Sorry for the audio issue from 16:20-16:41. Here's what I'm supposed to be saying during that time: To start the day at 12z, we see a profile comprised of modest instability and steep lapse rates elevated atop fairly limited low-level thermodynamics. Low-level shear was already strong, with ample hodograph curvature and effective storm-relative helicity nearing 250 m2/s2, in part due to easterly surface winds near or perhaps just north of the synoptic warm front.
This is genuinely one of the scariest days I've tracked in a while. The storm motions were insane, the live reports coming in from DOW of a violent tornado, and then seeing that debris ball come into Greenfield. Really glad you're breaking it down.
Definitely a day we used even more caution than normal given the unique evolution, storm mode, and storm speeds. It was really interesting going back and dissecting just what happened; easily one of the more unique events I've seen.
Fantastic breakdown of what happened. This was one of the strangest and scariest events I've ever chased. The evolution of this event continued to defy my expectations at every opportunity, that right turn after Carbon began its occlusion process was particularly confusing after I intentionally positioned ahead of Carbon's path expecting it to make a turn towards the north in front of me as I saw the RFD wrapping completely around it (granting me a dramatic close range and backlit shot), when it started moving to the right of its original path directly at me and my intended escape route it made me try to reposition east ahead of it again, setting me on a collision course with Greenfield which I had no idea was in progress. Honored to have helped with this one.
Thanks for the kind words, Celton, and thank you so much for allowing me to use your footage for this video. It was a huge help. May 21 was easily one of the more unique yet dangerous evolutions I've ever seen; it was a great example of how intricate these high-end setups can be. My main concern that day was storm speeds, but it turned out that that was only a small part of the equation with all the meso- and storm-scale stuff at work. Very glad you were able to make it out unscathed.
@@ConvectiveChronicles anytime man, always happy to help. I had no idea what I was getting myself into trying to get away from Carbon, just shear luck and about 30 seconds of margin saved my life that day.
I knew this event was complicated but didn’t know that the processes in the mesoscale were this precise and intricate, absolutely incredible. As always, a true all timer video Trey
Sorry, I am a little bit later on this one! I remember the very "Messy" mode that I described in my stream tracking this for 8 hours! I thought the messy mode was going to kill this threat, but obviously, I was dead wrong! Awesome video once again, Trey!
Amazing how shortwave troughs produce some of the most violent severe weather days but even more fascinating that a tornado became violent, but not the usual way!! And that is why studying the weather is so darn fun!
Hey Trey. There's likely a bunch more vids you'll want to make for other 2024 events, but I do hope at some point it might be possible for you to do a case study on the May 31, 1985 US / Canada outbreak. That particular event has always fascinated me deeply, and I recall a comment you made awhile back (can't remember where) where you showed interest in making a video on that event. I hope that's still true. In the meantime, thank you so much for the videos you make! Keep up the awesome work!
@@ConvectiveChronicles I so remember that day. It had a huge impact on Southern/Central Ontario. My late father was a truck driver, and was driving a tractor-trailer north of Toronto and would always talk about how dark the sky was.
Great analysis as always Trey! This was one of the days I didn't track as closely, but looking back at it now, the evolution of a lot of things that happened this day was really unique. I did not know (or at least remember) about the evolution of the Greenfield tornado fully, which watching about it now, is really intriguing to me. I had no idea it had come from a non-mesocyclone tornadogenesis and eventually becoming mesocyclonic and intensifying to this violent tornado. Really crazy day indeed.
I will forever regret passing on this day after giving up early on 5/19 and then 5/20 just being pretty crappy. Way to melt my brain again Trey! Great breakdown like always!
Thank you! Dang, that sucks...honestly, I wasn't all that enthused leading up to May 21 from a forecast perspective, so I definitely saw the merits for not chasing it. Storm speeds and storm mode looked to be quite unfavorable; I thought we'd get a brief window for discrete before things went upscale quickly...I had no idea that *this* was going to unfold.
This was definitely the craziest and one of the most bizarre tornadoes that happened since I’ve been tracking severe weather. Although I tracked the last minute of it, hearing what happened from the entire outbreak was insane. Amazing video!
That little subtle cell I actually seen when covering the event but i had no idea that was Greenfield! It just seemed like mergermania to me, and it was truly a nonstop tornado spitter out of that line. What a wild day!
Thanks for the analysis, Trey! Phew, this day...unlike 3/31/23 and 4/26/24, for some reason I found targeting for this day to be a real puzzler and it was reflected in how (poorly) my chase played out, despite it likewise being a relatively classic surface/upper-air pattern for a severe weather outbreak and associated high-end parameter space. I initially went to Iowa Falls...a lot of CAM solutions showed messy modes in southwest Iowa, which actually verified pretty well (radar image at 14:06 for example, seeing that you wouldn't really expect significant tornadoes from that, especially not ones that could actually be seen). That and given the fast motions and challenging terrain/road network in that part of Iowa (which I had already tangled with less than a month before), I didn't want to go there if I could help it (plus, the US 20 corridor has some of the best chase terrain in Iowa, it's not completely uniform but some areas are nearly as open and flat as western Kansas). Some HRRR runs showed a discrete cell moving up into that general area later in the afternoon, which might have verified in the form of the Alleman-Nevada-Zearing EF2, but when I saw that radar imagery I didn't expect what appeared to already be a solid QLCS to evolve back into more discrete supercells (despite being aware that it can happen from time to time, but I think of it as being more of a late-night LLJ-associated thing, like the Evansville, IN F3 of November 2005). Thereafter, my chase turned into a panicked dive south along I-35 and US 65 to clear that solid band of (at the time) fully embedded tornadic supercells to the south before they ran me over. I emerged onto US-34 west of Chariton, and it was at about this time my phone buzzed for a WEA since I was just inside the corner of the polygon for a newly issued tornado warning on an isolated cell coming out of Missouri, near Lineville/Corydon. I finally had a storm to target rather than try to stay the heck out of its way, but it was now a race to get east on 34 before the forward-flank core crossed the highway, and get a view of the updraft base. I was able to do this just southwest of Albia, but the storm couldn't produce (I wonder if that weakness in the low-level shear you mentioned was the reason for this?). I was able to follow it as far as Eddyville thanks to Highway 137 which roughly paralleled the storm's motion out of Albia. Even this turned into another white-knuckle drive, 60 MPH in near- blinding rain and wind gusts from the RFD throwing bursts of small tree debris (leaves and twigs) onto the road in front of me, until I broke out ahead of it again just before Eddyville. I lost it there and anyway it soon began to weaken and lost its tornado warning. The cells generally seemed to struggle in east-central and northeastern Iowa, despite SPC's issuance of a rather ominous mesoscale discussion (No. 879) stating that they fully expected the significant tornado threat to continue in this area. As I got close to home, I began to encounter numerous roads blocked by down trees and power lines due to the storms shown firing near the Madison area at 19:28. I had to detour several additional miles and nearly ran out of gas due to this, as I hadn't filled up since Bondurant, IA (northeast of Des Moines) during my plunge south ahead of the band of tornadic cells flying out of SW IA.
Thanks for sharing your account of that day. It was definitely one of the more difficult chases I've been on in quite some time, both from a forecasting and execution perspective. I had the extra variable of guiding a tour, so I had to take safety even more seriously than if I was chasing solo. Honestly, I didn't think we'd get a very long-duration window for discrete storms; perhaps an hour or so at most before things congealed into an unchaseable line. Those progged storm speeds had me a little concerned, as well; we missed the initial Red Oak tornado because I had positioned us way downstream to give us a cushion as the storms were getting their act together. We were just north of the Villisca-Carbon tornado as it developed, but I didn't want to chance dropping in front of it as fast as it was moving, so we had to let it cross in front of us, at which point catching up to it was futile. Thankfully, the Greenfield tornado developed off to our east, so we blasted down Highway 34 toward it, getting a decent view of its initial stages (as you see from the snippets of my footage in the video) but again, it was just moving too quickly for us to catch up. We had some extenuating circumstances that forced us to end the chase early, but I had my eye on those storms coming out of Missouri, as I thought they would also likely pose a significant tornado risk. I, too, wonder if the slightly weaker low-level shear with southern extent was a factor in them being somewhat lackluster.
Excellent overview and analysis of another case study, Trey. I love the work you do, and I tell many of my colleagues about your channel. It's very interesting how complex this setup was. I was in a virtual meeting via the AMS back in July, and Josh Wurman and Karen Kobasic were discussing the unique aspects of the Greenfield tornado. This unique landspout -> tornado will be studied for years. I was recently thinking of doing this as a WRF case study, but decided against it for the time being because of it's uniqueness and that I'm currently doing work on the Didsbury. Alberta EF-4 tornado and the Palm Sunday April 11, 1965 outbreak on the "TO DO" pile right now.
Thank you so much, Brian! This is certainly one of the more unique cases I've seen in quite some time. Looking forward to what you come up with for Didsbury and Palm Sunday '65!
I can see why they did; the activity was progged to quickly move off to your east, at which point the threat would end for the Omaha area. But as volatile as the environment was, not making you come into work wouldn't have been the worst idea.
@@ConvectiveChronicles I consider it egregious mostly because we have full work from home capabilities. We do it 3/5 days of the working week. The people that make those decisions reside in CT and PA, so they don't really have any experience with this type of convective storm mode, which I think translates to significantly more risk for those that work here than is necessary. That said, thank you for your service to the community. I often find myself watching these videos on my second monitor while working at that very same office. There is no other equivalent, and your breakdowns are top notch.
Awesome breakdown on May 21st, 2024! For a second I thought I was going to get a wind storm/derecho that day but things escalated very quickly on that day when the tail end of the line to the south was more supercellular. Wasn't expecting to get twin tornadoes nor get a tornado that has the highest windspeeds ever recorded from DOW6.
Loved this! Nice job pal!! Now I better see that May 25 vid soon lol😁😁. 11:40 - You Gattabekiddingme with this: I find it so terrifying that this tornado formed this way and in such an unanticipated location. I'm not sure if you have read my paper yet, but I featured this case in it while discussing various ways tornadoes can form and why some can be separate from the meso. I found it was comparable to a tornado born from helicity along a boundary with forcing and vertical stretching; perhaps due to the cold front acting like an outflow boundary on steroids, with robust forcing, leading to strong lifting, leading to stretching of vorticity, and therefore a sigtor, which is why I found it useful in my research on the Anthony tornado. Another example I think this happed in is the May 28, 2019 Lone Star, KS EF2 that preceded the Lawrence/Bonner Springs EF4 that I always talk about. It formed from either a segment of stretched vorticity, or a smaller meso south of the main meso that formed after it, which is why it caught chasers off guard that day. That is 2 sigtors that developed disassociated from the main supercell's meso within the same week this May. Its a blessing we didn't loose any chasers to them. Thanks for your hard work and happy holidays!
Thank you, Mikey! Happy holidays to you, as well! The May 25 video is coming soon; May 23 first and then that one. I’m looking forward to tackling the May 25 case I’m working through your paper as we speak, and this case is definitely in the same category as the others you mention. These types of torgen cases fascinate me the most, as they can lead to some really unique but also dangerous evolutions for those around the storm.
@@ConvectiveChronicles Thank you! And that is great to hear. May 23 unfortunately took My teacher's friends' house near Altus, crazy event also. In addition to 2019 with my Dad's route near Linwood and stuff, 24 has been the year of tornadoes trying to penetrate my personal circle, but failing. So many friends' family and other teachers lost houses and old houses in the Elkhorn EF4, and my Aunt's boyfriend's old house was destroyed in the Choctaw EF3 last month. Sucks cause it was a cool house I remember visiting. Anyway, great job again. I also see some patterns with the pattern you speak of at 15:06 with the new tornado forming from the same mechanism. It seems that the EF4 was more intense due to forming closer to the supercells inflow notch, being acted on by it (14:28), and having backed inflow to work with, while that EF1 near corning was not influenced by the main supercell's backing winds, evidenced by it not taking a north turn
I was tracking those tornadoes on May 21 at home, and I was shocked when Greenfield was hit, by the damage that occurred, those who lost their and how the town had been changed, perhaps forever. Greenfield has a special place in my heart because of one of my favourite movies growing up was filmed there - Cold Turkey. Watching the movie recently and listening to the song, "He Gives Us All His Love" by Randy Newman as an older dog meanders into the town at the beginning of the film, added more emotion than when I last watched it a few years back.
The Jarrell, TX F5 from 1997 comes to mind as a similar case in which intense vorticity stretching along a boundary was the main contributing factor in tornadogenesis, maintenance, and intensification. Also the Plainfield, IL F5 from 1990.
I was watching Ryan Halls stream when the Greenfield tornado hit and I knew how serious that day was. We have nowhere safe to hunker down in our townhome so as soon as our area was in a tornado warning we raced to the next town over to use their storm shelter. The EF2 missed us by a mile but we didn’t know on the drive home what we’d come back to. It was an intense day for sure.
Sorry if i dont remember and youve done this already but could you make a video on how to tell if you're at risk of having landspouts ? And i was wondering if north texas near dfw ever gets landspouts? And are they dangerous like regular tornadoes? Great video as always Trey!
Thank you! I have done a landspout forecasting video; this should give you the ingredients needed for landspouts: ruclips.net/video/vdJQNgjc2zc/видео.html North Texas/DFW does get some landspouts, although not super frequently. Landspouts can be as dangerous as supercellular tornadoes; I believe the strongest landspouts have reached EF3 intensity.
To me, a person who sucks at math and visualizing math, it still feels like there are a few aspects that this event had in common with both Jarrell & Joplin. And a tornado which begins as a landspout yet morphs into a violent tornado? That's WILD. I just also wish there was less radar holes.
Excellent presentation! I couldn't believe you said Nevada correctly! I had to run it back and listen again! 😂 ( When i originally moved to Ames, it took me a looong time to get used to hearing and saying it like that. ) Anyway, the vort-stretching landspout reminded me of Jarrell. Being consumed into a meso and intensifying, however, does not. Very interesting! Thanks for this great analysis, Trey! Wish I could've been chasing that day. Epic!
Thank you so much! Haha I had to look Nevada, IA up to confirm! I know there’s a Nevada, MO pronounced that way, so I figured it was the same, but I had to make sure. As I was working on this video, Jarrell popped into my mind, as well. Big CAPE, especially big low-level CAPE, can do some nasty things when boundaries are in play.
Could the approaching cold front have anything to do with the increased tornadic intensity of greenfield and carbon? Similar to the approaching MCs during barnsdale this year. Great review as always trey and Dam what a first few tornados to see!
Thank you! I don't think so but I can't be 100% sure. The difference with Barnsdall was that it was a full-fledged QLCS that was approached from the west, rather than just a frontal boundary. From my discussions with Cameron Nixon, an approaching QLCS emits a density current (think of it like a gravity wave) that acts as outflow to balance the strong environmental storm-relative inflow. I'm not sure the cold frontal boundary itself can provide that extra "oomph."
One aspect of the Greenfield event that I don’t understand and that you didn’t cover here was the semi-permanent subvortices which seemed to be regularly spaced around the margin, each with its own condensation funnel (Reed Timmers video from when it shredded the windfarm shows this well). I am used to multiple vortices being more ephemeral dancing in and out of view like in the Jerrel Tx or Xenia OH events. Have you ever seen permanent quasi-organized subvortices before? Do you have any guess why they formed here? The high low level CAPE? Form it having started as a non-mesocyclonic rotation? Something else?
Honestly, I don't have a great answer to that question. I can't really remember a subvortex case like this off the top of my head. I'm not as well-versed in vortex dynamics, so I'm unsure if the cause would be environmental or due to vortex dynamics.
Hello good afternoon, I have been following your channel for a while and you have already made some videos studying some tornado cases such as Parkersburg, EL Reno 2011 and 2013 and some others, could you make a specific video of the Smithville tornado 2011?
I storm chased this day after work but ended it near Tabor, IA because T-Mobile data is awful in SW IA. I wish I had continued but I got to see the wall clouds that would eventually become the Greenfield storm...
so the cold front racing and catching up to the tornado weakend it? like if that didnt happen would greenfield had more damage than it did from the tornado?
I suspect the dissipation process was already underway, as the RFD had completely cut off the vortex from the inflow, but the cold front likely had dual effects: pushing the tornado off to the east and then eventually undercutting it.
This event verified arguably more violent than the 5-6 High Risk. On a side note in Ohio I had a storm the next evening near/just after sunset with literally like five lightning flashes *per second*. It was absolutely crazy to watch from the sunroom of the new house! A few severe wind or hail reports, no tornadoes thankfully (unlike a lot of Ohio storms of 2024 both before and after this one). Hoping to still get 5-25 & 5-26, I think it was the last event of the spring to carry a 15% tornado area (and they'd been debating higher on 5-25). Also wondering if 2-27 to 2-28 will come up as Chicago had several tornadoes and then Ohio saw tornadoes start touching down from a separate convective system at like 5AM in the morning - a really unusual late (or early in the morning) time for storms to intensify to produce tornadoes, even by the standards of nocturnal tornado events (even in most nocturnal tornado events storms will begin producing tornadoes before midnight!).
I love watching those storms with constant lightning! Not to worry; May 25-26 is coming! Going to tackle May 23 (SW OK) first and then move on to May 25-26. As for Feb 27-28, probably not; I have some other projects on the table before next season begins, so I was a bit selective with the 2024 events I chose.
I was there between the Greenfield and Carbon tornadoes, I 💩 my pants when I realized the situation I was in and in how large violent they both were. Obviously I had my escape routes. Still, couldnt believe I was part of history.
This was a very interesting event for me because I watch it live on Ryan Hall RUclips channel as the event occurred. But anyways love the breakdown on this event and I hope you keep making more of them.😊
Sorry for the audio issue from 16:20-16:41. Here's what I'm supposed to be saying during that time:
To start the day at 12z, we see a profile comprised of modest instability and steep lapse rates elevated atop fairly limited low-level thermodynamics. Low-level shear was already strong, with ample hodograph curvature and effective storm-relative helicity nearing 250 m2/s2, in part due to easterly surface winds near or perhaps just north of the synoptic warm front.
That's plenty of helicity!
I was wondering what happened there lol 😂 it's ok I make audio and editing mistakes so often 😂
It was working when I went through the video one last time; that particular audio file must’ve gotten corrupted during rendering
This is genuinely one of the scariest days I've tracked in a while. The storm motions were insane, the live reports coming in from DOW of a violent tornado, and then seeing that debris ball come into Greenfield. Really glad you're breaking it down.
Definitely a day we used even more caution than normal given the unique evolution, storm mode, and storm speeds. It was really interesting going back and dissecting just what happened; easily one of the more unique events I've seen.
Tornadotrx when is the next vid
Fantastic breakdown of what happened.
This was one of the strangest and scariest events I've ever chased. The evolution of this event continued to defy my expectations at every opportunity, that right turn after Carbon began its occlusion process was particularly confusing after I intentionally positioned ahead of Carbon's path expecting it to make a turn towards the north in front of me as I saw the RFD wrapping completely around it (granting me a dramatic close range and backlit shot), when it started moving to the right of its original path directly at me and my intended escape route it made me try to reposition east ahead of it again, setting me on a collision course with Greenfield which I had no idea was in progress. Honored to have helped with this one.
Thanks for the kind words, Celton, and thank you so much for allowing me to use your footage for this video. It was a huge help. May 21 was easily one of the more unique yet dangerous evolutions I've ever seen; it was a great example of how intricate these high-end setups can be. My main concern that day was storm speeds, but it turned out that that was only a small part of the equation with all the meso- and storm-scale stuff at work. Very glad you were able to make it out unscathed.
@@ConvectiveChronicles anytime man, always happy to help. I had no idea what I was getting myself into trying to get away from Carbon, just shear luck and about 30 seconds of margin saved my life that day.
Oh this week has been solid with content tornado related this week. Pecos Hank 2024 tornadoes and this one. What a great week! 🎉
I knew this event was complicated but didn’t know that the processes in the mesoscale were this precise and intricate, absolutely incredible.
As always, a true all timer video Trey
Thank you so much!
Sorry, I am a little bit later on this one! I remember the very "Messy" mode that I described in my stream tracking this for 8 hours! I thought the messy mode was going to kill this threat, but obviously, I was dead wrong! Awesome video once again, Trey!
Amazing how shortwave troughs produce some of the most violent severe weather days but even more fascinating that a tornado became violent, but not the usual way!! And that is why studying the weather is so darn fun!
Amen to that!
Hey Trey. There's likely a bunch more vids you'll want to make for other 2024 events, but I do hope at some point it might be possible for you to do a case study on the May 31, 1985 US / Canada outbreak. That particular event has always fascinated me deeply, and I recall a comment you made awhile back (can't remember where) where you showed interest in making a video on that event. I hope that's still true.
In the meantime, thank you so much for the videos you make! Keep up the awesome work!
Thank you! That event is still definitely on my list!
@@ConvectiveChronicles I so remember that day. It had a huge impact on Southern/Central Ontario. My late father was a truck driver, and was driving a tractor-trailer north of Toronto and would always talk about how dark the sky was.
Great analysis as always Trey! This was one of the days I didn't track as closely, but looking back at it now, the evolution of a lot of things that happened this day was really unique. I did not know (or at least remember) about the evolution of the Greenfield tornado fully, which watching about it now, is really intriguing to me. I had no idea it had come from a non-mesocyclone tornadogenesis and eventually becoming mesocyclonic and intensifying to this violent tornado. Really crazy day indeed.
Thank you, Peter! Absolutely; this was one of the more unique violent tornado evolutions I've seen in quite awhile.
I will forever regret passing on this day after giving up early on 5/19 and then 5/20 just being pretty crappy. Way to melt my brain again Trey! Great breakdown like always!
Thank you! Dang, that sucks...honestly, I wasn't all that enthused leading up to May 21 from a forecast perspective, so I definitely saw the merits for not chasing it. Storm speeds and storm mode looked to be quite unfavorable; I thought we'd get a brief window for discrete before things went upscale quickly...I had no idea that *this* was going to unfold.
Merry Christmas!!☃️❄️🤗
Thank you; Merry Christmas to you, too!
The fact that we got to watch this video for free is absolutly amazing
Super interesting stuff here. Complex scenario broken down extremely well. Great video as always
Much appreciated; thank you!
This was definitely the craziest and one of the most bizarre tornadoes that happened since I’ve been tracking severe weather. Although I tracked the last minute of it, hearing what happened from the entire outbreak was insane. Amazing video!
Thank you! I agree; this event was definitely bizarre!
Great video Trey!
Thank you!
Great video like always!
Thank you!
That little subtle cell I actually seen when covering the event but i had no idea that was Greenfield! It just seemed like mergermania to me, and it was truly a nonstop tornado spitter out of that line. What a wild day!
Thanks for the analysis, Trey!
Phew, this day...unlike 3/31/23 and 4/26/24, for some reason I found targeting for this day to be a real puzzler and it was reflected in how (poorly) my chase played out, despite it likewise being a relatively classic surface/upper-air pattern for a severe weather outbreak and associated high-end parameter space.
I initially went to Iowa Falls...a lot of CAM solutions showed messy modes in southwest Iowa, which actually verified pretty well (radar image at 14:06 for example, seeing that you wouldn't really expect significant tornadoes from that, especially not ones that could actually be seen). That and given the fast motions and challenging terrain/road network in that part of Iowa (which I had already tangled with less than a month before), I didn't want to go there if I could help it (plus, the US 20 corridor has some of the best chase terrain in Iowa, it's not completely uniform but some areas are nearly as open and flat as western Kansas). Some HRRR runs showed a discrete cell moving up into that general area later in the afternoon, which might have verified in the form of the Alleman-Nevada-Zearing EF2, but when I saw that radar imagery I didn't expect what appeared to already be a solid QLCS to evolve back into more discrete supercells (despite being aware that it can happen from time to time, but I think of it as being more of a late-night LLJ-associated thing, like the Evansville, IN F3 of November 2005).
Thereafter, my chase turned into a panicked dive south along I-35 and US 65 to clear that solid band of (at the time) fully embedded tornadic supercells to the south before they ran me over. I emerged onto US-34 west of Chariton, and it was at about this time my phone buzzed for a WEA since I was just inside the corner of the polygon for a newly issued tornado warning on an isolated cell coming out of Missouri, near Lineville/Corydon. I finally had a storm to target rather than try to stay the heck out of its way, but it was now a race to get east on 34 before the forward-flank core crossed the highway, and get a view of the updraft base. I was able to do this just southwest of Albia, but the storm couldn't produce (I wonder if that weakness in the low-level shear you mentioned was the reason for this?). I was able to follow it as far as Eddyville thanks to Highway 137 which roughly paralleled the storm's motion out of Albia. Even this turned into another white-knuckle drive, 60 MPH in near- blinding rain and wind gusts from the RFD throwing bursts of small tree debris (leaves and twigs) onto the road in front of me, until I broke out ahead of it again just before Eddyville. I lost it there and anyway it soon began to weaken and lost its tornado warning. The cells generally seemed to struggle in east-central and northeastern Iowa, despite SPC's issuance of a rather ominous mesoscale discussion (No. 879) stating that they fully expected the significant tornado threat to continue in this area.
As I got close to home, I began to encounter numerous roads blocked by down trees and power lines due to the storms shown firing near the Madison area at 19:28. I had to detour several additional miles and nearly ran out of gas due to this, as I hadn't filled up since Bondurant, IA (northeast of Des Moines) during my plunge south ahead of the band of tornadic cells flying out of SW IA.
Thanks for sharing your account of that day. It was definitely one of the more difficult chases I've been on in quite some time, both from a forecasting and execution perspective. I had the extra variable of guiding a tour, so I had to take safety even more seriously than if I was chasing solo. Honestly, I didn't think we'd get a very long-duration window for discrete storms; perhaps an hour or so at most before things congealed into an unchaseable line. Those progged storm speeds had me a little concerned, as well; we missed the initial Red Oak tornado because I had positioned us way downstream to give us a cushion as the storms were getting their act together. We were just north of the Villisca-Carbon tornado as it developed, but I didn't want to chance dropping in front of it as fast as it was moving, so we had to let it cross in front of us, at which point catching up to it was futile. Thankfully, the Greenfield tornado developed off to our east, so we blasted down Highway 34 toward it, getting a decent view of its initial stages (as you see from the snippets of my footage in the video) but again, it was just moving too quickly for us to catch up. We had some extenuating circumstances that forced us to end the chase early, but I had my eye on those storms coming out of Missouri, as I thought they would also likely pose a significant tornado risk. I, too, wonder if the slightly weaker low-level shear with southern extent was a factor in them being somewhat lackluster.
As someone fairly new to severe weather I find you’re videos very informative and helpful. Great video thanks 👍
Happy to hear that! Thank you!
Excellent overview and analysis of another case study, Trey. I love the work you do, and I tell many of my colleagues about your channel. It's very interesting how complex this setup was. I was in a virtual meeting via the AMS back in July, and Josh Wurman and Karen Kobasic were discussing the unique aspects of the Greenfield tornado. This unique landspout -> tornado will be studied for years. I was recently thinking of doing this as a WRF case study, but decided against it for the time being because of it's uniqueness and that I'm currently doing work on the Didsbury. Alberta EF-4 tornado and the Palm Sunday April 11, 1965 outbreak on the "TO DO" pile right now.
Thank you so much, Brian! This is certainly one of the more unique cases I've seen in quite some time. Looking forward to what you come up with for Didsbury and Palm Sunday '65!
I feel like 3CAPE is often a major reason behind a day over/underperforming. Great video as always!
I'm in Omaha and am still mad that my company made us come to work that day.
I can see why they did; the activity was progged to quickly move off to your east, at which point the threat would end for the Omaha area. But as volatile as the environment was, not making you come into work wouldn't have been the worst idea.
@@ConvectiveChronicles I consider it egregious mostly because we have full work from home capabilities. We do it 3/5 days of the working week. The people that make those decisions reside in CT and PA, so they don't really have any experience with this type of convective storm mode, which I think translates to significantly more risk for those that work here than is necessary. That said, thank you for your service to the community. I often find myself watching these videos on my second monitor while working at that very same office. There is no other equivalent, and your breakdowns are top notch.
@@Fat_Jag Oh wow; in that case, there's no excuse. Should've easily been a work-from-home day for you.
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Great analysis! Indeed that was such an odd evolution for such strong tornadoes.
Thank you, sir!
Awesome breakdown on May 21st, 2024! For a second I thought I was going to get a wind storm/derecho that day but things escalated very quickly on that day when the tail end of the line to the south was more supercellular. Wasn't expecting to get twin tornadoes nor get a tornado that has the highest windspeeds ever recorded from DOW6.
Great video! Greenfield was such a unique tornado!
Thank you!
Loved this! Nice job pal!! Now I better see that May 25 vid soon lol😁😁.
11:40 - You Gattabekiddingme with this: I find it so terrifying that this tornado formed this way and in such an unanticipated location. I'm not sure if you have read my paper yet, but I featured this case in it while discussing various ways tornadoes can form and why some can be separate from the meso. I found it was comparable to a tornado born from helicity along a boundary with forcing and vertical stretching; perhaps due to the cold front acting like an outflow boundary on steroids, with robust forcing, leading to strong lifting, leading to stretching of vorticity, and therefore a sigtor, which is why I found it useful in my research on the Anthony tornado. Another example I think this happed in is the May 28, 2019 Lone Star, KS EF2 that preceded the Lawrence/Bonner Springs EF4 that I always talk about. It formed from either a segment of stretched vorticity, or a smaller meso south of the main meso that formed after it, which is why it caught chasers off guard that day.
That is 2 sigtors that developed disassociated from the main supercell's meso within the same week this May. Its a blessing we didn't loose any chasers to them.
Thanks for your hard work and happy holidays!
Thank you, Mikey! Happy holidays to you, as well! The May 25 video is coming soon; May 23 first and then that one. I’m looking forward to tackling the May 25 case
I’m working through your paper as we speak, and this case is definitely in the same category as the others you mention. These types of torgen cases fascinate me the most, as they can lead to some really unique but also dangerous evolutions for those around the storm.
@@ConvectiveChronicles Thank you! And that is great to hear. May 23 unfortunately took My teacher's friends' house near Altus, crazy event also. In addition to 2019 with my Dad's route near Linwood and stuff, 24 has been the year of tornadoes trying to penetrate my personal circle, but failing. So many friends' family and other teachers lost houses and old houses in the Elkhorn EF4, and my Aunt's boyfriend's old house was destroyed in the Choctaw EF3 last month. Sucks cause it was a cool house I remember visiting.
Anyway, great job again. I also see some patterns with the pattern you speak of at 15:06 with the new tornado forming from the same mechanism. It seems that the EF4 was more intense due to forming closer to the supercells inflow notch, being acted on by it (14:28), and having backed inflow to work with, while that EF1 near corning was not influenced by the main supercell's backing winds, evidenced by it not taking a north turn
I was tracking those tornadoes on May 21 at home, and I was shocked when Greenfield was hit, by the damage that occurred, those who lost their and how the town had been changed, perhaps forever. Greenfield has a special place in my heart because of one of my favourite movies growing up was filmed there - Cold Turkey. Watching the movie recently and listening to the song, "He Gives Us All His Love" by Randy Newman as an older dog meanders into the town at the beginning of the film, added more emotion than when I last watched it a few years back.
Thank you thank you trey!
Wake Up Everyone Trey Dropped A New Video, This Is Going To Be Great 😃👍
Yes now i kinda understand that weird stuff happens with high CAPE.
Do you know of a tornado that formed in a similar fashion?
The Jarrell, TX F5 from 1997 comes to mind as a similar case in which intense vorticity stretching along a boundary was the main contributing factor in tornadogenesis, maintenance, and intensification. Also the Plainfield, IL F5 from 1990.
I was watching Ryan Halls stream when the Greenfield tornado hit and I knew how serious that day was. We have nowhere safe to hunker down in our townhome so as soon as our area was in a tornado warning we raced to the next town over to use their storm shelter. The EF2 missed us by a mile but we didn’t know on the drive home what we’d come back to. It was an intense day for sure.
Glad you made it out ok!
Such an interesting event! Thanks for the breakdowns, they're always something cool to let my brain chew on 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Just fyi at 16:20 the audio cuts out for about 20 seconds
Thanks for the heads up; must've been a corrupted audio file. See the pinned comment for what I'm supposed to be saying during that time.
I'm taking thermodynamics next semester, hopefully watching your videos for around a year will help me with it lol
16:18 the vorticity stretching was too much for the audio to handle
Dang it, must've been a corrupted audio file. See the pinned comment for what I'm supposed to be saying during that time.
Sorry if i dont remember and youve done this already but could you make a video on how to tell if you're at risk of having landspouts ? And i was wondering if north texas near dfw ever gets landspouts? And are they dangerous like regular tornadoes? Great video as always Trey!
Thank you! I have done a landspout forecasting video; this should give you the ingredients needed for landspouts: ruclips.net/video/vdJQNgjc2zc/видео.html
North Texas/DFW does get some landspouts, although not super frequently. Landspouts can be as dangerous as supercellular tornadoes; I believe the strongest landspouts have reached EF3 intensity.
To me, a person who sucks at math and visualizing math, it still feels like there are a few aspects that this event had in common with both Jarrell & Joplin. And a tornado which begins as a landspout yet morphs into a violent tornado? That's WILD. I just also wish there was less radar holes.
Have you done the May 25th 2024 valley view TX tornado?
Doing May 23 (SW OK) first and then May 25-26
Excellent presentation! I couldn't believe you said Nevada correctly! I had to run it back and listen again! 😂 ( When i originally moved to Ames, it took me a looong time to get used to hearing and saying it like that. )
Anyway, the vort-stretching landspout reminded me of Jarrell. Being consumed into a meso and intensifying, however, does not. Very interesting!
Thanks for this great analysis, Trey! Wish I could've been chasing that day. Epic!
Thank you so much! Haha I had to look Nevada, IA up to confirm! I know there’s a Nevada, MO pronounced that way, so I figured it was the same, but I had to make sure.
As I was working on this video, Jarrell popped into my mind, as well. Big CAPE, especially big low-level CAPE, can do some nasty things when boundaries are in play.
@ConvectiveChronicles Hmm! Didn't know that about Nevada MO. Thanx!!🫡
Could the approaching cold front have anything to do with the increased tornadic intensity of greenfield and carbon? Similar to the approaching MCs during barnsdale this year. Great review as always trey and Dam what a first few tornados to see!
Thank you! I don't think so but I can't be 100% sure. The difference with Barnsdall was that it was a full-fledged QLCS that was approached from the west, rather than just a frontal boundary. From my discussions with Cameron Nixon, an approaching QLCS emits a density current (think of it like a gravity wave) that acts as outflow to balance the strong environmental storm-relative inflow. I'm not sure the cold frontal boundary itself can provide that extra "oomph."
One aspect of the Greenfield event that I don’t understand and that you didn’t cover here was the semi-permanent subvortices which seemed to be regularly spaced around the margin, each with its own condensation funnel (Reed Timmers video from when it shredded the windfarm shows this well). I am used to multiple vortices being more ephemeral dancing in and out of view like in the Jerrel Tx or Xenia OH events. Have you ever seen permanent quasi-organized subvortices before? Do you have any guess why they formed here? The high low level CAPE? Form it having started as a non-mesocyclonic rotation? Something else?
Honestly, I don't have a great answer to that question. I can't really remember a subvortex case like this off the top of my head. I'm not as well-versed in vortex dynamics, so I'm unsure if the cause would be environmental or due to vortex dynamics.
i can also see on 22:49 it weakend when it hit GF
meaning it could’ve been stronger
It actually wasn’t weakening, only shrinking in size. Other DOW data shows it was still extremely intense as it went through greenfield
Hello good afternoon, I have been following your channel for a while and you have already made some videos studying some tornado cases such as Parkersburg, EL Reno 2011 and 2013 and some others, could you make a specific video of the Smithville tornado 2011?
I already did the 2011 outbreak case study video, but I didn't really dive into any one tornado in depth. I can add it to the list.
@ConvectiveChronicles Well this video of the 2011 super outbreak is very interesting, I've watched it more than 5 times and it was an excellent video
@@maxterff6873 Thank you!
This is the beginning of our tornado season in Louisiana. Very scary time of the year here and it can last until July.
Definitely the time of year to be vigilant out there
I storm chased this day after work but ended it near Tabor, IA because T-Mobile data is awful in SW IA. I wish I had continued but I got to see the wall clouds that would eventually become the Greenfield storm...
so the cold front racing and catching up to the tornado weakend it? like if that didnt happen would greenfield had more damage than it did from the tornado?
I suspect the dissipation process was already underway, as the RFD had completely cut off the vortex from the inflow, but the cold front likely had dual effects: pushing the tornado off to the east and then eventually undercutting it.
This event verified arguably more violent than the 5-6 High Risk. On a side note in Ohio I had a storm the next evening near/just after sunset with literally like five lightning flashes *per second*. It was absolutely crazy to watch from the sunroom of the new house! A few severe wind or hail reports, no tornadoes thankfully (unlike a lot of Ohio storms of 2024 both before and after this one).
Hoping to still get 5-25 & 5-26, I think it was the last event of the spring to carry a 15% tornado area (and they'd been debating higher on 5-25). Also wondering if 2-27 to 2-28 will come up as Chicago had several tornadoes and then Ohio saw tornadoes start touching down from a separate convective system at like 5AM in the morning - a really unusual late (or early in the morning) time for storms to intensify to produce tornadoes, even by the standards of nocturnal tornado events (even in most nocturnal tornado events storms will begin producing tornadoes before midnight!).
I love watching those storms with constant lightning!
Not to worry; May 25-26 is coming! Going to tackle May 23 (SW OK) first and then move on to May 25-26. As for Feb 27-28, probably not; I have some other projects on the table before next season begins, so I was a bit selective with the 2024 events I chose.
Oh ive been wating for this 😄
Seeing those wind turbines get blown over was unreal
This was my first storm chase I was ever on! From the Harlan area, so this was a little too close to home!
Oh wow, both April 26 and May 21 were a little too close to home for you. Hopefully, you were unscathed on April 26!
I was there between the Greenfield and Carbon tornadoes, I 💩 my pants when I realized the situation I was in and in how large violent they both were. Obviously I had my escape routes. Still, couldnt believe I was part of history.
I remember that I was in the bathroom crying and shaking 😭
This was a very interesting event for me because I watch it live on Ryan Hall RUclips channel as the event occurred. But anyways love the breakdown on this event and I hope you keep making more of them.😊
Thank you! Lots more on the way!
lost sound @16.22 and then it came back @16.42
Maybe on purpose?
Thanks for the heads up; must've been a corrupted audio file. See the pinned comment for what I'm supposed to be saying during that time.
No, must've been a corrupted audio file
At least I stayed up late for a good reason
Ah, so it did the Jarrell hybrid-tornado thing.
Cook
My birthdaynado is so cool. God's strongest landspout.
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