In-depth discussion of the tornado outbreak across the Southeast on December 14, 2022. This event was part of a multi-day outbreak across the southern Plains and Southeast, and it featured over 50 tornado reports across multiple states within the Moderate Risk area, including a fatal tornado in Louisiana. However, the long-track tornado threat failed to materialize as forecast; in this video, we’ll go over the meteorology behind the event and discuss some possible reasons why there were so many discrete supercells but no notable long-track tornadoes.
Lemon and Doswell 1979 paper on tornadogenesis: https://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/rfovell/NWP/lemon-doswell-1979.pdf
My May 20, 2019 case study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL6wX5KqC1k
Contents
0:00 Introduction
3:02 Meteorological overview
18:36 Potential limiting factors
source
Yay a new video to listen to
I love when you upload. As someone who wants to be a meteorologist and storm chaser, I love watching your videos
New vid, who dis
So many rotating supercells everywhere. Thank god it wasn’t worse or thank god all the cells didn’t produce
As a first-year atmospheric science Masters student who just switched into the field, I really appreciate these discussions! They’ve really helped me acclimate to the terminology and common heuristics. Thank you!
I've recently found your channel and I love watching these breakdowns of major weather events. I also really enjoyed watching your definitive guide to Skew-Ts, which was super informative to me. I've always loved watching weather, but I've only started really digging into actual meteorology. Thank you for your videos!
I remember seeing the front slow down in Texas the day before this and it produced an outbreak of 14 tornadoes in North Texas that carried I to western Louisiana. Everyone thought that would be all linear, but it was semi discreet. When I saw this I was even more worried for the enhanced area the next day. That front just kept on slowing down…scary stuff.
I wonder why they didn't get a Tornado Emergency for the Southern New Orleans Tornado,?
Great video! I love your in-depth forecasts videos!
Great Analysis!
The storms on 12/14 were also relatively small from the beginning, on top of the numerous storms stacked very closely together. The very low LFC heights and lack of any cap/EML aloft likely limited updraft width/intensity, and vertical shear wasn't unbelievably strong in the low levels (strong but not true upper echelon).
Are you going to be talking about the winter artic blast in your next video? The kinematics are really fun and interesting to look at during winter events
Kind of interesting how your thinking on this was similar to what I was thinking. There was just too many storms that fired all at once and as you said it was INSANE trying to keep up with the warnings at one point when they all went up at once. There was like 10-14 tornado warnings and extended warnings too and I swear EVERY DAMN STORM had a tornado warning on it on initiation. I was like "oh damn here we go". But then as you said the reports didn't come and it was just too many storms. But I also see that if you take a look at the 2011 one like you did too and now I can see it a little better too….the storms we had this set up were tiny and not the HUGE robust big big supercells you tend to get with long track tornado events or just EF3+ events but yeah I didn't think about that at the time. Still I was surprised just how many post 4pm tornadoes did occur cause a lot seemed to form in the QLCS line itself near the warm front which while we see that a lot in the Spring it was surprising to see how that proved in a way to have the more tornadoes overall. Still it has been interesting on these 3 Late Fall set ups since early November we didn't see the long-track or higher than EF3 tornadoes. This set up was mostly just EF2 and lower tornadoes again which was kind of interesting….hehe everyone posting damage photos on twitter saying EF3 or higher…and I was like "no, that's EF2….sometimes it looks worse than it is for ratings." Especially since I did a few tornado surveys as a NWS student intern in 2010 I know what to see usually. 😛
I think one other thing too on this Trey to mention as you said is the lack of video on these tornadoes this set up and like the last one. A lot of these tornadoes, while post-dark, seemed to be rain-wrapped in a way despite the decent hodographs and storm structures these had at times. That showery nature to stuff everywhere didn't help almost making stuff around these storms very misty or lot of scudy low clouds overall. I mean that is also as you and I mentioned too, chasing in East TX across to SC is like….damn near impossible to chase with good visibility given the trees and lack of open fields/minor hilly terrain. You truly need a drone to chase in the Southeast but even then it's not an ideal chase region…..granted nothing is worse than here in the Northeast and you REALLY need to know the top areas in the Northeast North of NYC and where to go.
The NWS said 16 tornadoes were in and around DFW as of today (there were cells early in the day). It seemed that the atmosphere was very willing to spin (helicity?) because almost every supercell was rotating quickly, even in cells off into the gulf (James Spann showed twin waterspouts)! The tornadoes didn't seem to last but for more than a few mins. Briefly intense then they'd poof. Then they'd spin up again and poof. The tornado tracks over around DFW show that
Awesome analysis yet again. By all means another very impactful severe weather event, but once again lacking the true high-end tornadic supercell performance that the short-term forecast parameter space on models like the HRRR, NAM, etc led me (and a lot of more experienced forecasters than I) to expect. We still have a lot to learn and I'm starting to wonder if the crucial storm-scale factors that separate a day like this or 11/29 from, say, 12/10/2021 or something even worse just plain occur on space and time scales too fine to be accurately resolved by modeling ahead of time with any degree of confidence.
Awesome video. 🙂👍
Both Nov 29th and this event had VBV and messy storm modes. Those were the only parallels to those two moderates. VBV doesn’t mean no tornadoes, but I do think it impact tornado longevity in my honest opinion. Too sharp of backing aloft means precip in that small level will be blowing into the mesocyclone, which could disrupt it. It leads to many short-lived tornadoes!
Feel like even the long track tornado threat was reached to a smaller extent in some of those Mississippi tornadoes. Maybe not violent tornadoes, dunno if there is a designated distance mark to consider tornadoes as long track, but in my opinion any tornado that travels over 15 miles is pretty thoroughly over the average tornado path length and it wouldn't be crazy to consider it long track regardless of intensity. Still really intense seeing how many discrete storms formed so quickly and in the morning no less.
Incredible videos Mr. Trey. Thanks again!
Fantastic as always 🤌
Any chance we see a derecho case study in the future?