Murfreesbro Tornado Video and Yesterday's Chase Video

Edited at 9:45 p.m. for radar content


These are the best videos I've found out there of the April 10th tornado in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

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I don't have a lot of time to post, but yesterday, Darin Brunin, Andy Fischer and I chased a lot of garbage in SE KS and NE OK. We did catch a couple of funnels, but no tornadoes. We were actually viewing a wall cloud in the ghost town of Picher, OK which was significantly damaged last year by an EF-4 tornado...pretty eerie.

If you have a facebook account you can view the video I edited here. Just having a facebook account is good enough (so create a fake one if you don't have one) to view it. I upload videos there now, because facebook doesn't compress the quality like youtube does.

Below is the text of the tornado warning issued SW of Atlanta, Georgia.

AT 633 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR CONTINUED TO
INDICATE A TORNADO. THIS TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR EPHESUS...MOVING
EAST AT 40 MPH. (Georgia)

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. THIS
STORM IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING STRONG TO VIOLENT TORNADOES.

I have no doubt there have been some rare instances where intense couplets are observed on radar and one can assume this. But, can radar ever prove that there is/are strong to violent tornadoes in real-time? As we all know, radar can not scan to ground level.

Below is reflectivity using Level II data on the new super res radar (all are the scan times before the text was issued):



Using SPC's recommended mean storm motion vector of 27040, this is what it looks like on base velocity (BV) scan.



Same vector here using storm relative velocity (SRV)



I'm not a radar expert by any means, but that does not show (at least for using strong wording in the text) an indication for "strong or violent" tornadoes. I think that wording should be used when the one in charge has 1. an impressive velocity couplet is observed and 2. more than one source of ground confirmation has been provided by reputable, trained weather spotters.

I'm pretty sure this was the same NWS office issuing tornado emergencies (based on radar only, without visual confirmation, ground truth) for towns in their area a month or two back and those storms produced only EF-0 and EF-1 tornadoes. Maybe the next TE wording will have to include wording such as, "Tornado Apocalypse?" (They didn't issue any tornado emergencies this time, however).

Later on this evening, this different supercell (below) seemed to have a much better and more impressive couplet than the one above.



I don't give a shit either way, but throwing that wording around to the public/media over and over again and not having the proof to back it up, can only make the general public take you less seriously next time. Then the blame is then shifted right back to those meteorologists.