03/15/08 DISC: GA/SC/NC/

[Dennis Sherrod]

They issued a Tornado Emergency - which implies it has touched down with major damage.

I could find no mention anywhere of this either. Did anyone else? Been on phone with my brother in SC who is in Law Enforcement as he had no info on it either. RDALE, do you have the source for this?
He reports from LE sources, numerous damage reports that are fairly widespread including some smaller structures, trees, power lines, etc. But he did say he does not have all statewide info yet.

[rdale]

Where you see that? I saw the warning but didnt see emergency anywhere..

I could find no mention anywhere of this either. Did anyone else? Been on phone with my brother in SC who is in Law Enforcement as he had no info on it either. RDALE, do you have the source for this?

Scroll back to page 1, it was copied in there by a mod.

I wish this was the case. FFC had a TE out for "radar indicates a large and damaging tornado".

Ewww... Guess we can start a thread on that later :) Only reports out of the Atlanta area from today are hail and wind.

[Dennis Sherrod]

[QUOTE=rdale;170408]Scroll back to page 1, it was copied in there by a mod.

OKAY. My bad Rdale. I guess I got my states mixed up. Things got going quickly with posts for a few states and I thought we were on SC and this was for GA. That was the resaon I checked with LE in SC.
Sorry bout that!

[Kevin Statler]

Havent heard about damage in GA and SC yet.. hopefully its not too bad..

[Patrick Marsh]

Ewww... Guess we can start a thread on that later :) Only reports out of the Atlanta area from today are hail and wind.
Yeah, that was my point. Exaggerated wording for a non-confirmed tornado. Not sure I'm okay with that...

[Kevin Statler]

Havent heard much of damage/injuries etc from GA/SC yet..

[Dennis Sherrod]

Spoke a little while ago with my brother again in Hilton Head, SC. He is in law enforcement in SC. He still has no reports of any major damage, but obviously that might and very well may change. He only has reports of minor structural damage, power lines and trees down. This is in the SE section of SC.

[Danny Neal]

Yeah, that was my point. Exaggerated wording for a non-confirmed tornado. Not sure I'm okay with that...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rxfa1AVQlS8 - I guess this "feature" is their large damaging tornado? http://youtube.com/watch?v=ij5RXhYvw2I - another

Really doesn't look like much of anything on my end. Unless I am missing something.... Maybe a strong RFD gust front or something a long those lines towards the end of the 2nd video.

[rdale]

That doesn't look to be a tornado, but a low wall cloud.

[Dann Cianca]

I'm not seeing a tornado either ... just heavy precip pushing up a shelf in front of it (second video)

[Jason Persoff]

The resolution leaves much to be desired. I wasn't there and I cannot tell from this image what the sfc winds were like. The sfc winds would have been a critical feature for me to see to better gauge what's happening.

For those who are naysaying that this was a tornado, I would say there were some features that suggest it is at least a possibility here. Again, this is from crappy low-grade video streamed through YouTube.

There is a clear slot and RFD wrapping into the left side of the picture which can be c/w the physiology of a healthy mesocyclone. Only on the fast-forward view do I begin to question whether or not there was rotation of the faint cone tornado that appears in the rain wrapped area. If there were good cues to see the winds in advance of the area filmed, I would be more inclined to think this was tornadic if winds were blowing into this area briskly.

On the second video there appears to be a complex set of features. On the far left there is copious outflow intruding into the lower level features on the right. I agree that there is a gust front sweeping from left to right on the screen. Slightly behind that shelf cloud, however, is a lowering base that again appears close to a clear slot (HP to be sure). This second video looks MUCH less convincing than the first.

But, the best post-mortem would be damage assessment as anything that did touch down was heavily wrapped.

Two things that would be very helpful: knowing where this station was relative to the location of the TVS that appeared in N ATL at the time of this filming. It would also be nice to know what direction this camera is facing (I'm guessing based on radar data I was looking at yesterday, that the storm motion is W->E).

[Brian Stertz]

Just looking as close as I can to those videos....you could infer that certainly this was a rotating updraft and has certainly the right structures to maybe be actually tornadic. But the distance away of the camera and poor contrast leaves too much to the imagination to say this was in fact THE tornado without any doubts. The tower cam from the Memphis TN Feb. 5th tornado was one you could say...no doubt a damaging tornado was on the ground. I have seen many a menacing looking updraft such as this one out in the TX Panhandle. Then as you get closer and closer, the excitement wanes as you approach and see the ugly outflow gundging out the updraft. If they were going to be saying tornado, they certainly should have had reporters closer in confirming a more ground truth to this claim. It is too far off in my opinion to be striking such a final and without a doubt pronouncement.

[Jason Persoff]

Completely agree, Brian. Again, it would nice to run the video with a rough location on a map with concomitant radar. That wouldn't be definitive, but it would add a lot to what is really a soft call.

Still, the deluge associated with this video would make that a severe storm feature worth taking cover from :). I just don't know that it was the tornado either. Just saying this isn't good enough to gauge one way or the other.

The Memphis tornado was a great video example because an inflow jet was blowing briskly into the storm and debris was tracking with the inflow too. Then the tornado moved on-screen and the winds reversed as it passed. Hard not to argue that when you also see what looks like pretty clear rotation.

That said, I can say that a lot of video flattens images so much that it is very difficult to gauge direction and intensity of winds just above the surface.

[Dave Gallaher]

Looking at the shape of the trailing edge of the precip shaft--is this a possible 'rain foot' of a microburst'? With the apparent lack of rotation in the updraft structure, is it possible for a microburst to come down in this portion of such a storm?

[Jason Persoff]

A rain foot can have an appearance of a curling upward movement that can look deceptively like an updraft. However, my understanding of microbursts (dry or wet) is that they are true downdraft phenomena, and usually they occur in the front flank of a storm. In this case, I'm wondering if the d/d we're seeing is actually the rear flank downdraft wrapping around an updraft core. The microbursts I've seen have been violent and usually did not induce shelf cloud formation (which I guess wouldn't be unheard of).

More to the point: without us knowing what part of the storm we're looking at, it's all speculation. Microbursts do not tend to happen close to the updraft, so a lot depends on whether that clear area is actually associated with an updraft or is of no significance.

[Danny Neal]

A rain foot can have an appearance of a curling upward movement that can look deceptively like an updraft. However, my understanding of microbursts (dry or wet) is that they are true downdraft phenomena, and usually they occur in the front flank of a storm. In this case, I'm wondering if the d/d we're seeing is actually the rear flank downdraft wrapping around an updraft core. The microbursts I've seen have been violent and usually did not induce shelf cloud formation (which I guess wouldn't be unheard of).

More to the point: without us knowing what part of the storm we're looking at, it's all speculation. Microbursts do not tend to happen close to the updraft, so a lot depends on whether that clear area is actually associated with an updraft or is of no significance.

I believe it was shot from a web cam on the north side of the airport looking north at the storm. Although when it was live coverage they kept saying this is looking west at the storm approaching so. It seems like they were a little gun-shy. Looking at the radar at the time it did "look" decent for a while there although I thought it would be more of a gargantuan hail producer. When I first looked at the video I thought shelf cloud all the way, but when I saw 20X the speed I noticed there was rotation so I deduced it was at most a low hanging wall cloud with an RFD cut, leading to a strong RFD gust front wrapping around the south side of this feature.(2nd video) I am sure there will more videos on youtube of the future and the NWS will issue their reports but right now I am not too confident I am watching a tornado, let alone a large damaging one.

[Brian Stertz]

It looks like there is that cascading rain/hail curtain as the RFD plows into the updraft from the west...assuming that the camera is pointed northward. The tower cams are a good idea but should not be the endline source for determining it's tornado from over 5 miles away or more...then running with it on air. Tornado frenzy... I guess thats what it should be called and attributed to.

[rdale]

Final storm summary is out from NWS FFC and they have no tornado, not even wind damage, reported from the Tornado Emergency issued for Atlanta.

That's a discussion of its own - but I'd assume that would rule out the camera loop being from a tornado and/or microburst.

[Perry Williams]

Final storm summary is out from NWS FFC and they have no tornado, not even wind damage, reported from the Tornado Emergency issued for Atlanta.

That's a discussion of its own - but I'd assume that would rule out the camera loop being from a tornado and/or microburst.

No tornado, but as the same supercell passed over my home in Douglasville about 15-20 minutes before the towercams video was shot in Atlanta, it dropped hail 2.50 to 2.75" inches in diameter........produced a 53 mph wind gust, and was displaying a very ominous funnel cloud as it passed a short distance south of my home.

I not normally frightened of severe storms, but readily admit this one scared me a little; especially knowing a similar supercell had already spawned a killer EF3 (borderline EF4 IMO) just 30 miles to my NNW (between Cedartown and Cartersville, GA) three hours earlier.

[Howard Robinson]

What do you guys think is in this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfa1AVQlS8. It looks like a tornado, but I am thinking its something else.

[Perry Williams]

What do you guys think is in this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfa1AVQlS8. It looks like a tornado, but I am thinking its something else.

This was the same supercell which dropped tennis to baseball sized hail here in Douglasville about twenty minutes earlier. While it was displaying a large funnel cloud as it passed just south of my home, apparently no tornado ever touched down; to my knowledge, there has been no damage (other than from hail and straight line wind damage) along the path of this supercell from the Alabama border to south Atlanta or beyond.

Here's a short video of the supercell near interstate 20 just south of Douglasville, shot by meteorologist Mike Phelps (a good friend) and his chase partner only about 3/4 mile south of my location.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxhTY7o-4dM