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Cloud Lightning

US: Joplin survivors recall '15 minutes of hell'


boston.com
Tue, 24 May 2011 11:05 UTC
Image
© Eric Thayer/ Reuters
Ryan Harper paused while looking for a missing friend after a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Mo. yesterday.
Rod Pace, manager of the medical helicopter service at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Joplin had just finished payroll paperwork Sunday evening when he decided to stay an extra 15 to 20 minutes to let the menacing weather pass.

From the second floor, he watched the storm approach. The swirling rain began to form about a mile away.

Then the glass doors he was holding onto - with a 100-pound magnet to keep them locked - were suddenly pulled open. Pace was sucked outside briefly and then pushed back in like a rag doll, all the while clinging to the handles.
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Cloud Lightning

US: 116 Dead from Missouri Tornado; More Twisters Possible


CNN
Tue, 24 May 2011 03:01 UTC

While rescuers scramble to dig out any remaining survivors from a weekend tornado that killed 116, residents in Joplin, Missouri, are bracing for the possibility of more tornadoes on Tuesday.

"There's no way to figure out how to pick up the pieces as is," Sarah Hale, a lifelong Joplin resident, said Tuesday. "We have to have faith the weather will change."

The National Weather Service warned there was a 45% chance of another tornado outbreak -- with the peak time between 4 p.m. and midnight Tuesday -- over a wide swath including parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska and Missouri.

Joplin is also in the area.

But if Monday's rescue efforts are any indication, even severe weather might not hamper the search for survivors.

City Manager Mark Rohr told reporters that more than 40 agencies are on the ground in the southwest Missouri city, with two first responders struck by lightning as they braved relentless rain and high winds searching for survivors.

By Monday night, they found 17 people alive. But many, including Will Norton, remain missing.

The 18-year-old was driving home from his high school graduation Sunday when the tornado destroyed the Hummer H3 he and his father were in.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Tornado Grew with Rare Speed on Way to Joplin

Andrea Mustain
Live Science
Mon, 23 May 2011 12:19 UTC


The deadly tornado that ripped through Joplin, Mo., Sunday evening, killing at least 89 people, intensified with unprecedented speed, according to storm trackers.

The supercell thunderstorm that produced the devastating twister formed over Kansas. The National Weather Service received its first report of the tornado at 5:34 p.m. local time, from west of the Missouri-Kansas border.

Seven minutes later, there were reports of a tornado within Joplin's city limits, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) east of the first sighting.

"Every storm is a little different, but this storm went from what was just a funnel cloud to a very strong, very large and very wide and obviously very damaging tornado in a very short time," in under 10 minutes, said Andy Boxell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, Mo.

"It's something that I've not seen personally, and certainly it's a rare thing to see," Boxell told OurAmazingPlanet.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Deadly tornado crashes through north Minneapolis

B. McAuliffe, R. Furst, P. Walsh & H.M. Estrada
Star Tribune
Mon, 23 May 2011 10:03 UTC
Powerful storm blew into metro, killing 1, injuring 30 and putting North Side under curfew.

Two days of threatening skies turned furious over the Twin Cities on Sunday, unleashing at least three tornado touchdowns in the metro area, killing one person in Minneapolis, injuring at least 30 others, knocking out power to thousands and leading to a curfew and school closings in north Minneapolis.

The massive, slow-moving storm also caused major damage in other metro communities, most significantly St. Louis Park and Fridley.

In the hardest-hit area, Minneapolis' Jordan neighborhood, downed trees, snapped power lines and pieces of roofs littered streets and yards. The smell of natural gas led police to call people out of some homes. Roads were blocked and residents scrambled to find loved ones; close to 200 or so people displaced by the storm made their way to an emergency shelter at the Northeast Armory, near Broadway and Central Avenue.

Mayor R.T. Rybak described the damage as "widespread and significant" after he and City Council President Barbara Johnson viewed it from a helicopter.
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Recycle

US: Governor tours La Crosse tornado damage


Chicago Tribune
Mon, 23 May 2011 13:56 UTC
La Crosse, Wis.- Gov. Scott Walker is in La Crosse to tour the damage caused by Sunday's tornado.

Walker says his heart goes out to everyone affected by the storm and says he's grateful no one was seriously injured. Walker toured damaged neighborhoods by car Monday afternoon.

At least 200 homes and businesses were damaged by the tornado, which was part of the same big storm system that spawned the deadly tornadoes around the Midwest.

National Weather Service meteorologist Glenn Lussky said preliminary assessments from field crews show the powerful storm was in fact a tornado and possibly an EF1.

Comment: Enhanced Fujita Scale: EF1 is an indicator on a scale of EF0-EF5. An EF1 scale Storm has sustained winds of 86 - 110MPH or 138 - 178km/h.

More info can be obtained here.

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Cloud Lightning

US: Tornado touches down in Medina

Jim Adams
Star Tribune
Mon, 23 May 2011 10:55 UTC
Image
© David Joles
Wyoming volunteer firefighter Joe Kuskey, center in white shirt, keeps a weary eye to the sky for funnel clouds near I-35.
A tornado touchdown was reported in Medina and a number of subsequent warnings sent residents bolting for their basements in the northern metro area on a storm-raked Saturday night.

There were no reports of injuries or serious damage from the touchdown, which was reported to the National Weather Service in Chanhassen by trained weather spotters.

But heavy rain and large hailstones slowed traffic and caused basement flooding and minor damage in the communities of Corcoran, Maple Grove, Osseo, Dayton, Rogers, Champlin, Coon Rapids, Anoka, East Bethel and Andover.

A Medina police officer said he saw a tornado tail hanging from the clouds at about 6:30 p.m., but it didn't appear to touch the ground. Sgt. Jason Nelson said hail fell and branches whipped back and forth, but he saw no tornado damage.
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Radar

US: Missouri officials say tornado killed at least 89

Kurt Voigt & Alan Scher Zagier
Charlotte Observer
Sun, 22 May 2011 12:21 UTC
Image
© Unknown
A piece of wood is lodged in the bumper of a car after at least one tornado struck parts of north Minneapolis, causing extensive property damage, killing at least one person and injuring at least 18 others, Sunday, May 22, 2011.
Joplin, Mo. A massive tornado that tore a 6-mile path across southwestern Missouri killed at least 89 people as it slammed into the city of Joplin, ripping into a hospital, crushing cars like soda cans and leaving a forest of splintered tree trunks behind where entire neighborhoods once stood.

Authorities warned that the death toll could climb as search and rescuers continued their work. Their task was made more miserable Monday morning as a thunderstorm with strong, gusty winds and heavy rain pelted part of the city with quarter-size hail.

City manager Mark Rohr announced the number of known dead at a pre-dawn news conference outside the wreckage of a hospital that took a direct hit from Sunday's storm. Rohr said the twister cut a path nearly 6 miles long and more than a half-mile wide through the center of town, adding that tornado sirens gave residents about a 20-minute warning before the tornado touched down on the city's west side.

Much of the city's south side was leveled, with churches, schools, businesses and homes reduced to ruins. Fire chief Mitch Randles estimated 25 percent to 30 percent of the city was damaged, and said his own home was among the buildings destroyed as the twister swept through this city of about 50,000 people some 160 miles south of Kansas City.

Comment: On Earth Changes - From Where I sit: Rain drops keep falling on my head: "People are noticing and all this weather weapons nonsense is designed to make people think it's all a 'game'. The controllers want people to think they are in control because if people really could see that it is really all of the long-ago-predicted Earth Changes that we are experiencing NOW, they would turn on the governments and devour them."

- Laura Knight Jadczyk

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Bizarro Earth

US: 'Cut the city in half': Death toll rises to 89 in Joplin, Missouri tornado


MSNBC / Associated Press
Mon, 23 May 2011 10:18 UTC
A massive tornado - the deadliest single U.S. tornado since 1953 - tore through the city of Joplin on Sunday, killing at least 89 people. Amid fears the death toll could climb, a fresh round of storms lashed the town early Monday, hampering search and rescue efforts.

City manager Mark Rohr announced the number of known dead at a pre-dawn news conference outside the wreckage of a hospital that took a direct hit from Sunday's storm. Rohr said the twister cut a path nearly six miles long and more than a half-mile wide through the center of town.


Much of the city's south side was leveled, with churches, schools, businesses and homes reduced to ruins.

Fire chief Mitch Randles estimated that 25 to 30 percent of the city was damaged, and said his own home was among the buildings destroyed as the twister swept through this city of about 50,000 people some 160 miles south of Kansas City.

"It cut the city in half," Randles said.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Heavy Storms Maul Midwest, Leaving Deaths, Injuries, Destruction


CNN
Mon, 23 May 2011 21:27 UTC
A tornado flattened buildings, snapped trees and tossed tractor-trailers like toys as it touched down in Joplin, Missouri, on Sunday night, causing an unknown number of deaths and injuries.


The twister was part of a line of severe weather that swept across the Midwest on Sunday, prompting tornado watches and warnings that stretched from Wisconsin to Texas. High winds and possible tornadoes struck Minneapolis and other parts of Minnesota, leaving at least one person dead and injuring nearly two dozen others, police said.

Authorities in Joplin were contending with multiple reports of people trapped, as well as significant structural damage to St. John's Regional Medical Center, which was hit directly by the tornado, city officials said. CNN affiliate KSHB said there were reports of fires throughout the hospital.
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Igloo

Snow and gales . . it must be Scottish summertime

Helen McArdle
Herald Scotland
Sat, 21 May 2011 17:59 UTC
With snow falling in the Highlands, heavy rain lashing the west coast and severe weather warnings for gale force winds across the entire country from Monday - it could only be summer in Scotland.

While the south of England continues to bask in a prolonged dry spell that has led to water shortages in some areas and sunbathing temperatures of over 70ºF (21ºC), people north of the border will be looking out raincoats and umbrellas for the next week at least, with the wet weather set to last into June.
      Read More...
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