[Fred Gossage]

The 2007 tornado theme of "Let's pull a strong tornado out of our hats in any marginal situation we can...." continues.....

[DVDweather]

BeauDodson, on Aug 27 2007, 12:51 AM, said:

Also some other large grabs here
http://www.beaudodso.../blog/blog7.htm

Included some of your grabs.

Wow, thanks. :wub:

[James]

QRT will be on their way up, Grand Forks preliminarily saying strong EF-3/weak EF-4 damage.

[wxmann_91]

Fred Gossage, on Aug 27 2007, 06:42 AM, said:

The 2007 tornado theme of "Let's pull a strong tornado out of our hats in any marginal situation we can...." continues.....

That's not really the 2007 tornado theme. The actual tornado theme is "Let's pull out a strong tornado and make it hit the nearest obscure population center"

[Jack]

Earlier I was told there was only 1 death, unless that's changed. It could have been a lot worse than that, they way that thing looked on radar last night.

James did an excellent job with a storm post-mortem in his blog, and if I were able to move it over, I would after several more days had passed.

I think we will be adjusting some things in time so we are able to do that.

[Storm Chasing Polack]

wxmann_91, on Aug 27 2007, 06:10 PM, said:

That's not really the 2007 tornado theme. The actual tornado theme is "Let's pull out a strong tornado and make it hit the nearest obscure population center"

Wrong. They're really dueling themes. There have been several situations where we've pulled extremely intense tornadoes out of situations that 99% of the time would not have produced that strong a tornado (the recent EF3 in southern MI, this tornado, 3/28 was very anomalous in size and intensity given pattern and time of year, etc.).

[DVDweather]

James, on Aug 27 2007, 02:32 PM, said:

QRT will be on their way up, Grand Forks preliminarily saying strong EF-3/weak EF-4 damage.

A Grand Forks forecaster just posted elsewhere that they called the QRT, but the QRT said they could handle the survey and the final rating. I have no idea what the rule is now regarding the QRT, or if it's changed from before. I always thought that if they suspected greater than EF3 damage, then the QRT had to be up there, but maybe they just have to be called, or maybe the rule changed with the new EF scale implementation?

Maybe someone here in the NWS can tell us what the rule is now. :)

[BeauDodson]

DVDweather, on Aug 27 2007, 07:36 PM, said:

A Grand Forks forecaster just posted elsewhere that they called the QRT, but the QRT said they could handle the survey and the final rating. I have no idea what the rule is now regarding the QRT, or if it's changed from before. I always thought that if they suspected greater than EF3 damage, then the QRT had to be up there, but maybe they just have to be called, or maybe the rule changed with the new EF scale implementation?

Maybe someone here in the NWS can tell us what the rule is now. :)

That is interesting.

[DVDweather]

BeauDodson, on Aug 27 2007, 09:41 PM, said:

That is interesting.

Some offices have a QRT certified member working in the office anyway, so maybe that's the case here, but I don't know that. If it's not the case in Grand Forks, then the rule has either changed, or it's not what we thought it was originally.

[Jack]

DVDweather, on Aug 27 2007, 09:45 PM, said:

Some offices have a QRT certified member working in the office anyway, so maybe that's the case here, but I don't know that. If it's not the case in Grand Forks, then the rule has either changed, or it's not what we thought it was originally.

Here are a couple of things I found, but I don't know how current they are. Notice slide no. 15, it almost looks like something was changed:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/grr/educati...sponseTeams.pdf

Maybe this one is a better guide.

http://www.weather.g...qrt-short.shtml

[Jack]

This might be what you were referring to Don?

Quote

NOTE: Other NWS personnel not listed in Appendix A can be considered as Wind Damage Experts and serve on a QRT, if they demonstrate extensive PSDA experience and are recommended as a National Authority by their Regional Office

from the second link.

[DVDweather]

Jack, on Aug 27 2007, 09:52 PM, said:

This might be what you were referring to Don?
from the second link.

Yeah, that must be it. I had heard before that some local offices have QRT members amongst themselves. That link would seem to confirm it.

[James]

Storm Chasing Polack, on Aug 27 2007, 06:54 PM, said:

Wrong. They're really dueling themes. There have been several situations where we've pulled extremely intense tornadoes out of situations that 99% of the time would not have produced that strong a tornado (the recent EF3 in southern MI, this tornado, 3/28 was very anomalous in size and intensity given pattern and time of year, etc.).

The March 28th event was surely anomalous, but as the day progressed and the ingredients came together, it was clear that a very violent night was in store for the high plains. Honestly, I've never seen such a loaded gun scenario out there, comments reflected to other friends as we bitterly wept about not being able to chase that particular event.

After looking extensively at the dynamics of last night for several hours, the best I could come up with was that the low level shear profiles favored tornadic supercells, because nothing in the mid or upper levels would have really left one worried about any storm south of the US/Canadian border. It will be fascinating to continue to explore the event on a mesoscale analysis and see what I can come up with, or what others find.

[blizznd]

DVDweather, on Aug 27 2007, 07:45 PM, said:

Some offices have a QRT certified member working in the office anyway, so maybe that's the case here, but I don't know that. If it's not the case in Grand Forks, then the rule has either changed, or it's not what we thought it was originally.

Hi

This is the Grand Forks forecaster this post refers too regarding QRT. I just found this site. I asked our WCM and we called the QRT folks, and they did say we could do it locally. We do not have any QRT certified member working in our office....but it came down to

1) money ...travel money to send a person(s) up here
2) we are not in a major media market and far away from big cities...so little chance any big media blowup will occur. In fact I have yet to see Northwood mentioned on any news sites....I havent seen much of the news on TV lately so cannot comment there.

Dan FGF

[Jack]

blizznd, on Aug 28 2007, 07:58 PM, said:

Hi

This is the Grand Forks forecaster this post refers too regarding QRT. I just found this site. I asked our WCM and we called the QRT folks, and they did say we could do it locally. We do not have any QRT certified member working in our office....but it came down to

1) money ...travel money to send a person(s) up here
2) we are not in a major media market and far away from big cities...so little chance any big media blowup will occur. In fact I have yet to see Northwood mentioned on any news sites....I havent seen much of the news on TV lately so cannot comment there.

Dan FGF

Hi Dan, and welcome. I will give you the proper tag.
Thanks for the explanation-I actually said that I thought the tornado would make nationwide news, as it looked like an EF-3 at least, based on the evidence at hand. I was surprised there was less of a mention, but I guess that explains it.

[DVDweather]

blizznd, on Aug 28 2007, 07:58 PM, said:

Hi

This is the Grand Forks forecaster this post refers too regarding QRT. I just found this site. I asked our WCM and we called the QRT folks, and they did say we could do it locally. We do not have any QRT certified member working in our office....but it came down to

1) money ...travel money to send a person(s) up here
2) we are not in a major media market and far away from big cities...so little chance any big media blowup will occur. In fact I have yet to see Northwood mentioned on any news sites....I havent seen much of the news on TV lately so cannot comment there.

Dan FGF

Hi, thanks for that info, and welcome to this site too! :thumbsup:

[wxmann_91]

Storm Chasing Polack, on Aug 27 2007, 04:54 PM, said:

Wrong. They're really dueling themes. There have been several situations where we've pulled extremely intense tornadoes out of situations that 99% of the time would not have produced that strong a tornado (the recent EF3 in southern MI, this tornado, 3/28 was very anomalous in size and intensity given pattern and time of year, etc.).

I'd hardly call 3/28 a marginal setup. Let's not forget those 2/23's, 4/13's, 4/24's, and 5/5's. It seems there's always some summer tornadoes that catch people off guard; mesoscale stuff really can't be modeled very well when the synoptics are so weak and/or nonexistant.

A year where one has pulled out a strong tornado with eyes closed is 2004.

And welcome to SV, Dan. :D

[DVDweather]

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crnews/display_sto...22&source=0

Quote

Northwood North Dakota Tornado Rated EF4

The NOAA’s National Weather Service Grand Forks Storm Damage Assessment Team has rated the tornado which struck Northwood North Dakota on Sunday August 26, between 8:45 and 8:50 pm, as an EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita(EF) Scale. Damage in the northeastern corner of the community indicated top wind speeds of up to 170 mph, which is in the lower end of the EF4 scale.

Nearly all of the community of Northwood was impacted by the tornado which reached an impressive width of about eight tenths of a mile as it pushed through town. Total length of the tornado was estimated to be 5 miles, beginning 2miles west southwest of town, and extending 2 miles east northeast of town.

The main residential areas and business areas of the town received widespread EF2 to EF3 damage, with peak winds of 120-150 mph. The most intense damage was likely in the northeast corner of town where open space allowed the tornado to scour to ground level, flattening fields and wrapping and carrying debris in wide arching patterns.

The most significant damage occurred on the northeast edge of the tornado track, where the Agvise Laboratories and Gabriel Construction buildings were a total loss. In addition, cars and trucks became projectiles and were carried up to one half mile into corn and bean fields which were scoured to the ground. Trucks and vehicles from these locations are still missing.

This is the latest EF4 tornado of the season in the Grand Forks NWS County Warning Area, as well as North Dakota. The previous latest EF4 tornado was in Medina North Dakota on August 11, 2002. Unfortunately, this tornado resulted in one fatality. Other tornado fatalities in the Grand Forks Area of Responsibility include 10 deaths in the Fargo 1957 tornado, 1 in Cavalier County in 1966, 2 fatalities in Polk County Minnesota in 1975, then another Polk County tornado fatality in 1978. Prior to the Northwood tornado, there was a fatality in Ottertail County Minnesota in 1987.

To view some of the photographs taken by the NWS Survey Team, click here. To view RADAR data from the Mayville DOPPLER, click here.

For more information please contact NOAA’s NWS Office in Grand Forks at 701.772.0720