BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,Jayto
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 12:42 PM

We had a week of bad storms here in Kentucky. I am not far from the Tennessee border and they had some real bad ones as well. We luckily didn't have a tornado that caused massive damage even though we had a few. Our main problem was flooding. I have a bunch of family in Alabama and I am thankful none of them suffered any injury or damage. The weather this year has been horrible. Now they are expected flood levels on the Ohio, Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee (the 4 major rivers around where I live) to reach flood levels at the highest since the 1920's. That is scary because the 1937 flood was the worst we have ever had around hear according to all the older people around here I have talked to. At least that was the one that hit my area the hardest. I hope all the people recover safe and sound. I have some really good pics of funnel clouds and flooding here. It was a rough week to put it mildly.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: SINSULL
Date: 01 May 11 - 11:37 AM

Hundreds have lost their lives; hundreds are still missing; thousands are homeless. Could we just once concentrate on the situation? Could you, who have to prolong your petty quarrels, take it to another thread? Or even another website?
The President has declared Alabama a Disaster Area and promised funding. The sooner the better. I hope FEMA is able to provide temporary housing trailors that don't make people ill. But I wonder how safe any of these people could feel in a trailor when Mother Nature took solid homes away in an instant.
Frightening. I have seen nor'easters that seemed hell bent on carrying me and mine away. I have lived thru the eye of a major hurricane. I have even seen a tornado (more funnel cloud, I am told)touch down outside my window, bounce and destroy the street across from my home. I saw first hand the disaster in Miami just after the hurricane that took away Plantation, Florida. But I have never seen damage like that inflicted this week in Alabama and Mississippi.
Lives turned upside down. It is hard to imagine lives and homes gone in an instant.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 01 May 11 - 12:09 PM

Fool's Toupee: "...Masturbating for Jesus again..."???????

....and then, YOU are one of the first to scream, "Bigot!"..when some person comments in a way that disagrees with your infantile, intolerant points of stupidity!!!

I don't think I've ever said, on here that I 'believed' or 'disbelieved' in Jesus..other than I agreed with certain things He said.
I guess you tend to make your religion from the wise sayings of Al Gore!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,Jayto
Date: 01 May 11 - 04:22 PM

They are preparing to blow a levee on the Mississippi River right across from Wickliffe Kentucky. I am going to go down to Paducah KY in a little while and help sandbag. I read where Cairo Illinois (not far from here) has already had to evacuate over half of it's population of 2800 people. They are expecting evacuees to number in the 10's of thousands very soon. Shawneeville Illinois is experiencing breeches in their levee on the Mississippi river and are trying to contain it before it becomes a full flege structural failure. It started raining here again last night and hasn't let up. Things are getting really bad around here and not looking like it is going to let up. I went to Bowling Green KY last night to a ballet and on the way home it was a constant downpour. Water along the Green River in Muhlenberg county is out of the banks and in all the fields for miles around. As I said before the weather this year is BAD.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 May 11 - 02:33 AM

"I guess you tend to make your religion from the wise sayings of Al Gore!"

Sorry idiot - I'm not a Yank! :-) We've got our OWN idiots here ...

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: gnu
Date: 23 May 11 - 01:05 PM

Horrile twister... 89 dead in and near Joplin, Mo.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: gnu
Date: 23 May 11 - 01:07 PM

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/missouri-officials-least-89-died-tornado-tore-city-105859036.html

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: Bill D
Date: 23 May 11 - 04:56 PM

Joplin was where my mother grew up and went to business college many years ago. I have been there, though not recently. Terrible tragedy, and I'm glad Mom didn't have to hear about it.

From what I remember, having lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas as a child, the severity and frequency of tornadoes has increased in recent years. Perhaps it's just that reporting is more immediate, but I think global weather patterns are more...umm... chaotic these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: Bill D
Date: 23 May 11 - 10:13 PM

Weather reporters all day have been saying that there IS an unusually number of serious storms right now.
Whether it represents a trend will require more study of data.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 24 May 11 - 01:30 AM

Saturday night (day before yesterday) we heard the tornado sirens blowing, and our NOAA weather radio sounded the alarm. A tornado had been spotted (either didn't touch down or just came down in empty fields) about 30 miles away.

We looked at the weather map online. There was a huge air mass containing storms, and the map showed an arc extending from Michigan to Wyoming. Inside it and to the south was a straighter line of storms. It was that line that produced the tornado in Joplin.

The latest figure I've seen says that 30% of Joplin is destroyed.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 24 May 11 - 01:45 AM

No, wait the tornado didn't come until later - forget what I said about the straight line of storms.

I read in gnu's article that people in Joplin didn't hear the warning sirens because the storm was so loud.

I strongly recommend buying that special NOAA radio. I'm glad I have one.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: banjoman
Date: 24 May 11 - 05:38 AM

Pictures broadcast here (UK) were frightening. We have friends in Missouri (Troy & St Louis) and hope & pray for the well being of all those affected. Hopefully your government will be quick to act to help.
good luck

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 May 11 - 07:40 PM

An incident a couple of days ago (Tuesday 24 May 2011) was captured on video, and although it's not as visible as it might be, it may give a good impression of what constitutes a tornado. This was a "little" (EF2?) twister according to reports, and the newscast omits the usual "blame the driver for 'attacking' the twister," but in order to stick with the usual reporting syle when a semi is involved, I'll call it:

Semi Truck Attacks Tornado.

Don't bother placing your bets before you watch the flick.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: Donuel
Date: 28 May 11 - 01:28 AM

541 US tornados last year

So far the number of tornados in the US for 2011 is 935

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 May 11 - 02:48 AM

At Ask.com they have different figures from those...


US total 2010 tornadoes

Confirmed
Total 1266

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,coyote breath guest
Date: 28 May 11 - 12:08 PM

Joplin's death toll up to 130 with as many still unaccounted for. Quite a few "first responder" units from here in East Central Missouri (St. Louis area) have been sent to Joplin. Not for rescue but recovery. Its been a violent spring and a much longer than typical winter.

My understanding is climate change causes radical weather patterns. Climate changes occuring at the polar ice caps are indicated in part by rising temperatures. 20 below zero instead of 50. The "warmer" air has pushed the jet stream further South mixing it's colder air with the more humid air mass from the South and West (an el nino effect I think). We have a cooler than usual summer forecast and expect next winter to be colder and possibly with more precipitation (snow, sleet) than is typical. Joplin isn't going to be unique in the future.

CB

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 May 11 - 01:31 PM

In 1994 Texan Science Fiction writer, Bruce Sterling, published a novel called 'Heavy Weather'. It's set in the American mid-West in 2031. It's about a group of "Storm Troupers" (tornado chasers)in search of an F6 tornado.

The cover blurb on my British paperback edition reads: "It's 2031, and no one doubts any longer that the atmosphere's been wrecked ..."

It looks like the world of Sterling's novel has arrived 20 years early!

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 04:40 PM

Massachusetts got hammered? 4 dead? Gosh! We had some strong winds up here. Maeve reported baseball size hail in Maine. Largest twister I ever heard of here was about 35 years ago and it just tore up some woods about 35' wide... only reason I heard about it was my old man saw it while diggin worms up Kent County for fishing trout.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 05:00 PM

I have an acquaintance who is a structural engineer. Last weekend he was called to Joplin to assess buildings. He said that though in most cases he had to condemn buildings, that everybody he encountered was polite and friendly to him.

He also said that despite the ferocity of the tornado, it matters how well built a building is. I think America's homeowners need more detail on this kind of thing.

There was a picture of Joplin in the paper a couple of days ago. As far as the eye could see, there were no buildings or trees, only wreckage and ruined trunks. But there were two exceptions:

A very old-fashioned stone building stood intact. The roof was gone, but the walls were standing, and even the front door and window frames were in place. In the distance, a brick building looked good.

My friend the engineer said that it is virtually impossible to knock down a stone building.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 09:37 PM

Well, ya can build buildings that will withstand damn near everything that Mum Nature can throw at it, so far as we know, but it's all about the cost. Not every little pig can brick it.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 10:47 PM

True, gnu.

But there are other things. I remember reading about the tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma. A professor from a school in Texas studied the ruin in one subdivision and determined that the nails holding the frame to the foundation had been driven in only 1/2 inch.

There's no excuse for that kind of thing.

(Don't get mad at me if they don't use nails for that. Whatever the fastenings were, they went in only 1/2 inch.)

By the way, frame homes are better than brick in earthquake areas.

Question. If I had a garage built of concrete block, would it be a safer place to be in a tornado than a wood-frame home?

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 11:35 PM

One problem is that earthquake areas are becoming tornado areas and vice versa! I live in a hurricane area (Rhode Island) which was under the recent New England tornado watch, and there have been occasional (so far mild) earthquakes which are centered elsewhere but felt here! I live in a small "working class" condo but sometimes wish I could live in a home with different sections prepared for different natural natural disasters. Then I shrug my shoulders and think, "What will be, will be." However, if I was affected by a natural disaster, I am sure I would be in shock, possibly have a nervous breakdown, and be bitter.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: gnu
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 02:11 PM

leeneia... concrete block... only if the concrete block had some of the cores with rebar in them and were filled with concrete. And, of course, if you have a basement in the house, that's the best place to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 03:47 PM

Here in Maine we have two small twisters confirmed. We're just not used to thinking of ourselves as Midwesterners.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Jun 11 - 03:02 AM

The tornado season is really just beginning in Kansas, and "unusual" weather is predicted; but as yet we don't know much about what's going to happen. In my immediate area, we've had alternating above normal and below normal "swings" in temperature (100F - 38C) today was a new record high for the date, but we had low 60s for daily highs within the past week. It's been dryer here than usual, but we're fortunate to have had some recent rain.

Western Kansas has seen damaging "severe winds" and areas nearby (70 miles) north of us have had similar winds (>70 mph - 110 kph) with hail, both areas sporadically for the last couple of weeks.

Tornados, as we've noted, have already hit in several places where they're normally fairly rare.

Texas, western Oklahoma, and western Kansas continue to be in an unusually long drought period that's becoming critical for food crops and livestock.

Currently, Arizona and New Mexico are fighting wildfires of unusual size. Two currently burning wildfires have entered the records as the fourth and fifth largest in Arizona history. (There's a map of recent fires at the bottom of the article at the link.)

Delay of the snow melt in the northwest US is the basis for predictions of substantial flooding "up there," and in downstream areas joining up to where the Mississippi flood is just beginning to recede.

Since the media emphasises the "big stories" to the exclusion of more local stuff, there's probably a lot more "locally deviant" stuff going on that isn't reported widely.

Seems like there ain't no "normal" anywhere these days.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: Penny S.
Date: 04 Jun 11 - 03:37 AM

With regard to earthquake resistant designs, I remember reading that the Peruvian style was stone with courses of timber. How would that do against tornadoes? Would cost a bit, I imagine.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Severe Tornado Outbreak, USA
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 04:17 AM

Requirements for earthquake resistance and for tornado resistance are a little bit different, although structures that resist one are often reasonably suited to resist the other.

Earthquake resistance requires a structure that is strongly held together, but "loosely fastened down" so that it will "go with the flow" of the ground without being pulled apart (probably the Peruvian concept) or well jointed but "flexible" enough so that it doesn't break if one end of the foundation goes a different direction than the other end (a fairly common Japanese/Chinese concept).

To resist a tornado, a structure has to resist being torn apart or lifted off the ground by the wind, but must also resist impact damage from all the CRAP that's flying around (often including cars and buses, or the neighbor's house etc).

Common wood frame construction isn't very resistant even to fairly moderate winds, but can be made reasonably resistant to "average" hurricanes or tornados simply by adding "hurricane clips" - small metal reinforcements - everywhere that nails would normally be all that holds the structure together.

A fairly frequently observed phenomenon with "clipped" construction finds the roof gone, and the walls still standing - but with all the vertical studs missing inside the outer walls because the tops of the studs were clipped to the rafters, but the bottoms of the studs weren't clipped down to the foundation.

Sometimes structures (especially homes) are found with expansive "brags" about "tornado resistant" construction where inspection will shown that the house is solidly built but isn't fastened to the foundation except with a half-dozen small bolts.

For tornados at around EF3 and larger, about the only truly safe construction is a deep hole in the ground, with steel I-Beams supporting a foot thick (or more) concrete slab for a roof. (You're out of the wind down in the hole, but a semi might land on the roof.)

Schools in my area have been constructing "safe rooms" using double-course cement blocks, steel reinforced, with poured concrete (with additional steel) between the two layers of blocks. Nobody knows for sure whether they'll actually stand up to a "big-un" - yet.

The web has many suggestions for how to build a tornado shelter, with the EPA sites among the more authoritative; but even the EPA recommendations leave it to the "shelter architect" to write all the equations necessary to predict meeting the "specs." (Neither a degree nor a license is "proof of competence" IMO, when it comes to specialized design of this kind, but it's about all you've got to go on.

A current argument in my area is over whether the proposed "biolab" (relocating from back east) will resist a big tornado. The architects say they're using (since someone pointed out the need) the same wind resistance criteria specified currently for nuclear reactors; but a design to that current spec probably would not have completely survived the recent Joplin wind - although damage would have been limited to "peripheral structures" - maybe.

John