EF-5

[phantom power]

This tornado season is shaping up to be a record-breaker, although the final verdict won't be in for another month.

The huge, 1.4 mile-wide tornado that devastated Greensburg, KS on Friday night, May 4, was an EF-5 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. A preliminary damage survey by the National Weather Service found that the storm likely had 205 mph winds, putting it just above the 200 mph wind threshold for an EF5 rating. This is the first tornado ever rated as an EF5 using the new scale, adopted in February of 2007, and the first tornado to receive a "5" rating since the May 3, 1999 Moore-Bridge Creek tornado that devastated the southern suburbs of Oklahoma City. Note that the Greensburg tornado may have only been rated an F4 on the old Fujita scale, but the distinction is probably irrelevant, since the twister basically destroyed everything in its path.

The severe storm action finally quieted down yesterday in Kansas and the Plains; only 11 reports of tornadoes were received, compared to 93 on Saturday and 33 on Friday. The severe weather action should stay at a slow simmer through Wednesday over the Plains; the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has portions of the region under its "Slight Risk" area for severe weather through Wednesday. Flooding is a major concern now; most of eastern Kansas, plus large portions of Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota are under flood warnings. More heavy thunderstorm rains during the week are expected to add to the problem.

We've saved some extraordinary 1 Mb animations of the radar reflectivity and Doppler velocities of the tornado. I asked wunderground meteorologist and tornado expert Rob Carver to comment on what's going on in the animations, and here was his analysis:

This was likely an example of cyclic mesocyclogenesis. In a nutshell, the rear-flank downdraft surges out, wraps around and occludes the mesocyclone (Meso A for short). Meso A then veers to the left and dies, this is why tornado family members curve to the left as they dissipate. While Meso A is dying, a new meso spins up and becomes the dominant meso. Now, while I've seen plenty of simulated cyclic cases where the hook retreats when Meso A occludes, I don't think I've seen anything as dramatic.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=666&tstamp=200705