Storms
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Bizarro Earth

Entire Month's Worth of Tornadoes Strike in One Day

Brett Israel
Live Science
Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:32 UTC
Severe Weather
© NOAAThis high resolution infrared imagery of the severe weather outbreak was taken around noon on March 2, 2012. Yellow, orange, and red areas indicate the coldest, highest cloud tops. By pairing precise color scales with this high resolution imagery, meteorologists can weed out the extraneous cloud information and focus on the most threatening features in this massive storm system. Major connective storm outbreaks can be seen dotting the Midwest in this image.
In what may be the biggest daily tornado outbreak on record for March, an entire month's worth of twisters struck in a single day.

The nation's Storm Prediction Center received 81 reports of tornadoes yesterday (March 2), according to data filtered to remove duplicate reports of tornadoes. For the entire month of March, the 10-year average number of tornadoes is 87, according to the Weather Channel's severe weather expert Greg Forbes. The National Weather Service's storm survey teams have not yet confirmed the tornado reports, so these numbers could change. But if the numbers hold, the outbreak could go down as the largest single-day outbreak in March history.

But today, the focus is on recovery efforts, said Craig Fugate, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Figuring out where this outbreak ranks among other huge outbreaks will wait for another day.

At least 33 people died during yesterday's severe weather, according to news reports. In Kentucky, at least 17 people died. A suspected EF-4 twister, the second highest strength on the tornado damage scale, hit Indiana, where at least 14 died.
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Cloud Lightning

Storms Demolish Small Towns in Indiana, Kentucky; 38 Dead

Roger Alford and Jim Suhr
The Associated Press
Sat, 03 Mar 2012 10:27 UTC
Image
© unknownWreckage left behind by one of the Indiana tornadoes
US: Kentucky, West Liberty - Across the South and Midwest, survivors emerged Saturday to find blue sky and splinters where homes once stood, cars flung into buildings and communications crippled after dozens of tornadoes chainsawed through a region of millions, leveling small towns along the way.

At least 38 people were killed in five states, but a 2-year-old girl was somehow found alive and alone in a field near her Indiana home. Her family did not survive. A couple that fled their home for the safety of a restaurant basement made it, even after the storms threw a school bus into their makeshift shelter.

Saturday was a day filled with such stories, told as emergency officials trudged with search dogs past knocked-down cellphone towers and ruined homes looking for survivors in rural Kentucky and Indiana, marking searched roads and homes with orange paint. President Barack Obama offered federal assistance, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich declared an emergency Saturday.

The worst damage appeared centered in the small towns of southern Indiana and eastern Kentucky's Appalachian foothills. No building was untouched and few were recognizable in West Liberty, Ky., about 90 miles from Lexington, where two white police cruisers were picked up and tossed into City Hall.
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Snowman

Heavy snow fall in Jerusalem for the first time in four years

Oz Rosenberg and Eli Ashkenazi
Haaretz
Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:46 UTC
Image
© Olivier Fitoussi Snow falling in Jerusalem's Sacher Park, March 2, 2012
3 centimeters of snow fell, with snowfall reported in Ramot, Givat Ze'ev and Har Gilo; Egged bus company halts all lines to the capital.

Israel- Heavy snow fell in the Jerusalem area on Friday, and for the first time in four years, parts of Jerusalem were white with snow.

Snow fell in Ramot, Givat Ze'ev and Har Gilo, and three centimeters of snow fall were reported.

The Jerusalem municipality, which had prepared for the weather conditions in recent days, was due to clear snow from the streets of Jerusalem on Friday.

Snow also fell in the Golan Heights in the early hours of Friday morning, and classes were canceled in the Golan and in the area around Safad because of the weather. Safad area residents were also asked not to drive by the municipality, and there was no public transport in the area.

Cold and stormy weather swept through Israel since Tuesday, and Friday was expected to be the coldest day of the year.
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Cloud Lightning

Storms Wreck Indiana Towns, Kill 28 in 3 States

Bruce Schreiner and Ken Kusmer
The Associated Press
Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press/The Decatur Daily/Jeronimo NisaJerry Vonderhaar, left, comforts Charles Kellogg after severe weather hit the Eagle Point subdivision in Limestone County, Ala. on Friday, March 2, 2012. A reported tornado destroyed several houses in northern Alabama as storms threatened more twisters across the region Friday
US - Powerful storms leveled small towns in southern Indiana, transforming entire blocks of homes into piles of debris, tossing school buses into a home and a restaurant and causing destruction so severe it was difficult to tell what was once there. As night fell, dazed residents shuffled through town, some looking for relatives, while rescue workers searched the rubble for survivors. Without power, the only light in town came from cars that crawled down the streets.

From the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes, the storms touched nearly all walks of life. A fire station was flattened. Roofs were ripped off schools. A prison fence was knocked down and scores of homes and businesses were destroyed. At least 28 people were killed, including 14 in Indiana and 12 in Kentucky, and dozens of others were hurt in the second deadly tornado outbreak this week.

It wasn't immediately clear how many people were missing.

The threat of tornadoes was expected to last until late Friday for parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio. Forecasters at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center said the massive band of storms put 10 million people at high risk of dangerous weather.

"We knew this was coming. We were watching the weather like everyone else," said Clark County, Ind., Sheriff Danny Rodden. "This was the worst case scenario. There's no way you can prepare for something like this."

In Henryville, the scene was eerie and somewhat chaotic. Cell phones and landlines were not working. Hundreds of firefighters and police zipped around town. Power lines were down and cars were flipped over. People walked down the street with shopping carts full of water and food, handing it out to whoever was in need.
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Bizarro Earth

Whole town 'completely gone' after Indiana tornado


Fox 5 / Associated Press
Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:00 UTC
Image
© National Weather Service
An entire Indiana town may be gone after a tornado ravaged the area in the latest severe storm to strike Friday. The Associated Press reported that the town of Marysville is "completely gone," according to Clark County Sheriff's Department Maj. Chuck Adams. Southern Indiana was walloped by a tornado and authorities are reporting extensive and widespread damage in Henryville, IN, about 20 miles north of Louisville, KY.

A substantial, possible multiple vortex tornado was on the ground near Henryville around 3:30 ET Friday. Affiliate WAVE 3 is reporting one person has died there.

The storm is just the latest in a series of dangerous weather systems that have swept across the eastern part of the U.S. just two days after another storm system killed 13 people in the Midwest.

Search and rescue efforts are under way in two counties in Alabama as more severe weather heads toward Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. The storm system was taking aim at Lexington, KY, and Cincinnati, OH, on Friday afternoon.

There are "critical" injuries in the Chattanooga, TN, area. Hamilton County Emergency Management report 6-10 people have been transported to local hospitals and that officials set up a triage area to treat patients on-site in Ooltewah, a suburb of Chattanooga.
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Cloud Lightning

Alabama hit by tornadoes; forecasters fear more in Midwest

Miranda Leitsinger
MSNBC
Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:45 UTC
Image
© TODAY
A "very large super-cell" of several small and perhaps one big tornado touched down in northern Alabama Friday morning, damaging homes and a high school across a wide area, leaving many injured and without power, emergency officials say.

The damage covered a 4 to 5 mile swath in northern Madison County, Paige Colburn, emergency management officer at the Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency, told msnbc.com.

"The reason that it is so wide is because we're not talking about one tornado, we're talking about a very large super cell that spawned several smaller tornadoes and there's possibly one very large one in there, too," she said.

Buckhorn High School was hit and has reported minor damage to the roof. Students sheltered at the school and there were no injuries reported. Some 17,000 people in the county are without power, but that was possibly a low estimate, Colburn said.

"Temporary shelter is being setup," Colburn said. "The storm has passed the county, thank goodness, and we are now working on response/recovery, life-saving and property-saving procedures," she added.
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Cloud Lightning

Severe weather, near-death experiences and more tornadoes on the way


NBC News
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:45 UTC
Image
© Steve Jahnke/The Southern Illinoisan/AP
As towns cleaned up and survivors recalled near-death tornado experiences, forecasters on Thursday warned of a new round of severe weather Thursday night and Friday that could produce even more twisters.

"We've got a really bad system starting to develop, just as bad if not worse for tomorrow," NBC weather anchor Al Roker reported on the TODAY show, citing "a strong risk of storms from Huntsville, Alabama, to Indianapolis and on into central Ohio."

Parts of Illinois and Mississippi are also at risk, he noted, and any twisters could be several miles long due to the system's strength.

Twelve people were killed Wednesday in Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee by a system that spawned more than a dozen twisters across the Midwest. Hardest hitwas Harrisburg, Ill., where six people died, some 300 homes were destroyed or damaged, and residents had stories of survival and tragedy.
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Snowman

Snow storm blasts from Seattle to New York creating tough travel conditions... but good ski weather for Californians


Associated Press
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:50 UTC
Image
© Associated PressTrue winter weather: A man in Pollock Pines, California, takes a stroll in the snow. The Sierra Nevada region received between 6-12 inches of snow in a storm that started Wednesday and should go through the night

Late winter storms forced school and road closures from Seattle to upstate New York on Wednesday, but the snow was welcomed in California as it suffers through one of the driest winters in history.

The blast from the Gulf of Alaska was expected to bring up to 5 feet of snow at the highest elevations of the northern Sierra Nevada, delighting skiers and the 28million Californians who depend on snowmelt to meet their water needs.

'It's a pretty typical storm, it's just not typical this year,' said Johnnie Powell, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

Officials issued avalanche warnings in the high Sierra mountains as the storm that began in earnest just after midnight was supposed to keep hammering the Lake Tahoe area, the northeast part of the state and the counties surrounding Yosemite National Park well into Thursday.
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Cloud Lightning

Pre-Dawn Tornado Cuts a Deadly Swath Through Downtown Harrisburg, Illinois

Douglas Belkin
The Wall Street Journal
Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:35 UTC
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© Darrin Phegley/The Gleaner/Associated Press Judy Hudnall sifted through the debris left from Wednesday morning's storm in Henderson, Ky.
A band of violent weather stretching across the middle of the U.S. spawned thunderstorms and tornadoes in several states.

Hardest hit late Tuesday and early Wednesday was Harrisburg, Ill., a city of 9,000 where at least six people were killed after a tornado with winds measuring up to 170 miles an hour barreled through the downtown just before dawn, leveling buildings, such as the shopping mall above, and ripping off roofs.

"We had a 40-foot section of wall, which covered patients' rooms, just ... blown away, it's gone," said Vince Ashley, chief executive of Harrisburg Medical Center. A warning call 20 minutes before the storm gave the hospital time to evacuate patient rooms and avoid casualties.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn declared Harrisburg a disaster area. Authorities said as many as 300 homes in Harrisburg were damaged or destroyed, and Mr. Ashley said his emergency room treated at least 50 people. "Head injuries, chest injuries, a lot of broken bones, everything down to cuts and bruises," he said.

Emergency officials said one person was dead from the storm in Cumberland County, Tenn., according to the Associated Press. At least 12 people were killed by the storms overall, the AP reported.
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Bizarro Earth

Nebraska Hit By First-Ever February Tornado

Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet
Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:55 UTC
Tornado
© joonipuur/YouTubeAn image from the video of Nebraska's first-ever February tornado on record.
US: Destructive storms that tore across the U.S. overnight brought a never-before-seen February tornado to Nebraska.

Eyewitness reports, images and video suggest that a weak tornado touched down yesterday (Feb. 29) in a remote part of the state. The storm didn't cause any damage, said National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Kenny Roberg, so that may be all the evidence that storm survey teams have to rate the storm. Storm survey teams are similar to forensic scientists; they assess the damage caused by severe storms and determine if tornadoes - or merely strong winds - are to blame.

The potential twister hit at 10:13 local time (11:13 EST) in Logan County, Neb., according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. An off-duty NWS employee reported the tornado.

Roberg said his NWS office in North Platte, Neb., checked their tornado records, and this is the first tornado known to hit Nebraska during the month of February. Tornado records began in 1950, so one could have struck before then. It's also possible that a February tornado has struck since 1950, but if it hit a remote part of the state, it could have easily gone unrecorded.
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