Tragic Tornado Totals (04-28-2011)

Just a brief dissertation using my new best friend; Google's Blogspot to which my one colleague introduced me!  The more I thought about this fierce tornadic outbreak, the more historic it is clearly becoming.  I will let the graphics do the talking....

The 1st graphic simply shows the number of tornadoes that have occurred to this point in the month of April.  This is by far the greatest number of observed tornadoes during the month of April; possibly any month EVER! 

Upon inspection of this graphic, the super outbreak of 1974 will clearly be surpassed by April 2011.  Some of you may recall the Xenia, Ohio F5 tornado as this was well documented for that time of wx study.  Look at the total tornadic tracks for that infamous April outbreak:

And here is the surface map for that April day as well.  Compare both then and yesterday's map! 

Now last evening's map........Fairly similar, eh?....

Thanks to the severe wx outbreaks this month, 2011 is clearly becoming the measuring stick for maximum tornadic activity....and it's not even May as of this writing!  May is climatologically the most active month of severe weather on average nationwide.  It is quite astonishing looking at this graphic and the totals of these twisters that have occurred during this month of April:

And even if we have a normal month of May in terms of severe weather, 2011 will go down as an anomalously large number of twisters in modern times....simply astonishing!

As for the local impacts of the severe weather, one must speak with Yokes to get a first hand account of what it is like to drive through a tornado as he did so this morning in the hamlet of Palmyra.  The NWS did confirm this as an EF0, but cool as a cucumber Yokes needed no change of shorts!  As for others' accounts of their journeys to work, it was primarily one of traffic woes and flooded roads; not nearly as adventurous as our newly christened storm chaser!  I shared this graphic of the rapid rise of the Yellow Breeches with several people today; this is graphic organizer of a flash flood!

I believe our fishing guru referred to this as stream "blow-out".  In my younger days, I called it a canoeing opportunity; now I'm just in awe of the power of nature and feel for those who have the misfortune of flooded basements and water issues.  And for those of you with river interests, the mighty Susquehanna is forecast to crest at just under 20' this Saturday.

I guess mother nature was rockin' out these last few weeks listening to that wonderous orchestral hit from Led Zeppelin's album Houses of the Holy of March 1973, "The Rain Song"........Upon us all, a little rain must fall.....  But mother nature got so wrapped up in John Paul Jones' keyboard artistry that she failed to listen to Robert Plant's epilogue.......just a little rain!

Enjoy your Friday....and more importantly, a well deserved sunny and seventy Saturday!

Smitty

AA:  Tornado count summary (April 2011 is a record breaking month and 2011 most likely a record breaking year), Yokes the new Storm Chaser, some flooding graphics, and good luck in Erie!