It was a night to huddle in the basement and cower in the face of nature's incredible fury throughout Tennessee last night, as another wave of deadly twisters swept through a state already reeling from last Sunday's 24 tornado deaths. At least 31 tornadoes touched down yesterday, killing 11 and creating tremendous destruction in the Nashville area. Sumner County, just north of Nashville, suffered eight dead. You can see the impressive line of storms that swept through the area in this 3-hour radar animation (1.4 Mb). The breadth, intensity, and duration of the storms covering the Tennessee Valley yesterday and last night was truly impressive to behold. With the peak of tornado season still a month away, the three major tornado outbreaks so far this year have already killed 49 people, compared to the average of 45 killed during the entire year each of the previous three years. Through the end of March, 286 tornadoes hit the United States, compared to an average of 70 for the January-March period in each of the past three years.
Severe thunderstorms from last night's onslaught will continue to affect Florida, Alabama, and Georgia today, but the risk of tornadoes is much reduced. It appears that the coming week will be much quieter,with no major tornado outbreaks likely. However, the jet stream pattern remains very active over the coming two weeks, and another major tornado outbreak during the week following Easter is a stong possibility. The tornado season of 2006 is more than making up for the quiet tornado seasons we've been blessed with the past three years!
Figure 1. Radar snapshot of the tornadic thunderstorms that swept through Tennessee yesterday. Note the classic hook-shaped echo from the cell southwest of Nashville, indicating a tornado.
Jeff Masters
Didn't have to chase this tornado down. I stepped out my back door and there it was. NWS rated it an F2
One good photo out of 221 bad. Most of the others were just black sky. This one suprised me! Taken Sunday Morning at 12:30am CST.
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Mid level shear is very light until 12 hours from now it hits 30 knots or more. And until 90 hours there is no large area of low mid level shear.
That, plus SST at only 80 degrees, makes it doubtful anything will develope here.
I got to go for 30 minutes. Back in a few...
Weren't there periods millions of years ago where sea temps could have been 10 degrees warmer than today? Hurricanes may have been regular, weekly, year round events!
Anyway, it's still quite early now to be looking for the first 2006 cyclone. Heck we still have frost warnings in N.C. I guess like spotting the first star of the evening, people can't resist trying...
And yes, we do need rain. In SWFL, near the coast, some dark, nasty looking low level clouds developed, but we never got any rain.
As far as last years storms, this isn't quite the same. They develope from pre-existing upper level lows that dealt better with shear due to thier cold core characteristics. This is just a surface low with no mid or upper level ciculation. We'll watch and see, but this is certainly nothing dangerous.
her is the forcast for shear for the next 72 hours out the red means low shear and the blue mean high shear i hop this help out a little bit yet me no if it dos i off for the night
Good post also David!
And I am also betting based on previous up and downs of the hurricane peaks. This year will be above average but no where near the mind-blower of last year. However I don't think we seen the last of a mind-blowing year like last year. I have a feeling almost all those records (save the greek alphabet) ones will one day be shattered.
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