused widespread devastation to the small midwestern town.
Want to help? Here is a list of organizations.

Tannen Maury/EPA


Tannen Maury/EPA
Survivors begin to gather the pieces of their lives two days after a killer tornado ravaged neighborhoods in Joplin, Mo., May 24, 2011. A large tornado moved through much of the city Sunday, damaging a hospital and hundreds of homes and businesses.






Obama 'Heartbroken' by Tornado Destruction Watch Video




Missouri Tornado: Surveying the Damage Watch Video




Details have emerged that the massive tornado may have had two cyclones inside -- called "a multiple vortex."
"You don't go to bed at night thinking something like this would happen," Gov. Jay Nixon said this morning. "I was down here for graduation on Saturday, gym was filled with 4,000 of the happiest people you're ever going to see and the next thing I hear is that we've got a tornado coming and 24 hours later we're down here looking at this."
President Obama said this morning that he will visit the tornado-ravaged state of Missouri this weekend after he returns from Europe.
Speaking from the Ambassador's House in London, where he and Michelle Obama arrived earlier today, Obama called the outbreak of tornadoes "devastating and heartbreaking," while he reassured those affected by the storms that "every ounce of resources the federal government may have" will be used in recovery efforts.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families who are suffering at this moment," Obama said. "And all we can do is let them know that all of America cares deeply about them and that we are going to do absolutely everything we can to make sure that they recover."
Obama also acknowledged that more storms are headed for the region today, as a warning of new tornado outbreaks was issued for the central region of the United States by an Oklahoma storm prediction center. Long-form, long-track, very powerful tornadoes are expected throughout Tuesday.
The greatest threat for tornadoes stretches from Dallas to Kansas City, according to the report. The area includes Joplin, Mo., where rescue workers are racing to salvage survivors from the wreckage left by a tornado that destroyed an estimated 30 percent of the city on Sunday.
The massive Joplin tornado was rated as an EF-5, the strongest classification, with winds ranging above 200 mph. The nearly mile-wide funnel touched down at 5:41 p.m. CT Sunday and blasted a six mile wide path through the city and left trapped survivors crying out for help this morning.
The tornado that struck Flint, Mich., on June 8, 1953 and killed 116 people had been the deadliest single tornado on record since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began keeping track of tornado fatalities in 1950.
The lethal twister has also made 2011 the deadliest year for tornadoes since 1953, with 454 deaths from 1,000 tornadoes so far, according to NOAA.
April also set a record as the deadliest month with 361 tornado-related deaths, according to NOAA's records.

Read more at link:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/tornadoes-j...ry?id=13672034

[Assauraarguck]

Maybe it's this Il Nino system that's come in this year. You expect to see the stories of the trailer homes upturned. Leveling considerable sized portions of a town, or even the entire town is another matter. Haven't seen it this bad, & it's early yet.

Monster tornadoes rip through Okla.; demolish houses, cars

At least 2 people dead, numerous injuries; extensive damage reported


NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 10 minutes ago 2011-05-24T23:55:03

OKLAHOMA CITY — Powerful tornadoes tore through parts of Oklahoma on Tuesday, obliterating houses, splintering trees and tossing cars off highways. At least two people were killed and numerous others injured.
Television footage in the aftermath of the storms showed remnants of homes and buildings strewn across roads and fields. One car wound up wrapped around a tree.
In Canadian County in western Oklahoma, Emergency Management Director Jerry Smith confirmed to msnbc.com that there were at least two fatalities and "numerous" injuries when the storm hit El Reno and Piedmont west of Oklahoma City.
He said the twister flipped over several vehicles with people inside.
“We have damage and we have people out doing surveys to get a handle on where the damage is,” Smith said. “We are in the process of trying to make arrangements for shelters and to get people some assistance.”
Two storms raked the southern side of the city — in the same area hit May 3, 1999, by the strongest tornado ever recorded.
Spokeswoman Lara O'Leary of the region's Emergency Medical Service Authority said three children suffered major injuries at Piedmont. She said there was a report of a gas explosion near El Reno and that emergency workers were dispatched.
The tornado caused "extensive damage" in El Reno, a town of about 15,000 people, said Rick Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norman.
"There are numerous trucks and cars overturned along Interstate 40," he said.

A helicopter from NBC station KFOR of Oklahoma City tracked one storm as it slammed the McClain County town of Goldsby, south of Norman, and plowed across farmland beyond.
As the copter’s camera zoomed in on one obliterated house, a family emerged from a storm shelter. The foundation was the only thing recognizable, with a debris field spreading away from it. A large propane tank in the middle of the debris could be seen hissing gas. An overturned vehicle lay nearby.
Pilot Jim Gardner set the chopper down at the scene to make sure the family was OK. He reported that they suffered only minor injuries.
Tornado sirens went off in Oklahoma City and nearby towns as residents hunkered down. State offices and a number of businesses let their workers go home hours earlier since severe weather had been expected.But the mayor's office told msnbc television that the city proper seemed to have been spared.
The storms began about 3 p.m. in western Oklahoma and followed tracks greater than 40 miles into the state capital. State offices and a number of businesses let their workers go home hours earlier so they could be out of harm's way.
Interstate 40 was closed west of the city as the storm crossed the roadway near El Reno.
Another tornado touched down in the rural Oklahoma town of Canton, and search dogs were called out to find survivors.
Canton city employee Linda Hisell said police reported a twister moved through the area around Canton Lake, about 70 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. A trailer park there was "leveled," the Weather Channel reported an emergency official as saying.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for 14 counties due to tornadoes, severe storms and flooding that began Sunday.
In neighboring Kansas to the north, homes were destroyed and at least one person injured east-northeast of Great Bend, by an apparent tornado, The Weather Channel reported. A twister was also reported near Hugoton, Kan.
The outbreak follows the deadly twister that hit Joplin, Mo ., on Sunday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43159213...her/?GT1=43001

[Kimeoffessyr]

Husband gave life to save wife from tornado — ‘He was my hero’

By Zachary Roth

As a tornado tore his Joplin, Mo., home apart, Don Lansaw did what came naturally: He threw himself on top of his wife Bethany to protect her. And in doing so, he gave his life for her.
Lansaw's is just one of several tales of heroism, heartbreak, and amazing escapes that have emerged from the spate of violent weather events that swept the center of the country this week. As many as 125 people are thought to have been killed by the Joplin tornado alone.
"The house was ripping apart, it all happened so fast," Bethany Lansaw told NBC News. "All the pillows were flying off of us, the only thing I managed to do was keep one in front of my face."
You can watch the report on Don Lansaw's heroic sacrifice in this video, courtesy of NBC Nightly News:


Once the wind died down, Bethany recounted, she looked over to see that her husband was turning blue. He died before she could find an ambulance to get him to the hospital.
Don, 31, was a former high-school football star, and owned a machine shop. Bethany, 25, worked at a local university. The couple had been married six years and planned to start a family.
"You know, people kept saying he wouldn't have wanted it any other way, but if I could have taken twice as much damage just to have him alive, I would have," Bethany said.
"He did what he could to protect his family," she added. "He's my hero."
Also in Joplin, Will Norton was driving home from his graduation ceremony with his dad when the tornado struck. Norton, 18, looked to have a bright future: A YouTube channel he created called "Wildabeast," in which he posted comedy routines, had almost 1.5 million hits:
As the Hummer H3 started to flip, Norton's seat-belt snapped, and he went flying through the roof of the vehicle, as his dad tried in vain to catch him. Afterward, the only trace of him was his cellphone and graduation cap.
Meanwhile, in Oklahoma's Canadian County, Hank Hamil cried at a news conference after his 3-year old son Ryan was found dead, floating in a lake. Hamil's other son, 15-month old Cole, was also killed by Tuesday night's violent storm.
"I lost both of my boys," Hamil said through tears. "Ryan was my little buddy. Cole was too. I loved them both." You can watch the report on the Hamil's tragic loss here, courtesy of CNN:
But there were also happier stories. Cecelia Beveridge of Joplin showed CNN how she and her husband survived after taking refuge in a tiny closet.
"We stood huddled in here," she said. "The next thing we knew the roof was off, and we were getting hail and rain and everything on us."
"I had my arms locked around my husband and I was just saying please dear God in heaven, just please let us all get out of this alive," Beveridge recounted. "That's all I ask." The Beveridges' escape is chronicled in the video below, also from CNN:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...he-was-my-hero

Can't imagine having your loved one being sucked out of your arms to their death. Plus losing both chuildren. Another man had his wife sucked out of his arms, she didn't make it either. The universe would be forever off tilt after that for me. If I still wanted to live, that is.

[Daleman1984]

Don't have the clip, but was it Mass that just got hit with a big one?

[StarsWorld]

Springfield got hit hard, with a huge thing sweeping up the Connecticut River:

The crazy stuff kicks in at ~ 0:25

[Opening-auto]

Thursday, June 2, 2011 10:21 AM EDT

Tornado Year 2011, Why So Many?
The massive twister of three-quarters of a mile wide struck Joplin, Mo., just weeks after several tornadoes struck southern states, mainly hitting Alabama.

And again, just a week after Missouri, seven tornadoes struck Massachusetts on Wednesday, June 1.

The death toll of 314 in Alabama was the worst since 1925. In Missouri, 134 victims have been identified from the twister on May 22, and there is no one left on the missing list, officials said. Massachusetts' tornado has so far confirmed 4 deaths, and police and firefighters are still searching for victims door to door.

Over 1,200 tornadoes have swept across the United States in 2011, according to the preliminary numbers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA). In April, there were 875 confirmed tornadoes, tripling the previous April high of 267, in 1974.



According to ThinkQuest,

"Tornado conditions are caused when different temperatures and humidity meet to form thunderclouds. In the United States, warm, wet winds from the Gulf of Mexico move northward in spring and summer, meeting colder, dry Canadian winds moving southward. The place where these two winds meet is called a dry line. High, dry air coming from the north piles on top of low-moving, moist Gulf air at a height of over 10,000 feet. The warm southern winds try to rise, but the cold northern air blocks them. This clash causes the warm, trapped air to rotate horizontally between the two air masses. At the same time, the sun heats the earth below, warming more air that continues to try and rise. Finally, the rising warm wind become strong enough to force itself up through the colder air layer.

When this occurs, the cold air on top begins to sink, sending the rising warm wind spinning upward. The warm winds rotate faster and faster in a high column. When the updraft is strong, the column can rise to heights of 10 miles or more, twisting at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour. The rotating winds produce strong storm clouds about 70,000 feet high, sometimes spreading 10 miles wide.

This storm system may stay intact for several hours, at which point its thunderclouds are known as supercells. These storm clouds can send down an inch of rain in a mere ten minutes or shower the ground with baseball-sized hailstones. Supercells can accumulate into huge clusters, forming a line almost 100 miles long, which can then develop into mesocyclones."

The vast majority of tornadoes in the world occur in the Tornado Alley region of the United States, though they can occur nearly anywhere in North America.



Why has this year seen so many deadly tornadoes?

Some claim that the tornadoes are a harbinger of climate change. Large-scale climate factors are said to contribute to the increase of twisters in the States.

In a blog post on Reuters, Gregg Easterbrook said climate change, not global warming, is the threat causing more tornadoes. While greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are rising, weather variations are also rising, including not only tornadoes but droughts and deluge rains as well.

The impact of global warming on trends in tornado activity is not yet identifiable. Easterbrook said, "the mild warming of the past 100 years - about 1 degree Fahrenheit globally averaged - was good for crop yields, and moderated demand for energy. (Power use for warming on cold days exceeds power use for cooling on hot days). If all that happens is continued mildly rising temperatures, that might be beneficial."

On the other hand, the climate change can "bring more tornadoes, increase droughts in some places while increasing floods in other places," as observed.

An increase in the sea surface temperature of a source region increases atmospheric moisture content, fueling an increase in severe weather and tornado activity, especially in the cool season.

Some claim the exit of La Niña, a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the counterpart of El Niño, as the cause of the wild tornado streak.

La Niña cools the waters of the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean, lowering the temperature by 3-5°C.

One of the most powerful La Niña was observed last year, and it made a sudden exit around 3 months ago.

"La Niña would have been beneficial for all these people that have been so clobbered," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. "If La Niña had maintained its strength, perhaps we wouldn't have seen so many tornadoes."

The jet stream, a high-speed air current which acts as an atmospheric fence where cool, dry air meets up with warm, moist air, enabling the conditions for tornadoes.

Without La Niña's stabilizing effect on the jet stream, pushing it to higher latitudes, the jet stream has traveled south in the last couple of months, with ample chance to mix cool and dry northern air with warm and moist southern air .

The northern air was kept especially cold last winter, and the southwest air was in unusually hot conditions.

In addition, according to Christian Science Monitor, the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico is between 1.8 and 2.7 °F warmer than average, said Jake Crouch, a climatologist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The warm, moist air is the perfect fuel for severe weather. The extreme conditions pave paths for more storms, and more powerful ones.

While the number of tornadoes have risen, overall tornado deaths have been slowly declining over the past 30 years, dipping sharply after the 1970s, most likely as a result of improved forecasting and construction technology.

An article at BrainPosts. Com provides these totals:

Decade Total Deaths Deaths per Million

1950s .....1419.......... 8.6

1960s..... 942 ...........4.9

1970s .....998 ...........4.7

1980s .....522 ...........2.2

1990s .....579 ...........2.2

2000s .....556 ..........1.9

The studies of tornadoes is relatively new among Meteorology, the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Researched for around 140 years and intensively for around 60 years, many aspects of tornadoes remain a mystery.

Scientists still have not grasped how exactly most tornadoes form, and tornadoes occasionally strike without a tornado warning issued.


This article is copyrighted by International Business Times

[Moupponge]

2012
Tornadoes in the west or midwest are nothing new, but when they reach the magnitude as seen last year, and also this year in the midwest, I wonder if this is part of last year's weather system that has stubbornly stuck around. The above post sheds some light on it. Last year's as well as this year's tornadoes seem particularly vicious and deadly.

In this video, taken in Dallas today, you will see a long distance shot of a devastating tornado, and what looks like normal (if you can call it that) debris. What they actually are, are truck trailers, most likely 53 footers, flying through the air as if they were pieces of cardboard. One is shown at a Schneider terminal sitting on top of a car. I had to replay it a couple of times to process what I was actually seeing, and hoping there were no tractors attached to them, which would mean most likely a human being was inside. I didn't notice any tractors.

[indianstory]

I saw that live on the TV today, with the semi's dancing in the air. Scary.