Tornado Strikes Pensacola FL - Radar, Video
UPDATE: Another, more impressive video is available on WAPT's site (warning: their site may crash Internet Explorer). The tornado also damaged a daycare center and church and WAPT says this was between 9:00 and 9:45 AM. Thanks to blog reader John for both video links. The video blog below details the radar velocity maps and shows the damage area in 3-D with Google Earth.
NOTE: THE VIDEO ABOVE MAY BE PRECEDED BY ADVERTISEMENTS ON AD-SUPPORTED SITES
One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that AccuWeather.com RadarPlus tagged the storm as containing "3-D Correlated Shear." This means that the radar has found rotation in 3 dimensions and this is the highest category of rotation that can be tagged before a Tornadic Vortex Signature is declared. Even without the TVS declaration, obviously 3-D Shear should be taken seriously and one should watch for tornadoes that the radar can't detect outright, as happened in this case.
ORIGINAL POST:
A tornado has touched down in Pensacola, Florida late this morning. The StormMatrix reports that the tornado was sighted on WEAR-TV's towercam around 10:15 AM. WKRG has a video
of the tornado itself, the damage from it, and says that the tornado hit a major area mall as well as the beachfront houses depicted in the video.
It's been a long day with a lot of storms in the Florida Panhandle and many rotating storms have moved in from offshore, probably producing waterspouts over open water. You can download radar loops here* showing the storms passing over since early morning. At the time of the report, rotation was detected in several storms in the area (areas of orange, inbound winds next to green, outbound winds highlighted below)
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