Talk:Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak
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" At around 7:00 P.M., a mobile Doppler radar detected winds of 318 mph inside a tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma, but speeds up to 450 miles per hour could be spotted deep inside the tornado. "
The winds were actually 301 +/- 17 mph, and this is the first I've heard about any 450 mph wind. I'm going to edit this part of the article.
I agree that the 450 mph wind speed sounds somewhat unsubstantiated and erronious, but most sources have stated that the portable doppler radar detected a windspeed of 318 mph within the tornado. I find it hard to believe these sources would mearly state the upper end of a 34 mph range.
- Most media sources tend to state the upper end of estimated wind speed ranges when the F-scale ratings are given, so I would expect them to pick the upper end of another range. In an interview [1], Josh Wurman gives the maximum winds as about 135 m/s. 135 m/s=302 mph, so the 301 is pretty close. I'd be surprised if wasn't giving the middle of the distribution. Hebrooks87 22:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)Hebrooks87
Thanks for the source; i apologize for the innacurate information and will make corrections.
- Update: article now states "up to 318 mph"
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[edit] NCDC event log vs. actual tornadoes
It's important to note that the NCDC log contains tornado segments, with one segment per county for a tornado. Thus, if a tornado goes through 5 counties, NCDC's log will have five entries. As of 15 April 2006, the database from 1950-2004 is available with the Severe Plot software package from the Storm Prediction Center. From 1200 UTC 3 May 1999 to 1200 UTC 4 May 1999, it has 71 tornadoes listed in Texas (1), Oklahoma (58), Kansas (3), Nebraska (7), South Dakota (2). By F-scale, there were 38 F0, 16 F1, 7 F2, 6 F3, 3 F4, 1 F5. Hebrooks87 22:29, 15 April 2006 (UTC)Hebrooks87
I have taken into account the segmented tracks for this outbreak and the Andover Kansas Outbreak. Thanks for the info though. I will collaborate tornado reports for most of the recent outbreaks listed on the outbreak page in the coming weeks.
[edit] F5 or F6?
The tornado that had the wind speeds of 318 MPH is on the very border of an F5's upper limit... does that mean it's an F6? I doubt i'm the only one that considers it as such (an F6). NOAA chart, depicting this tornado as an F6 User:Raccoon Fox - Talk 03:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
- No one in the tornado climatology or research fields considers it an F6. The image you show doesn't show it as an F6. It's shown as an F5 (right next to the red dot depicting the second overpass fatality in the Oklahoma City area). The full image without the dots may be clearer. By definition, there are no F6 tornadoes. The wind measurements from the Doppler on Wheels on that day were 301 mph with a standard deviation of 20 mph, according to the DOW website. Those winds are higher in the atmosphere and over a shorter duration than the associated F-scale wind speed definitions, as discussed here, so that comparisons really can't be made. Hebrooks87 21:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)Hebrooks87
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- What you say makes sense...but i still wonder why they have two brown Sixes (6) in that image you've given, if the tornado was an F5... was that an incorrect reading, given by the DopplerOnWheels unit, or like you said...from a few hundred feet in the air? User:Raccoon Fox - Talk 23:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
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- They aren't any sixes on the track of A10 (the Oklahoma City tornado). The maximum number is a five. In the legend at the upper left of the full image without the dots, it indicates that F5s are brown. The maximum intensity for each tornado is given next to the track. For the Oklahoma City tornado, it's F5. In order, the point damage estimates along the track are 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2. Hebrooks87 02:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)Hebrooks87
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- Again, you're right. I had to zoom in on that image a great deal to make out the numbers, though. I guess I need to wear my glasses once more. User:Raccoon Fox - Talk 17:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] "Amber" tornado
There is no "Amber County" in Oklahoma. The "Amber" tornado is the same tornado as the Moore/Oklahoma City/Del City tornado, as can be seen in the track map. There was only one F5 tornado in the US that day (in fact, only one that year).Hebrooks87 15:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Tornado counts on 3 May
Trying to get the count by F-scale right:
For those tornadoes warned on by the Norman forecast office, the tornado identifiers are included. See [track map. Locations are in parentheses.
F5-1 OK-A9 (Amber-OKC-Moore-Del City) F4-3 OK-B20 (1st Mulhall), OK-E6 (Dover), Kansas-(Sedgwick County) F3-6 OK-A3 (Apache), OK-A6 (Laverty), OK-D4 (Stroud), OK-E3 (Kingfisher County), OK-G3 (Canadian-Kingfisher Counties), OK-G5 (Crescent) F2-7 OK-A8 (Chickasha), OK-A12 (Choctaw), OK-B17 (Piedmont), OK-D2 (Shawnee), OK-G6 (2nd Mulhall), OK-H3 (Hennessey), OK-H4 (Marshall) F1-18 2-Nebraska (Ewing and Hartingon), 1-Kansas (Mayfield), 15 in Oklahoma (2nd Sapulpa-Tulsa, and A14, B3, B8, B9, B10, B11, B16, B18, B19, D1, D3, E2, E7, I1) F0-38 2-South Dakota (Springfield and Greenwood), 5-Nebraska (Orchard, Creighton, Verdigre, Belden, and Niobrara), 1-Kansas (Augusta), 1-Texas (Maryneal), 29-OK (1st Sapulpa, A1, A2, A4, A5, A7, A10, A11, A13, B1, B2, B4, B5, B6, B7, B12, B13, B14, B15, C1, C2, E1, E4, E5, G1, G3, G4, H1, and H2)
Total for the day (1200 UTC 3 May 1999-1200 UTC 4 May 1999) = 73.Hebrooks87 17:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Moore F5 damage-Where it ranks
The [SPC top 10 damage table] has some serious problems and shouldn't be used. For starters, it only goes back to the beginning of Storm Data. Second, the use of the central values in the damage category that were used up through 1995 creates some really odd values, given the breadth of the categories (e.g., 50 million-500 million is designated as 250 million.) This is especially troublesome given that some of the cases have actually damage amounts in the text entry in Storm Data (the paper copies, not necessarily the online approximation.) As an example of this problem, combined with another problem, the first entry, with $1,250,000,000 in 1973 dollars is the Conyers, GA tornado. In the paper version of Storm Data, the damage is given as $89M for the tornado. This gets translated using the central value as $250M, nearly tripling the damage from the reported value. In addition, for that case, the tornado hit a total of 5 counties. In the online Storm Data, each county is credited as having $250M in damage (the central value of the class). When it gets taken from the county-based description back to the total track, that results in a total of $1,250M compared to the actual reported damage from the text description of $89M, a factor of 14 overestimate. On the other hand, the Wichita Falls tornado gets underestimated since the reported damage was $400M.
This doesn't even take into account the fact that inflation-adjustment is probably not the correct adjustment to make in any event. Wealth adjustment is probably more representative. A better reference to the history of damage, starting with the historical work on collecting damage estmates done by Tom Grazulis, is [Brooks and Doswell (2001)], which gives both inflation and wealth adjustment numbers going back to 1890. From that, the Oklahoma City tornado is the most damaging tornado when inflation adjustment is applied, and 11th most damaging when wealth-adjustment is applied. 1896 St. Louis, is the damaging tornado by that metric, in US history. Hebrooks87 20:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
