Deadly Christmas week tornado outbreak: 1,000 warnings
UPDATE 12/28: I've tabulated 28 confirmed tornadoes from the Christmas week tornado outbreak, based on surveys from 11 NWS offices (not including California). This includes on EF-3 and one EF-4. Please leave a comment if I am missing any.
ORIGINAL BLOG 12/27:
After 18 people were killed in Mississippi by a tornado outbreak on Dec. 23, 2015, we all hoped it was over. On Christmas Eve, hail 2.75 inches in diameter was reported in Mississippi, and one tornado report went unconfirmed in Georgia. It seemed like the severe weather was tailing off just in time for Christmas.
Then on Christmas Day, another seven tornado reports (with some injuries) were filed across Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. The day after Christmas brought another 11 deaths (at least) across the Dallas, Texas, area. So far this week (actually four days), over 1,000 weather warnings have been issued, including 430 severe thunderstorm warnings, plus 243 tornado warnings!
The stats above may include reissuances. The IEM warnings stats page reports 302 severe thunderstorm warnings this week, with 178 tornado warnings. In any case, it was quite the outbreak of severe weather -- especially terrible occuring during Christmas week! Even worse than the 2012 Christmas Tornado Outbreak that resulted in 99 tornado warnings and 129 severe.
Imagine if you were one of the people that lost their home, or members of their family, to the storm. Please donate to your trusted charity this week to help the victims!
It also was the longest number of consecutive days with tornadoes since 1982 -- and guess what, that was another El Nino year. We can't expect with an El Nino that the storms will calm down as quickly over time. Most of the 347 spotter reports during the four-day period, however, were on Dec. 23.
Isn't this weather "crazy?" Statistically speaking it's centered around the area we'd expect it to be in, with the exception of Dallas and central Tennessee, which remain on the fringes of the climatologically likely. That said, this outbreak is definitely worse than any Christmas outbreaks in recent memory -- and as stated above, you can thank El Nino for that.
As to yesterday's tornadoes, the damage is just incredible. Many large single family homes were destroyed. I am surprised that more people weren't killed. I followed the storms last night on my WeatherMatrix Facebook and Accu_Jesse twitter feeds. Here are a couple of eye-witness photos:
Here's an animation of a 3-D cross-section of the tornado as it crossed I-30 near the Lake Ray Hubbard, northeast of Dallas:
Here's an explanation of what you're seeing there, from the NWS Dallas Fort-Worth:
Sadly, it may not be over yet. The SPC has issued another Enhanced Risk area over the Arklatex today:
