STORM TRACK: January 31, 1985 (Volume 8 Issue 2)

Tim Marshall works for a company that appraises claims for weather related damage. He writes that "business has been brisk lately". Writing on December 8, he referred to several trips from Houston and Austin to Salt Lake City and Fargo, surveying tornado, hail and icing damage (Fargoans "still remember their tornado"). "Tomorrow, I'm leaving for Honolulu and Kauai, surveying hurricane damage." An ideal business trip? Well, this leads us to our Funnel Funny of the month.

Tim continues, "The storm formed rapidly and was imbedded in rain until it began to rope out. ...I'm enclosing a little writeup of this F3 Mesquite tornado, which occurred on December l3 in Dallas County (0940-0950 LST, 7.5 mile path and up to 600 yards wide). Also, Skip Ely at ths Fort Worth Weather Office showed me radar film from the storm. It was a unique case in that the tornado was imbedded in a widespread rain area with only a "sliver" of VIP 3 (a marginally severe level of radar reflectivity, which ranges usually from 1-6). I've tried to illustrate this (below left) from memory. The film motion shows that the VIP 3 area formed rapidly and rotated counter-clockwise. The cell was embedded in a solid area of VIP 1 and surrounded by Vip 2. Storm tops never penetrated above 35,000 ft.

A tornado touched down in the Balch Springs community and moved rapidly north-northeastward through Mesquite. ...The storm was moving at about 50 mph and caught several people by surprise. James Morris of Balch Springs was driving down Lake June road in his pickup truck, when the tornado struck. 'All I remember was that it was raining real hard, and the wind was picking up,' he said. 'Then I was facing the other direction.' About a dozen roofs were removed from residences along Lora and Sheila roads. ... Boards up to five feet long were imbedded into the soil about a foot. ... A wood frame house with no anchorage to the foundation was leveled on Slater road. Only the car in the garage was left intact. The roof of the house traveled about 100 yards to the northwest. ... The tornado crossed into Mesquite and severely damaged or destroyed 10 homes along Oriole St. A double wide, unanchored, mobile home was completely removed from its support piers and disintegrated. Adjacent wood homes had roofs removed and exterior wall damage. A brick home on the block only had the roof removed. ... Nearby, at the Calvary Baptist Church on Peachtree road, Lori McCallum, 2, of Balch Springs was killed when hit in the head by a brick. The tornado followed Peachtree road northward, just missing the Mesquite High School. ... In all, there were about 40 homes damaged, with 10 destroyed in Balch Springs; and 300 homes damaged -- with 53 destroyed in Mesquite. About 4,000 customers were without power. A total of 23 injuries occurred."

Howard B. ('Howie") Bluestein writes of his "bicoastal hurricane chasing adventures." Howie is on a sabbatical this year at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Boulder, Colorado until April, when he returns to Norman, OK. He spent most of the hurricane season at the Hurricane Research Division on Virginia Key, Florida. "I don't have time to write a full article ... but thought I'd send you this synopsis:

1. Flight into Tropical Storm Diana on 9 Sept 1984, aboard NOAA's OAO P-3 aircraft at 1,500 ft. Max wind gust 34 m/s; minimum pressure 994 mb.

2. Flight into Hurricane Diana on 11 Sept 1984. "Stadium effect" in the eye. (Left illustration from slide). Max wind gust 68 m/s, i.e. 156 mph; minimum pressure 902 mb. We did 8 eye penetrations, including a 15 minute run inside the eye. It was spectacular, watching CRT displays of the on-board radar and real time display of meteorological data -- and taking photos from the bubble window.

3. Flight into Hurricane Diana on 12 Sept 1994. Concentric eyewalls of 40 and 15 nm in diameter. I operated the on-board Doppler radar. Maximum wind gust 59 m/s; minimum pressure not to be trusted because of problem. We did 7 eye penetrations. Flight at 5,000 ft.

- On 21 Sept., we flew across country to North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, which we used as a base for our missions into the Eastern Pacific.

4. Flight into Hurricane Norbert off west coast of Mexico on 22 Sept. Eye was highly asymmetrical. Got hit by lots of hail in the eyewall. This is rare! Flight level was near 485 mb. Radome was badly damaged and had to be replaced. Maximum wind gust 48 m/s; with Cb mamma in eye.

5. Flight into Hurricane Norbert on 23 Sept 1984. Released omega dropwindsondes around hurricane and inside the eye. Flight level, again, near 485 mb. Maximum wind gust 53 m/s. Funnel (illustration from slide) photographed inside the eye!

6. Flight into Hurricane Norbert off Baja on 24 Sept 1984. Eye diameter only 10 nm or less. Released omega dropwindsondes sgain.

- On 26 Sept., 1984, we returned to Miami, flying through the remains of Norbert over Arizona and into the edge of tropical Storm Isidore, as we landed in Miami. Thus, we flew through a Pacific system and an Atlantic system on the same day!

I should mention that Bob Burpee at the Hurricane Research Division was instrumental in getting me on the flights, which certainly made up for the disastrous storm season of 1984 in Oklahoma."