by Ted Keller
Early Morning Twisters
7:23 pm in Storm Summaries by Ted Keller
Thursday morning produced a tornado-baring thunderstorm which traveled from Newton to Wright Counties which the National Weather Service confirms producing three tornadoes including an EF1 in Monett.
At about 7 am, a tornado moved across the southern portion of Monett, MO where it did EF0 damage until it crossed highway 60 where EF1 damage was surveyed. A Pizza Hut sustained heavy damage. A weak second tornado briefly downed down near Hurley in Stone country. The thunderstorm produced a third tornado about an hour later rated EF0 which traveled between Sparta and Bruner in northeastern Christian County.
Pizza Hut in Monett. Photo by Megan Korpella.
The thunderstorm line began showing signs of turning on a scale much larger than a tornado. The twist can be seen in the radar image just over Monett at around 7:01 am. The tighter circulation that a doppler radar could have detected was not present at this same time. There was some bad data in the doppler output which could have masked the spin. Reports of damage started to be received from Monett and as the rotation move ENE, it was tornado-warned for Christian and Greene County at around 7:30 am.
The same rotational area produced a second tornado in Christian county around 8 am. This tornado was a bit weaker rated at EF0.
Here are the images (Thanks Jim Sellars and Storm Lab):
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Radar echoes for Monett at 7:01 am and Sparta at 8:04 am. |
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SRV echoes for Monett at 7:01 am and Sparta at 8:04 am |
The storm may have been helped into producing a tornado because it followed a boundary of cooler air sent southward from heavy rain and storms last night to the north and northwest of Springfield. Such boundaries can often locally enhance the “spin” that a thunderstorm updraft ingests, making it more likely to spin up a tornado.
A complete report and some detailed tornado track maps can be found at the Springfield National Weather Service Office web page.
Hey Ted,
Nice page and report on the Monett and Sparta Tornadoes. Andy Foster and I were wondering (about 650 a.m. that morning) if it would tor but assumed more bowing and resultant straight line wind. EF0 and EF1s are hard to detect unless you have a defined circulation; and even then it’s about 50/50 that it will tor.
Doug told me about your research for post 50s tornado tracks. There certainly is a pattern to them. I really need to get more involved in the social media stuff but I seem to be busy with other things. Several of my old military buds are always bugging me about establishing a Facebook page but I told them e-mail is fine for now.
Bill
Bill,
Sorry, I’ve been “hacked” here recently. Yeah, the social media sites are fun and full of information good and bad. Ceaseless Wind is my geeky page with stuff I don’t think they necessarily want on the ozarksfirst.com site.