Pictures of damage in Lawrence (microburst? tornado?) -lots of pictures

[Mabus]

Shortly after 8 a.m. this morning the wind started howling and then just grew. It sounded like a tornado to us. My husband ran out to roll up the car windows and says he saw the wind coming. It went as quickly as it came and the devastation around town is hit and miss. A couple of blocks over there was downed powerline, streets were closed off because of trees lying in the street and people were out walking around the neighborhood almost in shock at what it looked like around here. We've heard that there was a grass fire from a downed power line off of Clinton Parkway (west of Kasold).

Anyway, whatever it was, here are some pictures from around my neighborhood.


KU campus near Green Hall


KU campus at the top of Naismith Hill


Up the block from my aunt's house. (originally identified as closer to my house)



Near New York Elementary school


Near New York Elementary school


The street a block over. There was a downed power line at the end of the block.



My neighbor's house.


My neighbor's house.


The house across the street.

[Mabus]

1. More pictures on LJWorld website

Link to article: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/mar/12/stormy_sunday_morning_possible/?breaking

See sidebar for link to pictures.

[MuseRider]

2. Is your house OK?

It was something to watch from my house on the radar. We barely got any rain at my house, the farm was a different story but I told you about that on a different thread.

The radar looks pretty bad right now so be careful.

[Mabus]

3. Our house is fine

minimal damage. Our neighbors got hit pretty hard, as did the surrounding neighborhoods, but we're fine. Obviously we have electricity back. A girlfriend of mine called and she still doesn't have power. She's south of us near 23rd and Iowa. Her phone is working but no electricity.

[alfredo]

4. tornadoes are strange creatures. They can mow down everything in

their path, but then skip over a house and destroy the one next to it.

[Mabus]

5. Around here we know what tornados can do

but this one was different. Although born in Kansas, I was raised in Oklahoma, and we had some doozies while I was growing up. We had several tornados in my neighborhood when I was a kid but it was nothing like this. Usually tornados develop and can be tracked with radar. This wind (multiple microbursts) just came up with no other warning from the forecasters than thunderstorms with a probability of hail. I heard them say it. I woke up halfway through the weather report. Just after I sat up I heard the sound of the wind beginning to howl. The sound grew in intensity for the next two minutes (at most). I've heard a tornado before and it didn't sound like it. Tornados have a rhythm to them which has been described like the sound of a train. This was a steady sound that increased in intensity and within a couple of minutes it was calm. People who ran outside to see what happened immediately after the wind passed by all said they saw what almost looked like funnel clouds. Two people described it as a swirling or churning sky.

The thing that freaks me out is there was no warning that this was coming. Most tornadic cells develop over a period of time and we're all familiar with the "red hook" on the radar that indicates such a cell. There was none, nada, zilch. It just appeared. And with a number of local television stations talking about their new and improved, state-of-the-art radar systems lately you'd think one of them would have seen this coming. They told me they'd be able to with the new super-duper next generation nexrad+ radar they have. After the wind came through here and they found out what the damage was like there were all kinds of warnings for those in the northeasterly path but all they got were some sprinkles. :shrug:

I blame global warming.

[alfredo]

6. I remember seeing a weather map showing a huge super cell

in that area, It was nearly white from the lightning strike indicators. I couldn't tell if there was a hook are not.

In the bluegrass region of Ky we are on a large dome. It seems that much of the bad stuff goes to the north or south of us, but we do get our share. We've had several tornadoes here. I've been through several while delivering mail. I've had to jump out of my jeep and take cover in a ditch. only to find that afterwards my exit from the road was blocked by a barn in one direction, and a tree in another. I had to go through a pasture for about a quarter mile to get out.

We have a lot of oak trees here. They tend to be brittle, so any storm causes trouble here.

[Mabus]

7. On the doppler

the hook looks like this



When you see that hook develop you know there's a tornado.

Doppler radar images of the F-5 tornado that swept away part of Moore, Oklahoma in the Oklahoma City area outbreak of May 3, 1999. The white line running north-south just east of Moore (to your right) is Interstate 35; the tornado is about to cross the intersection of I-35 and a smaller road at the Shields Overpass. The picture on the left is a reflectivity image. The one on the right is a velocity display. Both images are produced by Doppler radar.

The reflectivity image shows how hard the radio signal sent out is bounced back to the radar receiver. Rain and hail reflect this pulse more strongly than does "plain" air, so they make stronger echoes; the larger the droplet or hailstone, the more strongly the radar is echoed back to the receiver. Here, the white square is the region of highest reflectivity, and the orange on down through blue ones show progressively lower levels, and therefore less intense precipitation. In this particular case, the white areas probably show radar detection of actual debris within the tornado.

On the velocity display, the blocks of green color show areas where the wind is moving toward the radar equipment. The blocks of red show areas where the wind is moving away from the equipment. Notice that just north of Moore, there is an area where red and green touch each other directly, at the bottom of a long red "hook" that almost looks like a curved finger. The wind is spinning around a central vortex in this region where the red and green are in contact, rushing quickly away from the radar in the red places and toward it in the green ones. That is the velocity-display "signature" of a tornado, as it indicates the presence of rapidly rotating winds.
http://www.tapestryweb.org/tornado/doppler.html

Yeah, I saw radar pictures of a rectangular shaped mass of clouds heading northeast after we got hit. Although to be truthful, most of Sunday was spent watching basketball. :eyes: I'm a junkie. What can I say?

Tornados are not fun. I'm glad you got out of those situations. I have a friend who is a storm watcher for the county so I've heard about close calls. I do not envy you and hope you never have to go through that again. I know how this freaked me out and I had my dogs with me. In a lot of ways I'm lucky because I work primarily out of the house. We've got a good old fashioned storm cellars in most houses around this area so I've always got a safe haven.

[alfredo]

8. I've seen the "hook" many times. I have a Dashboard doppler radar

widget on my desktop, and keep the TV on when weather threatens. Since the Cat 3 hit, the TV stations really take tornadoes seriously. Our local stations seem to be in competition as to who gives the best, most detailed info on severe weather.