Tornado time

Tornado watch till 7



I'm skeered!

Looks like some ugly stuff SSW of you wilky. I'd be prepared to hunker down, if I were you.

Still a tornado in Ness County that keeps dropping down. The storms are coming wilky. It's being advised to remove the bullseye off of all trailer houses now.

Hunkerin'-I'm ready!!

wilkykav2 wrote:

Hunkerin'-I'm ready!!

Are you ready for a siren test?

it is ugly lookin on the Dodge radar

Justoo wrote:

wilkykav2 wrote:

Hunkerin'-I'm ready!!

Are you ready for a siren test?

Always!!

I will be away from the computer for a few minutes. Just holler if it gets bad.



Please.

Bring it all on!!! Ratz keep us informed!!!!

Clouds are bumping together resulting in tunder....

Playing music to storm by....I should do a Mic check...

storms have really died off nothing but maybe some small hail and hard rain

I am convinced Hays has an impenetrable force field around it.

BigBadBeast wrote:

I am convinced Hays has an impenetrable force field around it.

Just wait the season really hasn't kicked off yet. Grab a beer, hang on tight and wait for the shit to happen.

Degeneration X I watched the video of the one eye open, cat and cracked up that was so funny..

slider wrote:

BigBadBeast wrote:

I am convinced Hays has an impenetrable force field around it.

There are some that are convinced it has to do with those darling little Vulgar Chermin Catolick Ladies are saying too rosaries and prayers and are actually over doing it.

If the bead countin the Catlick ladies do had any real power there'd be no blacks, Asians, Mexicans, or gays in the county.

And they would all be rich widows.

I have always thought it was the stinch from the State farm and the treatment plant.

BigBadBeast wrote:

I am convinced Hays has an impenetrable force field around it.

I tend to agree with you about the invisible forcefield. And this year it seems to be stronger than usual in repelling storms

Pretty interesting stats on Kansas tornadoes since 1950.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/ddc/News/2009%20SWAW%20packet.pdf

If you look at the link I posted it shows that Ellis County has had 51 confirmed tornadoes since 1950 which is above the count of most Kansas counties.

I've watched tornadoes travel from south to north across the county right across those rivers. Mountains have an effect on weather, but these hills we have around here mean nothing to a storm. I asked a meteorologist once if there was any truth to the theory that Ellis sitting in the valley kept big tornadoes from hitting and he said no, one just hasn't happened to hit there yet.

I fully agree that a perfectly flat plain is best for the formation of bigger long lasting tornadoes, but the big one that started in Ness County several years ago and traveled the full distance of Ellis County to the north rolled across all of the hills and river valleys without flinching. It came out of the hills in the SW corner of the County and slammed homes across the Smokey Hill valley with authority.

I sat just west of Yocemento and watched two tornadoes a mile apart come off the hilltop and tear up homes on the downward slope and throw tanks around at the elevator without losing any punch as they went. No, a tornadic storm is not going to be greatly influenced by our valleys. It's just the way they decide to track.

I believe it has something to do with the county's consumption of keystone light.

I was following a tornadic cell just a few years ago and it put down a tail just a couple miles north of Hays. I remember watching one from my front door on Custer when I was a kid. Our front door faced east towards Chetolah creek.

When I lived in the South end of Hays in the early 70's we were told by the weather service that a tornado was on the ground just south of town hidden by rain. I recall driving with dad to go to the Countrysides Estates storm shelter in a pretty heavy car and the winds were lifting the front of the car.

I agree there seem to be areas that get hit more often, but I've spoken with others in the weather service that say there is no safe place. I tend to think it fluctuates as to location just like rain does, but why I am not sure. There's been alot of talk too about lack of snow and rain, but Ellis and Hays have both seen floods and record blizzards.

It is still my opinion that the cycles are going to put a tornado into these areas in the near future.

off topic a bit but is it gonna freeze again???want to get my plants outside and get my garden going

[quote slider]I don't ever recall a tornado coming within the City limits of Hays in my 52 years of being here. [/quote]


Except for the one that started in Frontier West Park. Damaged treetops until it got to Dillon's on Vine. Did some damage to the sign before taking out a wall on Stanion Electric. Damaged a couple of fences NW of there.
Happened the same night the Ellis Pool Hall closed.

There's likely been dozens of damn near hits we never knew about. I remember some pretty strange damages over the years that weather service couldn't confirm. The guys that were up from Wichita giving spotter classes say alot of short lived ones come from squall line storms that probably havn't gotten the deserved attention from the weather service.

I can only recall 3 that have come into Russell in the 31 years I have been here

slider wrote:

The winds didn't spin the tree out of the ground if it would have been a Tornado.

Please don't tell me that someone from the weather service said that. LMAO

I still think it will happen here someday. We have had some close calls over the past 10 years. The Yocemento tornado has been brought up and does anyone recall the one in 2003 or 2004 that was on Toulon Ave and it tore up a house just north of the interstate and took out some powerlines by Catherine.

slider wrote:

If it were a Tornado the other trees would have been damaged or destroyed, not just one out of the three. And it wasn't a small tree by any means either, it was about 4 foot around the trunk as were the other trees in the yards. [/b][/i]

That's not true slider. I've looked over alot of tornado damage and you'd be amazed what is and isn't damaged. In one there was a small tree 5 foot tall growing in hard rocky ground that was pulled out roots and all while sheds, other trees and the windmill very close by were practically untouched.

In the big one that went the length of the whole county there was a house where every single tree in the yard was damaged, All the buildings and two newer homes in the yard were damaged or destroyed but the main house was almost untouched right in the middle of all of them. A satellite dish concreted in the ground was yanked out folded in half and thrown over the top of a tulip bed towards the house. Not a single petal on the tulips was out of place.

South of Palco last year a yard had nearly every tree damaged, the central air unit was moved partway off it's concrete pad, the concrete block garage was destroyed, and all the outbuildings were damaged or destroyed. metal reflectors marking the driveway entrance were twisted to look like corkscrews but were still in the ground. Trees within 5 feet of the house were ripped apart. Yet not so much as a single window was broken out of the house sitting in the middle of it.

In all those cases there were things damaged both high off the ground and very close to the ground while other things around them had no sign of anything happening.

One thing that's peculiar that I've noticed is that in an F2 or lower tornado you tend to see lots of large trees uprooted, and branches broken off, yet the majority of the leaves are still on them. In a strong F2 or an F3 those leaves start coming off and there's also a mix of uprooted trees and branches broken. But in an F4 or F5 you see few if any uprooted trees, but rather alot of tree trunks still in the ground with nothing but a few stubs of the bigger branches left on them. I have seen many a peculiar thing done by tornadoes.

Your cottonwood could have easly been the victim of an F0 or F1 as cottonwoods are weak brittle trees that are easily downed and a big cottonwood has lots of branches and leaves to catch the wind which act like a sail and uproots the tree. It could do that and take out your fence without doing much otherwise.

As far as twisting a tree out of the ground goes it could happen, but most trees are just blown over. I can show you a place on Big Creek where a confirmed tornado hit and the trees all went down in the same direction as if it were just straight line winds. I've seen that happen many times.

omg omg! tell me about surviving the dust bowl next!

BigBadBeast wrote:

omg omg! tell me about surviving the dust bowl next!

Mom did. If you got a reason for asking other than sarcasm I can relay whatever you want to ask her.

slider wrote:

I remember that little storm very well, the National Weather Service classified it as straight line winds

Initially, yes they did. But after numerous citizens (myself included) pointed out that the damage in town leading up to Dillon's, Stanion, and your tree was about 2-3 blocks wide they reviewed the information. They agreed it was not straight line winds but in fact a tornado as straight line winds would have caused damage over a wider area than 2-3 blocks wide and 2-3 miles long.

It picked up my car ('76 Delta 88 )and turned it a quarter turn. Not what I would expect from a straight line wind.

Justoo wrote:

slider wrote:

I don't ever recall a tornado coming within the City limits of Hays in my 52 years of being here.

Except for the one that started in Frontier West Park. Damaged treetops until it got to Dillon's on Vine. Did some damage to the sign before taking out a wall on Stanion Electric. Damaged a couple of fences NW of there.
Happened the same night the Ellis Pool Hall closed.

What year did this happen?

Here's some Greensburg pics showing what I was saying about trees being stripped, but not uprooted by stronger tornadoes. The intense winds rip everything off so fast that the roots are strong enough to hold the remaining trunk. In lesser tornadoes or high straight line winds most of the leaves and branches remain on the tree giving the wind more to push against and more likely uproot the tree.

Ratzilla wrote:

BigBadBeast wrote:

omg omg! tell me about surviving the dust bowl next!

Mom did. If you got a reason for asking other than sarcasm I can relay whatever you want to ask her.

Just sarcasm there. I have always been familiar with but didn't know or respect the extent of what went down. I saw a two hour documentary on it a year or so ago and then did a little further study. Chalk another dumbass move by our ill-informed government trying to pump false prosperity.

Your mom is the shit, by the way. I couldn't imagine breathing that shit for a decade. Them were some tough ass people.

Strip away our modern technological benefits and I don't think many of us would survive. We would do what we had to do, sure, but Those were different folk back then. I think my generation was the last generation of non-pussies to walk the face of this country.

Mom told me lots of stories. She grew up on a farm in Osborne County during the dust bowl. She said even with all the windows and doors closed grandma still had to cover all of them and their water bucket with blankets and towels and then they'd sit out the storms with hankerchiefs over their faces. Grandpa had a rope tied between the house and barn to avoid getting lost going from one to the other.

She said the grasshopper swarms were so bad they first ate the grass, weeds, and remaining crops, then they ate the bark off the trees and then ate fenceposts for lack of anything else. Once all the vegetation was gone the heat increased to as much as 120 on summer days and the drought just magnified. It was pretty crazy.

A couple more photos showing how the majority of trees are stripped but few are uprooted in an EF5. Might be boring to some, but I find a force like that fascinating.

I just listened to two meterologists who are currently putting on training classes out of Wichita say that they trying hard to overcome their own education. Meaning that meteorologists have recently learned a great deal of things that contradict what was taken as gospel just a few years ago.

One thing they stressed is that until recent times the weather service was so focused on supercells as the only source of tornadoes that they not only weren't looking for small short lived tornadoes in squall line storms, they were even denying the possibility when spotters reported them. Ellis County officials got pretty perturbed with Goodland weather service over things like that.

I'm not going to say yes or no in your situation slider because I never surveyed any of that damage. I only told you what I did so you could consider more possibilities.

never gonna happen

Straight line winds will knock over anything in the path, not pick and choose one tree over another one, next to it. I'm just sayin'... Tornadoes pick and choose. They're funny like that.