Tornado season is definitely off and running. Monday night they blew the sirens because radar indicated rotation in a storm cell several miles west of my town. No tornado touched down, although the sky turned bluish black to the northwest. I suppose they felt better safe than sorry but I was outside doing my storm spotter thing and I could tell that the storm was going to miss us, which it did. It went on to cause some more excitement two counties to the northeast but again, no tornado dropped, it was all radar.
Yesterday, however, it was NOT radar over in Dexter, some 70-80 miles east. They got hit with an EF-2, possibly EF-3 tornado which damaged over a hundred houses. Fortunately no one was hurt or killed, but all the weather people are saying that a tornado this strong this early is very unusual for Michigan. But our weather has been more like May than March and this is what has me concerned.
Last night I was sitting with some friends on the patio of a local winery and watching the rear of the storm system that dropped the Dexter twister, and I could tell there was some serious stuff going on even though the line of clouds was at least 30-50 miles to the east if not more. When they get that big you can see them from a long, long way--I remember one big thunderhead that I tracked for 70 miles, from the point where I first spotted the storm to when I got to my destination, and I was headed in the opposite direction! So the line of storms I was watching could have been even farther away. I am sure there must be some way of estimating distance but I don't know how to do it. I just know that if I am at Point A and I see the storm and I reach Point B and I still see the same storm and I know how far I've driven, that is one big storm! And that was one isolated thunderstorm, not a line like I was watching last night.
So I was watching this line of thunderstorms go by on a diagonal, southwest to northeast, and I could see that the tops were trying to overshoot the anvil, which is not a good sign, and furthermore that the tops were flattening out and spreading in a northeasterly direction and that is also not a good sign, because it means wind shear. And wind shear in some of these storms has been known to vary as much as 130 mph between the top and bottom of the storm. The clouds, even from that distance, were actively pushing upward, what I call mushrooming, which means updrafts. So you have windshear and updrafts which is a combination that spells severe. Frankly I am not surprised it dropped an EF-2/3. I know that spotters two counties over were reporting a lot of hail.
So I have been keeping a very close eye on the weather forecasts, especially the ones that say spotter activation may be required. And I have a feeling that they are going to be blowing that siren quite a bit this spring and summer.
I do not like this weather one bit.
Yesterday, however, it was NOT radar over in Dexter, some 70-80 miles east. They got hit with an EF-2, possibly EF-3 tornado which damaged over a hundred houses. Fortunately no one was hurt or killed, but all the weather people are saying that a tornado this strong this early is very unusual for Michigan. But our weather has been more like May than March and this is what has me concerned.
Last night I was sitting with some friends on the patio of a local winery and watching the rear of the storm system that dropped the Dexter twister, and I could tell there was some serious stuff going on even though the line of clouds was at least 30-50 miles to the east if not more. When they get that big you can see them from a long, long way--I remember one big thunderhead that I tracked for 70 miles, from the point where I first spotted the storm to when I got to my destination, and I was headed in the opposite direction! So the line of storms I was watching could have been even farther away. I am sure there must be some way of estimating distance but I don't know how to do it. I just know that if I am at Point A and I see the storm and I reach Point B and I still see the same storm and I know how far I've driven, that is one big storm! And that was one isolated thunderstorm, not a line like I was watching last night.
So I was watching this line of thunderstorms go by on a diagonal, southwest to northeast, and I could see that the tops were trying to overshoot the anvil, which is not a good sign, and furthermore that the tops were flattening out and spreading in a northeasterly direction and that is also not a good sign, because it means wind shear. And wind shear in some of these storms has been known to vary as much as 130 mph between the top and bottom of the storm. The clouds, even from that distance, were actively pushing upward, what I call mushrooming, which means updrafts. So you have windshear and updrafts which is a combination that spells severe. Frankly I am not surprised it dropped an EF-2/3. I know that spotters two counties over were reporting a lot of hail.
So I have been keeping a very close eye on the weather forecasts, especially the ones that say spotter activation may be required. And I have a feeling that they are going to be blowing that siren quite a bit this spring and summer.
I do not like this weather one bit.
