Tornadoes, Warehouses, and Factories - Can these businesses do better to keep workers safe?
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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2y ago
  (This is an essay/opinion piece my wife Shawna wanted to share here on my blog after last Friday's catastrophic tornado event in Kentucky, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri. - Jon Davies) I was heart-broken and crushed watching  the devastating tornado outbreak unfold last Friday night (December 10-11) in the central Mississippi River Valley area .  It was the most catastrophic U.S. tornado episode since the 2011 Joplin tornado and the 2011 Dixie Super Outbreak, and the deadliest tornado outbreak ever recorded in the U.S. during  the month of Dec ..read more
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Cold-core tornado chase in northwest Missouri on October 24, 2021
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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2y ago
The past few months have been been a difficult period for my wife Shawna and me.  Her mother died, a friend died, our loving cat Sadie died, and there have been both health and family issues going on.  That's why I haven't posted in a while, and with  some other changes for us in progress over the coming months (such as readying our house for sale and deciding where to move), blog posts here may become few and far between. However, we both were able to do a rare October storm chase last Sunday (October 24, 2021) close to home north of Kansas City (see image above ..read more
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EF3 tornado in Chicago suburbs on June 20, 2021: NOT a QLCS tornado
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
Sunday night's tornado after dark (photo above) that struck the western Chicago suburbs of Naperville, Woodridge, and Darien in Illinois (IL) shortly after 11:00 pm CDT injured 11 people.  Fortunately, no one was killed, with good watches and warnings in advance.  The tornado was EF3 in intensity, and left a damage path of around 16 miles in length. I noticed on social media early on that several people called this a "QLCS tornado" (QLCS stands for 'quasi-linear-convective-system'), a type of non-supercell tornado that can occur within bowing squall lines.  It is true that the ..read more
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Comparing settings for non-tornadic and tornadic supercells in central Kansas: The May 8, 2021 HP supercell versus the Tescott tornadic cell on May 1, 2018.
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
Last Saturday's HP supercell at early evening west of Salina (see Shawna's dynamic photo above) was our first chase in nearly a year, as Kansas (KS) has been rather quiet concerning severe weather recently.  The setting did have some similarities to the May 1, 2018 tornadic supercell set up northwest of Salina three years ago in that storms formed in west-central KS at the north edge of a "cap" (warm layer of air aloft near 10000 ft MSL), and in each case at least one storm moving east-northeast became an evening supercell near Ellsworth, KS.   Saturday's supercell ..read more
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March 25, 2021 deadly tornado outbreak in Alabama and Georgia
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
One week ago today, a deadly tornado outbreak in Alabama (AL) and Georgia (GA) caused 6 deaths and a number of injuries, making it the deadliest tornado episode of 2021 so far. Similar to March 17, 2021 (see toward the end of my post here), the outbreak was well-forecast and well-warned, and as a result many lives were likely saved, even considering the deaths that did occur.  As a result, some people on Twitter have mentioned the famous April 27, 2011 tornado "super outbreak" ten years ago, when over 200 tornadoes occurred on one day in the Dixie states and more than 300 people were kil ..read more
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Active March severe weather pattern continues across the central and southern U.S.!
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
After last week's St. Patrick's Day outbreak in the South on March 17 (more about that farther down), yesterday saw yet another cold-core type setting with tornadoes in west-central Illinois (photo above) and southeast Iowa, on top of last week's cold-core activity (see my last blog post here). Tomorrow (March 25, 2021) will likely see another tornado outbreak in the southern Mississippi River Valley into parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky.  This will probably be similar in scope to the March 17 outbreak with several large long-track tornadoes, so people living in tho ..read more
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March 13, 14, and 15 bring big tornadoes and cold-core action to the Plains
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
  Friday, March 12 through Monday, March 15, 2021 saw tornado activity really ramp up in the Central Plains.  There were no deaths or injuries reported, as the biggest day (Saturday, March 13) was well-forecast and warned. Over 10 tornadoes occured on March 13 in the central and southern Texas (TX) panhandle, including the twin large tornadoes pictured above from the same supercell near the town of Happy, along with a storm-relative velocity image at roughly the same time showing the two mesocyclones side by side.  The tornado and mesocyclone labeled "1" above gener ..read more
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A difficult tornado to forecast - 2021's 2nd deadly tornado on February 15 kills 3 people in North Carolina
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
Last Monday's EF3 tornado near the coast of southeast North Carolina (north of Sunset Beach NC) killed 3 and injured 10.  Because it occurred at night (between 11:30 pm and midnight EST), there were no photos of the tornado, but a storm chaser managed an image of the tornadic supercell (top photo above) off the coast east of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (SC) around 30 minutes before it struck on land just north of the NC-SC border.   The 2nd photo above shows some of the impressive damage (see this page on the tornado from NWS Wilmington NC). There was no tornado watch in NC ..read more
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First strong tornado of 2021 kills 1 and injures 30 near Birmingham, Alabama on January 25th
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
It's been awhile since I've done a write up about a weather event.  Frankly, there has been so much going on in our nation that it's been very hard to focus on weather.    The first tornado death of 2021 occurred this week on Monday, January 25 in Alabama (AL) where an EF3 tornado struck Fultondale, a northern suburb of Birmingham, around 10:43 pm CST (0443 UTC 1/26/21).  There were also 30 injuries.  The first image from video below shows one of the huge power flashes in northern Birmingham as the tornado moved through, and the second image shows some of the damage ..read more
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Robert (Bob) Johns - dynamic SPC forecaster and researcher - passes away at 78.
Jon Davies Severe Weather Notes
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3y ago
  This blog post is about Bob Johns, long-time Storm Prediction Center severe weather forecaster/researcher, who passed away at age 78 this past week after a long illness. He was such an incredible influence in my life.   In the late 1980's, I had worked in television and consulting firms for several years without finding much stability or direction in my weather career.  I had moved back to my home area to help take care of my ailing mom and assist my dad with his expanding home medical business in rural Kansas.  I thought my career in weather was over.  Howe ..read more
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