Folsom Tornado Blues

This afternoon there was tornado touchdown at Folsom Lake which even raked the top of part of the dam and came close to harming some people out walking atop it. Below are three different views of the event.

Graphic of the Day - Denair Tornado

NWS Sacramento conducted a field investigation of the tornado in Denair, CA, four days ago which caused a notable amount of damage, especially for a California tornado. Here they took a GoogleEarth image of the location affected by the storm and overlay it with tornado track and intensity data. Image courtesy of NWS/NOAA (all rights reserved).

Graphic of the Day - Enhanced Fujita Scale

In light of the damaging tornado in Denair, CA, two days ago it seems appropriate to review a primer on the updated version of the Fujita Scale of tornado intensity known as the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

Only In California: Dude, It's a Huge Tornado!

Below are two typical California responses to the less-unusual-than-one-might-think phenomenon known as the California tornado. The below tornado struck the Central Valley town of Denair, CA, yesterday afternoon resulting in damage to the Stanislaus County community, but no injuries. 

Eiler Fire Tornado

I was blown away seeing this for the first just a short time ago thanks to new Twitter follower Kelli Myers. As those of you know who follow this blog I have a special thing for fire tornados for which there is other great footage on this blog such as HERE. Anywho, enjoy this short video from the Eiler Fire filmed on August 2, 2014, from near Hat Creek, CA, which now, two days later, is still raging out of control in eastern Shasta County on the Lassen National Forest near the Lassen Volcanic National Park. An image of this same fire on July 31st or August 1st which with an extinct volcano (Burney Mountain) in front of it made it appear the mountain was erupting was discussed on this blog a couple of days ago and can be viewed HERE. 

Willowy Tornado

A complex of storms moved down and diagonally across the Sacramento Valley this afternoon. At least one tornado-genic storm cell or perhaps multiple generations of such tornado-warned storm cells produced dramatic wall clouds and in some instances funnels and on two occasions, tornadoes: one near Willows (shown below) and one near Roseville which caused damage to a dozen homes.

Tornado Skid Marks

This image does not show any dramatic damage to human constructs or even to natural features like trees. God knows there were enough images of both types from the severe weather outbreak in the Midwest over this past weekend of which this image (from Illinois) is but one scene from its aftermath. However, I nonetheless find it remarkable for its visual simplicity and for how much of a scar mere wind created on land that is fairly barren at this time of year. A forest or stand of corn would make for a dramatic damage path but one would not expect the same of fields laying dormant for winter. Note the swirl lines in the scar area. Those are the scars of sub-vortices within this obviously multiple-vortex tornado.
Photo courtesy of Fred Zwicky - Journal Star (all rights reserved).

Fire Tornados ≠ Fire Whirls!

Despite my own rather expansive knowledge of weather and wildfires accumulated over my entire lifetime as driven by a keen interest in both since I was six years old learned something knew recently that corrected a patently false concept I held. That misconception was that fire tornadoes were merely macro-scale fire whirls which is patently false as it turns out. Fire whirls are generated by rapidly rising hot air within a fire sans any thunderstorms in the vicinity or last are unrelated to any such that is occurring nearby. Fire tornadoes are generated by thunderstorms produced by the fire itself as pyrocumulus clouds atop the convection column rising from the fire develop further into pyrocumulonimbus clouds. Below are featured two examples of raw footage of fire tornadoes. The top clip features a fire tornado in Alaska last week as viewed from an air attack plane of the Alaska Department of Forestry and recorded by air tactical officer Tim Whitesell over the Tetlin Junction Ridge Fire which has burned over 76,000 acres and is still burning. The bottom clip features a fire tornado from the 2003 Canberra bushfires as recorded by Tom Bates, a Kambah resident (suburb of Canberra). That fire tornado generated F-3 winds (160 mph) and at times was 1,600 feet in diamater. The bottom-most player screen features a short documentary on both fire whirls and fire tornadoes. Despite being somewhat old it is still more than worth watching and features addition amazing video of earlier events than the two aforementioned. 

Italian Tornado Raw Video Montage

Yesterday's tornado outbreak in the area of Milan, Italy, scenes of one twister in the outbreak of which can be seen below follows another Italian tornado incident exactly two months prior also in Milan area. Nobody was seriously injured in yesterday's incident. 

Moore, OK, Not Okay Today

Today I was mostly consumed with academic concerns but did manage to watch a couple of hours of live streaming TV coverage from local Oklahoma City newsmedia market outlets during the immediate aftermath of today's tragedy at Moore, OK. At last count 91 people were killed and that number is expected to rise perhaps sharply. Below is an interesting fast-motion version of about 15 minutes of live video footage condensed down to about 3 minutes and showing the devastating EF-5 tornado demolish a swath of that repeatedly tornado-beleaguered community. Note the debris ball envelope the lower end of the half-mile wide wedge and also note the rapid motion of the wall cloud and its rapid descent nearly to the ground during the climax of the tornado as it was tearing up Moore, OK.

Sacramento-Area Tornado Touchdown

This image looking south on Garden Highway yesterday near the intersection with Franklin Avenue captured a funnel to the left of center dropping from the dark wall cloud. This storm put down multiple funnels over its lifespan which caused significant minor damage along the tornado damage tracks, to wit, downed lines, poles, and trees, damaged roofs, uplifted boats, sheds, and other lighter structures, etc. This would rate the tornadoes at EF0. Photo by Chris Kaufman - Appeal-Democrat (AP photo)

Picture of the Day - Paso Robles Inn Weather Station

To treat myself for all my labors and all my frugality this year I treated myself to a modest but rich breakfast at the Paso Robles Inn this morning partaking of it in the old diner section at the counter. On my way there I turned into the north entrance to the rear parking lots with the intent of snapping a good shot of the above sign. I had spotted said sign while doing some research here earlier this year as you may or may not recall. I did not get any shots I liked then so I posted none deferring to come back later and do better. This image does not particularly please me but at least the sign is readable in this one. The shadows bother me but then I suppose they tell us it's sunny as much as the rock being hot to the touch.  Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - Tornado Alley-Looking Sky

A cloud formation that resembled a wall cloud with suspicious-looking cloud filaments dangling below it passed just north of the Cuesta College North County Campus this afternoon. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Recent Russian Tornado Video Montage

Yesterday a rather violent tornado ravaged parts of the Eastern Russian city of Blagoveshensk killing one person and injuring 28 according to the latest reports. Some rather remarkable home videos have emerged showing the vortex in all its violent glory. This video features a remarkable montage of various videos spliced together.


Video courtesy of Youtube

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