Mayhem in May, How Baron Tools Saved the Day:21 & 22 May 2004

John McLaughlin, KCCI-TVDaryl Herzmann, Iowa State University

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21 May 2004 Talking Points

● Severe convection the previous night produced an extremely strong outflow boundary over Northern Iowa.

● The warm sector cleared out and warmed nicely during the day

● The instability axis was lined up with the outflow boundary by 18z.

2 PM

2 PM view from Webster City

Looking NNW

Note the LCL

3 PM: Points to Ponder

● Will our current convective cluster NE of DSM weaken as it moves to the SE?

● Situational awareness: Where is the tornado threat?

4 PM : Convection fires in NW Iowa.

5 PM: View from Rockwell City

5-6 PM: Reports

● Numerous tornadoes in Jones, Linn, and Benton County. These tornadoes are with the cluster to the east of Des Moines.

● 5:19PM Softball hail 5 S Spencer (Clay County)

Begin Case Study at 5:47 PM

6 PM: Looks to be wall2wall weather!

6:10 PM: Tornado reported near Rolfe (Pocahontas County)

6:20 PM: Lights ripped off of sheriff's car (Pocahontas County)

6:22 PM: Tornado reported 2 E of Rolfe (Pocahontas County)

6:23 PM: Tornado reported in Bradgate (Humboldt County)

Damage at Bradgate

21 May Summary

22 May: talking points

● Massive amounts of convection blow up the evening of the 21rst and work SE over night.

● The combined warm front / outflow boundary was extremely strong.

● Onset of convection would probably be a bit later due to strengthening CAP and vort max still in Western NE

12z OAX (Omaha) Sounding

0z OAX: Danger, Danger

Instant Messaging with the NWS

(18:37:46) kcciwhite: we are still west of fontanelle(18:38:11) kcciwhite: check out our cam(18:38:37) nwsdmx2: rotating wall cloud near

woodward(18:40:08) kcciwhite: in fontanelle(18:45:19) kcciwhite: we are heading north on IA

25 out of Greenfield.... see a nice lowering that way

(18:51:43) nwsdmx2: plenty of rotation in the wall cloud, moving se toward madrid

Live Reports from the field

(18:55:15) kcciwx: rapid hook forming sw of stuart on lsd(18:55:15) kcciwhite: that's a 10-4. we are seeing lowering(18:55:15) kcciwhite: we are south of that on hwy. 5 about 5 mi. north

of greenfield(18:55:37) kcciwhite: cam pointed right at it(18:55:39) kcciwx: Seeing anything??(18:56:15) kcciwhite: just lowerings, just some upward motion(18:57:33) kcciwhite: some good scud(18:57:53) kcciwhite: we are on 180th street in adair county going

east(18:58:00) kcciwhite: turning north on orange road(18:58:21) nwsdmx2: baseball hail 2 n madrid

The Photogenic Stuart Tornado

(19:06:52) kcciwx: tornado south of menlo on the ground(19:06:56) nwsdmx2: tornado reported just sw of stuart(19:07:00) nwsdmx2: ham report

Another Shot of Stuart Tornado

Chaos Ensues

(19:44:27) kcciwx: tornado by maxwell..public(19:44:33) kcciwx: public report(19:45:03) nwsdmx2: 4ne dexter, tornado ham radio report(19:46:51) nwsdmx2: tornado just w of maxwell now!(19:47:38) kcciwx: 2 inch hail in camberage(19:50:43) nwsdmx2: tornado 3w of adel now!

NEXRAD + Warnings @ 8 PM

Still storm chasing at 2 AM !!!

(01:36 AM) john_mcweather: just got stopped by ankeny pd so they could look at the radar! young kid though it was cool

Event Tornado Warnings

Summary Stats

● Tornadoes by day for Iowa:– 15 (May 21rst)– 19 (May 22nd)

● 110 Tornadoes so far for 2004 (Record)