2021 Rain Thread

[Biff Tannen 45763]

4 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Holy fuck. Hailing like a motherfucker in Hyde park. Never heard it this loud. Thinking my car might be getting a new windshield tomorrow. 

Well, car made it through intact.  Marble sized.  Sounded like baseball size on my roof.  That was nuts.

[phdhorn 6224]

Summary:

- Storms were bad, as forecast, west of Austin late last night/early this a.m.  Lotsa hail and rotations.
- They weakened considerably about 70m. west of town.  Cold front undercut the storms, took away their punch.  This about 1-3:30 p.m.
- Very tame, almost nothing storm went over SW part of Travis (and me!) about 3:45-4.  When it got about 2-3 miles E. of Bee Cave (just west of Oak Hill and Rollingwood), storm found a pocket of warm air, blew up, and hailed as you all know across most of Austin and south.  When it went over me, there was almost nothing - trickle of rain, almost no thunder/lightning or wind to speak of.  Just like that, within 5 mins. it ramped up.  Pretty amazing.

Anyway, most of the hail was right on the border between benign and damaging, so no doubt a few people got the worst of it, but most of you who got hail probably escaped with little/no damage.

Next system coming in the weekend, however this one looks more "rainy day" and less severe event.

[TwiceHorn 31676]

Well, central Dallas seemed to be force-fielded.  It barely rained until about 4am, then we got a loud, but rain-only storm.  The cool front had dropped temps down to the 50s by 10 or 11, mitigating the tornado risk.

 

It seems like, in years past, severe weather tends to pass directly over DFW, or is shifted to the north and west, or is shifted to the south and east.

Last night, it was a bit of both, but it's kind of seeming like the overall pattern this year is shifted south and east.  Is that actually a thing?  Or am I just making shit up?

[NorthLoop 14302]

Any news about the Junction tornado? I feel like there had to be something there. 

[SimonBolivar 10961]

Just now, NorthLoop said:

Any news about the Junction tornado? I feel like there had to be something there. 

I'm going to guess fierce rotation that luckily didn't reach the ground.

[SimonBolivar 10961]

18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, central Dallas seemed to be force-fielded.  It barely rained until about 4am, then we got a loud, but rain-only storm.  The cool front had dropped temps down to the 50s by 10 or 11, mitigating the tornado risk.

 

It seems like, in years past, severe weather tends to pass directly over DFW, or is shifted to the north and west, or is shifted to the south and east.

Last night, it was a bit of both, but it's kind of seeming like the overall pattern this year is shifted south and east.  Is that actually a thing?  Or am I just making shit up?

Obviously there has been a lot of talk about the Southeast getting more tornadoes than they used to, but I'm always hesitant to lump a few weather events into a climate summary. @phdhorn Anything to this as far as you know?

[Hate 20157]

Obviously there has been a lot of talk about the Southeast getting more tornadoes than they used to, but I'm always hesitant to lump a few weather events into a climate summary. [mention=636]phdhorn[/mention] Anything to this as far as you know?

It changes year to year, but tornado outbreaks in the SE are not rare.

[Biff Tannen 45763]

From 4:30 this morning.

[Blotto 23678]

Plenty of dings in my car this morning, but I guess thats why you have auto insurance. Been back in Texas for 12 years and the only other auto claim I have is the 2008 hail storm. That one fucked my car up much worse. 

[SimonBolivar 10961]

13 minutes ago, Hate said:

It changes year to year, but tornado outbreaks in the SE are not rare.

Oh most certainly. There just seems to be a narrative out there that they are getting hit harder than they used to get hit.

 

[Guest Lobo]

15 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

From 4:30 this morning.

Your hands are smooth, creamy, delicate yet masculine.  Put some oven mitts on those paws and get to the hand modeling agency.

[Hate 20157]

Oh most certainly. There just seems to be a narrative out there that they are getting hit harder than they used to get hit.
 

Sensationalism...just like there have been 13 extreme cold weather events similar to what we just experienced since the late 1800’s, but you’d never known that.

[TwiceHorn 31676]

9 minutes ago, Hate said:

Sensationalism...just like there have been 13 extreme cold weather events similar to what we just experienced since the late 1800’s, but you’d never known that.

My sense tends to be that weather reporting has become a relatively high-drama clicks/views driver and tends to be somewhat overstated the last few years.  As if you can overreport dangerous severe weather.

But that friggin tornado in Dallas in October 2019 was without the usual hysterical buildup and kind of ruined my theory there.  One of the only times since they've become available that I got caught by surprise by a tornado warning on my phone.

[Wally Pryor 5308]

1 hour ago, phdhorn said:

Summary:
 Just like that, within 5 mins. it ramped up.  Pretty amazing.

Yeah, that was crazy.   The red / purple just popped up out of nowhere. 

[HenryJames 66275]

41 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

From 4:30 this morning.

 

[SimonBolivar 10961]

Y'all some white ass motherfuckers. 

[Biff Tannen 45763]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Your hands are smooth, creamy, delicate yet masculine.  Put some oven mitts on those paws and get to the hand modeling agency.

[phdhorn 6224]

1 hour ago, SimonBolivar said:

Obviously there has been a lot of talk about the Southeast getting more tornadoes than they used to, but I'm always hesitant to lump a few weather events into a climate summary. @phdhorn Anything to this as far as you know?

Some studies say that the frequency has moved east in the last 25-50 years.  Other studies say the very idea of "Tornado Alley" is a misnomer and incorrectly stuck after a 1952 Air Force study coined the term, but that study looked at only Texas and Oklahoma tornadoes and didn't imply any comparison to other states.  These second studies say that within a given area, in fact tornadoes are equivalent in pretty much most of the U.S. east of the Rockies (and Mid-Atlantic and south).  If you look for example at the most frequent tornadoes within a 10,000 sq. mile area (about 100 X 100 mile boxes) from 1991 through 2010:

1. Florida: 12.2
2. Kansas: 11.7
3. Maryland: 9.9
4. Illinois: 9.7
5. Mississippi: 9.2
6. Iowa: 9.1
7. Oklahoma: 9
8. South Carolina: 9
9. Alabama: 8.6
10. Louisiana: 8.5
11. Arkansas: 7.5
12. Nebraska: 7.4
13. Missouri: 6.5
14. North Carolina: 6.4
15. Tennessee: 6.2
16. Indiana: 6.1
17. Texas: 5.9

You'll see that it's pretty evenly scattered throughout the SE, Midwest, and Great Plains (Mid-Atlantic maybe a bit behind, but still there).  And you also see that actually Texas is pretty low on the "frequency in a given area" (probably because Texas is so large and most of it actually isn't prone to tornadoes, but the areas that are get a lot of them).

The NWS has never officially designated anywhere as "Tornado Alley", and while one influential based the name on a study of tornadoes from 1921-1995 occurring more frequently in a large swath of middle states, it's also possible that this study missed a lot of them, due to lack of sophisticated weather tools and a much slower and localized media.  There are also studies that say that torndaoes in the Great Plains are in general more powerful than ones in the SE, but with more population in the SE, the destruction in recent years has skewed these to be "worse". 

So it's all really a slippery slope and there's really nothing close to a comprehensive, exhaustive study say over 100 years to make many conclusions except that "the Great Plains, Southeast U.S., and Midwest into the mid-Atlantic have a lot of tornadoes."

Edited March 25, 2021 by phdhorn

[Guest Lobo]

^
Wow, Maryland in at #3?  Did not see that coming.  Surprising too since it's so dense and built-up.  Happy to see my old home state Illinois representing at #4.  We had a couple of really nasty once just a couple miles away growing up.  You fellow midwesterners will remember the drills we did growing up at school.  I remember they'd tell us to open the windows before fleeing to the school basement.  After the really deadly Plainfield 1990 tornado, they got wise and realized that's just a waste of time.  

When you're little though, like K-5 age...those drills were scary because the adults were basically telling you "every once in awhile mother nature just unleashes these killer funnel clouds right on top of schools and all we can do is listen for the sirens and get low."  The bus drill was more fun because we got to jump out the back of it at the end, but I'm guessing traffic accidents take more lives than tornadoes do nationwide.  Still, my wife and I think back to those tornado drills (she from #2 Kansas on that list) and would trade that nervousness and fear in a heartbeat, for not having to tell our kindergartner that she'll have to participate in an active shooter drill because "every once in awhile mother nature just unleashes these killer crazy people right on top of schools and all we can do is listen for the shots and get in the other direction." 

Okay, back to you Jim with the weather.  Sundays looking like a washout which sucks...was gonna be my first and probably only Longhorn baseball conference game of the season to see in person. 

[phdhorn 6224]

1 minute ago, Lobo said:

^
Wow, Maryland in at #3?  Did not see that coming.  Surprising too since it's so dense and built-up.  Happy to see my old home state Illinois representing at #4.  We had a couple of really nasty once just a couple miles away growing up.  You fellow midwesterners will remember the drills we did growing up at school.  I remember they'd tell us to open the windows before fleeing to the school basement.  After the really deadly Plainfield 1990 tornado, they got wise and realized that's just a waste of time.  

When you're little though, like K-5 age...those drills were scary because the adults were basically telling you "every once in awhile mother nature just unleashes these killer funnel clouds right on top of schools and all we can do is listen for the sirens and get low."  The bus drill was more fun because we got to jump out the back of it at the end, but I'm guessing traffic accidents take more lives than tornadoes do nationwide.  Still, my wife and I think back to those tornado drills (she from #2 Kansas on that list) and would trade that nervousness and fear in a heartbeat, for not having to tell our kindergartner that she'll have to participate in an active shooter drill because "every once in awhile mother nature just unleashes these killer crazy people right on top of schools and all we can do is listen for the shots and get in the other direction." 

Okay, back to you Jim with the weather.  Sundays looking like a washout which sucks...was gonna be my first and probably only Longhorn baseball conference game of the season to see in person. 

I grew up in Maryland and believe it or not, yes they get a lot of tornadoes.  And for a state so small, that #2 ranking is even more amazing.  Maryland is right on the border between a more humid, Gulf SE climate and northern Great Lakes/New England continental climate.  Also the storms cross the Appalachians and they cause the air to loft and mix, making a prime breeding ground for the turbulence that causes storms.  In fact, my own boyhood home was on the edge of a tornado something like 2000 or so.  The tornado did extensive damage to a shopping center that I could have hit with a golf swing.  Our house got little damage, but tree limbs were thrown all over and weird heavy stuff was in our yard (a shed, a few trash cans, etc.).  It's like the thing picked and chose to lift 400 lb. things while leaving lighter things in place.  Anyway there have been some large tornadoes in the southern part of the state in particular.  So it doesn't completely surprise me, but yeah I would have thought it might be down in the middle, just because it has such a small (and irregular!) area and shape.  Virginia gets a lot of tornadoes as well (those on the way to Maryland!) but I guess not quite enough within a given area to make this list.

Weekend weather to come, almost certainly not severe... but it is March/April in Texas, so we'll see.

[SimonBolivar 10961]

19 minutes ago, Lobo said:

^
Wow, Maryland in at #3?  Did not see that coming.  Surprising too since it's so dense and built-up.  Happy to see my old home state Illinois representing at #4.  We had a couple of really nasty once just a couple miles away growing up.  You fellow midwesterners will remember the drills we did growing up at school.  I remember they'd tell us to open the windows before fleeing to the school basement.  After the really deadly Plainfield 1990 tornado, they got wise and realized that's just a waste of time.  

When you're little though, like K-5 age...those drills were scary because the adults were basically telling you "every once in awhile mother nature just unleashes these killer funnel clouds right on top of schools and all we can do is listen for the sirens and get low."  The bus drill was more fun because we got to jump out the back of it at the end, but I'm guessing traffic accidents take more lives than tornadoes do nationwide.  Still, my wife and I think back to those tornado drills (she from #2 Kansas on that list) and would trade that nervousness and fear in a heartbeat, for not having to tell our kindergartner that she'll have to participate in an active shooter drill because "every once in awhile mother nature just unleashes these killer crazy people right on top of schools and all we can do is listen for the shots and get in the other direction." 

Okay, back to you Jim with the weather.  Sundays looking like a washout which sucks...was gonna be my first and probably only Longhorn baseball conference game of the season to see in person. 

2019 Stats:

 

Traffic Accident Deaths: 37,000

Tornado Deaths: 42

 

but yep you're right about the fear. It has to be something in our monkey brain that says "yeah, but I can avoid traffic accidents" vs "Thank God I wasn't in Jarrell or I would've fucking died".

 

I've always toyed with the idea of adding one of those in garage above ground storm shelters to the house, but I'm not sure if they're really that effective against the big one or how much it would impact the value of the home. Obviously the idea of insuring against something that kills 0.0000074% of the Texas population each year is incredibly illogical.

[Guest Lobo]

I was thinking about tornado protection (thankfully, Austin's heat pocket seems to discourage formation right over the Central part of the city, but you never know) and then thinking about the cost and why we didn't winterize our power plants for a rare prolonged freeze.  And this is going through my brain at a stoplight yesterday on the Ih-35 access road near UT---looking at both decks.  The bottom deck has 2' of leeway on either side.  The upper deck was built with a very comfortably sized shoulder the entire length of it.  Most accidents happen down below but the upper deck had its cost and timeline jump up 50% to make that additional non-functional "shoulder-lane."  It's rarely used but yet it's the lower deck that needed the investment and the infrastructure.  But we went with fear over logic.  I dunno, where's the fucking tylenol?  

[South Austin 52686]

I could totally outrun a tornado.

[Biff Tannen 45763]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

I could totally outrun a tornado.

[NorthLoop 14302]

2 hours ago, phdhorn said:

Some studies say that the frequency has moved east in the last 25-50 years.  Other studies say the very idea of "Tornado Alley" is a misnomer and incorrectly stuck after a 1952 Air Force study coined the term, but that study looked at only Texas and Oklahoma tornadoes and didn't imply any comparison to other states.  These second studies say that within a given area, in fact tornadoes are equivalent in pretty much most of the U.S. east of the Rockies (and Mid-Atlantic and south).  If you look for example at the most frequent tornadoes within a 10,000 sq. mile area (about 100 X 100 mile boxes) from 1991 through 2010:

1. Florida: 12.2
2. Kansas: 11.7
3. Maryland: 9.9
4. Illinois: 9.7
5. Mississippi: 9.2
6. Iowa: 9.1
7. Oklahoma: 9
8. South Carolina: 9
9. Alabama: 8.6
10. Louisiana: 8.5
11. Arkansas: 7.5
12. Nebraska: 7.4
13. Missouri: 6.5
14. North Carolina: 6.4
15. Tennessee: 6.2
16. Indiana: 6.1
17. Texas: 5.9

You'll see that it's pretty evenly scattered throughout the SE, Midwest, and Great Plains (Mid-Atlantic maybe a bit behind, but still there).  And you also see that actually Texas is pretty low on the "frequency in a given area" (probably because Texas is so large and most of it actually isn't prone to tornadoes, but the areas that are get a lot of them).

The NWS has never officially designated anywhere as "Tornado Alley", and while one influential based the name on a study of tornadoes from 1921-1995 occurring more frequently in a large swath of middle states, it's also possible that this study missed a lot of them, due to lack of sophisticated weather tools and a much slower and localized media.  There are also studies that say that torndaoes in the Great Plains are in general more powerful than ones in the SE, but with more population in the SE, the destruction in recent years has skewed these to be "worse". 

So it's all really a slippery slope and there's really nothing close to a comprehensive, exhaustive study say over 100 years to make many conclusions except that "the Great Plains, Southeast U.S., and Midwest into the mid-Atlantic have a lot of tornadoes."

It's probably out there somewhere, but I'd love to see this data broken down by county and put into a map. 

[Iowa Horn 55]

1 hour ago, NorthLoop said:

It's probably out there somewhere, but I'd love to see this data broken down by county and put into a map. 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/explore-every-tornado-across-united-states-1980-through-interactive-map-180950243/

[phdhorn 6224]

Here's an overkill listing by county of all the tornadoes in Texas 1950-2012. Should at least give you a good idea of the counties that have the most. If you're willing to scroll 900 ft through tables.

There's also an interactive map that I'm not sure works anymore. You can give it a try.

Of course it would seem to be pretty obvious that north and west Texas will by far have the most.

http://www.tornadoproject.com/alltorns/txtorn1.htm

 

 

 

 

[NorthLoop 14302]

That would've been a fun map project to do in my undergrad GIS days. 

[atomheartbevo 90041]

6 hours ago, phdhorn said:

• Florida: 12.2
•  

Wonder how much of this is related to hurricane activity?  I'm not doubting it - Florida is a really spread out state, but seems like hurricanes can really skew that.

[atomheartbevo 90041]

4 hours ago, NorthLoop said:

It's probably out there somewhere, but I'd love to see this data broken down by county and put into a map. 

And incorporate stats on trailer park density.  Kinda not making a joke - we lived in a trailer when I was a kid (oilfield trash and all), and the "mobile homes"  these days are fucking amazing and not really mobile once you park them. Those things get hit, they can really make for very vivid imagery.

 

[phdhorn 6224]

 

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Wonder how much of this is related to hurricane activity?  I'm not doubting it - Florida is a really spread out state, but seems like hurricanes can really skew that.

I got some reports outta FSU and got these numbers (I can link the reports I used if you're so inclined):

A study was done showing that from 1995-2013, there were 1,190 documented Florida tornadoes.
Of these, 307 were associated with tropical cyclones.

So that's just under 26% TS-associated tornadoes.

Essentially that means that had those tornadoes not occurred, Florida would have only slipped to either #3 or #4 on that list of the top 17.  So they do have some influence, but not as much as you'd think?

Florida's tornadoes however are caused by probably more differing conditions than any other state.  Ones in the Panhandle are usually more "continental" in type, whereas the ones in the main peninsula are more tropical (and yes it does count if a waterspout moves onto land as a tornado - waterspouts are tropical/warm weather events mostly).  So this means that Florida experiences a greater variety of conditions that can result in tornadoes than the average state, resulting in their relatively higher number.  Makes sense.

Edited March 25, 2021 by phdhorn

[phdhorn 6224]

8 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

I'm going to guess fierce rotation that luckily didn't reach the ground.

I think this is it.  Haven't heard much about damage, but maybe it'll come in.  Interestingly, a tornado did touch down in Junction almost 2 years ago exactly - March 21, 2019.

[clapclapclap 9000]

Going to be very lucky if there isn't a big number of deaths from these Alabama tornadoes today.  Already 3 reported, and now a tornado with a large debris ball went through parts of Birmingham and suburban Trussville.  Another nasty tornado southeast of Tuscaloosa appears to have gone right through the Bibb County Correctional Facility.  Hopefully that's a pretty sturdy complex of buildings.  

[clapclapclap 9000]

I think the Junction (radar indicated) tornado ended up skirting around the town.

A shame the Tornado History Project website bit the dust this year.  Easy to use map where you could see every tornado in a state from 1950 to just a few years ago.  I'd guess that some tornadoes in sparsely populated areas were never reported for many years of that range.  Don't know how far back radar analysis has been done to pick those up, but for the early half or more of that range there's probably just not the records to be able to do so. 

Anyways, the THP used a Google Maps base, and for the last several months it would give error messages (while still displaying) of Google Maps not loading correctly, so I'm just going to assume GoogleIsEvil got it shut down.  

I don't know if it was a partner with the Tornado Project linked a few posts above.

Edited March 25, 2021 by clapclapclap

[clapclapclap 9000]

 

Edited March 25, 2021 by clapclapclap

[NorthLoop 14302]

That's a cool ass graphic 

[Orange&White 5554]

6 hours ago, NorthLoop said:

That would've been a fun map project to do in my undergrad GIS days. 

Hello fellow map nerd. 
 

What did you parlay your GIS studies into if you don’t mind me asking? I’m always curious where GISers ended up since most move on to something different. I ended up an IT guy that does virtually nothing with maps.

[Modessit 5624]

Hello fellow map nerd. 
 
What did you parlay your GIS studies into if you don’t mind me asking? I’m always curious where GISers ended up since most move on to something different. I ended up an IT guy that does virtually nothing with maps.

My brother is now an accountant.

[NorthLoop 14302]

10 hours ago, Orange&White said:

Hello fellow map nerd. 
 

What did you parlay your GIS studies into if you don’t mind me asking? I’m always curious where GISers ended up since most move on to something different. I ended up an IT guy that does virtually nothing with maps.

I work for a pharma/medical device company. The only part of GIS that comes into my current job is a little bit of database management. 

I did however spend 2 years working for blacklab making O&G maps that the company never really used. But hey i got to spend 2 years drawing maps and getting paid for it so that was cool. 

Edited March 26, 2021 by NorthLoop

[gurt 753]

I also studied GIS and never ended up using it. Ended up working my way into being a technical support engineer manager

[clapclapclap 9000]

"Most of us go pro in something other than GIS."

[clapclapclap 9000]

Also, this seems like a good image to help put the tornado risk in context:

[Biff Tannen 45763]

On 3/25/2021 at 8:38 PM, Orange&White said:

Hello fellow map nerd. 
 

What did you parlay your GIS studies into if you don’t mind me asking? I’m always curious where GISers ended up since most move on to something different. I ended up an IT guy that does virtually nothing with maps.

 

On 3/26/2021 at 6:52 AM, NorthLoop said:

I work for a pharma/medical device company. The only part of GIS that comes into my current job is a little bit of database management. 

I did however spend 2 years working for blacklab making O&G maps that the company never really used. But hey i got to spend 2 years drawing maps and getting paid for it so that was cool. 

 

On 3/26/2021 at 3:40 PM, clapclapclap said:

"Most of us go pro in something other than GIS."

It's raining in 78751.

Also, I have thrown around the idea of going back to school and learning GIS.  Is this a fool's errand?

[gurt 753]

It's raining in 78751.
Also, I have thrown around the idea of going back to school and learning GIS.  Is this a fool's errand?

Yeah I wouldn’t...money isn’t great unless you’re in actual developer territory, but that is a CS degree anyways

[gmr548 16635]

Hello fellow map nerd. 
 
What did you parlay your GIS studies into if you don’t mind me asking? I’m always curious where GISers ended up since most move on to something different. I ended up an IT guy that does virtually nothing with maps.

Commercial real estate. Had a contract GIS gig, took an entry level job with my firm that did include a little mapmaking, but mostly other research/grunt work type stuff. Much of that’s been automated now and my job has nothing to do with GIS anymore.

[miguelito 11337]

Woke up this morning to the sound of thunder. 

How far off, I sat and wondered.

[phdhorn 6224]

57 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

 

 

It's raining in 78751.

Also, I have thrown around the idea of going back to school and learning GIS.  Is this a fool's errand?

The Feds pay fairly well for GIS stuff.  My brother was a GIS specialist for 20 years in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (the old Army Map Service) in D.C.; they paid for his Master's, sent him to Cali to school and gave him a fat stipend besides his salary which I believe was somewhere on the 5-6 figure border.  He had it really really good.

Not sure how it works out in private industry, but you do get perks with the Feds.  Or at least have in the past.

In other news, it's raining.  The low coming thru got stronger than forecast, last 24 hours the rain totals have ramped up, but the main swath is running in a line through Austin, and that's almost it for TX (anti-forcefield if I ever saw one).  I'm thinking it's because God hates Easter Egg hunts, which are all scheduled for right about now.

[hookemATL 11972]

42 minutes ago, miguelito said:

Woke up this morning to the sound of thunder. 

How far off, I sat and wondered.

Started humming’ a song from 1962

Ain’t it funny how the night moves 

[phdhorn 6224]

44 minutes ago, miguelito said:

Woke up this morning to the sound of thunder. 

How far off, I sat and wondered.

I always wondered why he woke up sitting.  Did he fall asleep in the recliner or just has a phobia about beds?

[Iowa Horn 55]

13 minutes ago, hookemATL said:

Started humming’ a song from 1962

Ain’t it funny how the night moves 

Fun fact:  that song was Breaking Up is Hard to Do