Severe Threat - Feb 27-28th, 2024

[buckeye05]

Report of hangars destroyed and airplanes thrown at the Madison County Airport. This was likely a continuation of the Springfield tornado.

Edit: I found photos

 

[TH2002]

Fortunately, the Grand Blanc Police are reporting no casualties from last night's tornado there.

 

[akt1985]

There are some isolated warnings all the way down in north Alabama this morning from this system.

 

[buckeye05]

Fighter jet totaled at Wright Patterson AFB. Wing and jet engines torn clean off. This is going to be a monetarily devastating tornado for what was probably a fairly weak spin-up.

 

[atrainguy]

 

[buckeye05]

Honestly, the Grand Blanc damage is much less severe than I was anticipating. It might not even meet the criteria for EF2.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

Honestly, the Grand Blanc damage is much less severe than I was anticipating. It might not even meet the criteria for EF2.

Weaker-spectrum tornadoes can wreck a lot of stuff if they go through a city, but substantial site-built structures resist them well enough that they usually don't cause fatalities/serious injuries if everyone is properly sheltered.

 

[buckeye05]

Damage in Hilliard, OH which is a large suburb of Columbus. This may have been from the same tornado that hit the West Jefferson area.

 

[buckeye05]

Weaker-spectrum tornadoes can wreck a lot of stuff if they go through a city, but substantial site-built structures resist them well enough that they usually don't cause fatalities/serious injuries if everyone is properly sheltered.

I think it lofted enough lightweight debris to make it look really scary on CC. The thing about dual-pol is that when you see that dreaded blue dot, it could either be leaves and lightweight debris, or large parts of trees, vehicles, and buildings in the air, and still look the same.

Thankfully this appears to have been a “bark worse than the bite” situation.

 

[KevinH]

That one came dangerously close to Yellow Springs; my favorite small town in Ohio.

I’m also concerned about what this will bring to the Columbus metro.

Yellow Springs is where the comedian Dave Chappelle lives

 

[buckeye05]

Yellow Springs is where the comedian Dave Chappelle lives

Haha yeah when I lived in that area, I used to see him at the gym and at local bars every once in a while. Pretty much every Dayton area resident has a “I saw Dave Chapelle at so and so” story.

 

[buckeye05]

The damage at this industrial facility is the worst I’ve seen yet in Grand Blanc. Nothing insane, but I may have been a bit too dismissive with the “not even an EF2” comment. This also explains the big CC drop; tons of insulation and metal sheeting got lofted.

 

[Clancy]

Low-end wind risk today for the squall line moving towards the Eastern Seaboard.

...THERE IS A MARGINAL RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS THE
APPALACHIANS STATES/EASTERN U.S....

...SUMMARY...
Isolated strong to locally severe wind gusts will be possible today
from the Tennessee Valley and west slopes of the Appalachians to
western New England, the Mid-Atlantic Region, and portions of the
Carolinas.

...Tennessee Valley/Appalachians...
A well-organized northeast/southwest-oriented thunderstorm squall
line continues to progress generally eastward across northern
Alabama, eastern Tennessee as well as southeast Kentucky and
southern West Virginia as of late morning, largely paralleling an
eastward-moving cold front. Periodic strong or locally severe wind
gusts will remain a possibility across a broad portion of the region
today, but especially across the Tennessee Valley toward southern
Appalachians where somewhat stronger heating and destabilization are
expected coincident with the southern periphery of strong winds
aloft and weak height falls. Farther north, showers and cloud cover
will tend to remain prevalent across much of the pre-frontal warm
sector across the Northeast, although some clearing/weak
destabilization is possible later this afternoon immediately near
the front currently across the Upper Ohio Valley.

..Guyer/Bentley.. 02/28/2024

 

[TH2002]

I think part of the reason the Grand Blanc tornado looked so scary on radar is its proximity to the radar site. At least on Level 3 data, those deep blues are more likely to show up with a tornado that's close to the radar.

 

[Clancy]

Still severe warnings on this squall line as it moves east.

 

[UncleJuJu98]

I think part of the reason the Grand Blanc tornado looked so scary on radar is its proximity to the radar site. At least on Level 3 data, those deep blues are more likely to show up with a tornado that's close to the radar.

Reminds me kindve of the armory Mississippi tornado back on the night of the rolling fork tornado. So close and looked so bad. But only because it was so close. This was the ef3 armory tornado, super gnarly because of proximity to radar

 

[atrainguy]

Grand Blanc tornado has a preliminary rating of low-end EF2 (115mph). Calhoun County has preliminary rating of EF1.

 

[JPWX]

Grand Blanc tornado has a preliminary rating of low-end EF2 (115mph). Calhoun County has preliminary rating of EF1.

Well, folks, we've got linkages to both 1974 and 2011 now that keep popping up. Two years you don't want to see pop up going into Spring..... Alas here we are.

 

[atrainguy]

Here's a couple more pics of the destroyed warehouse and surveillance video from inside the tornado:

 

[Equus]

We're getting some substantial coverage of wind damage reports and 70+ mph gusts along that line today, definitely overperforming for a marginal risk. Was a little surprised to wake up to thunder and a SWS. Lots of full on severe warnings now and some 70+ gusts in the Atlanta metro earlier

Meanwhile, seeing some sources claim that the largest of the TX panhandle wildfires is up to 850k acres, which if true stands an outside chance at becoming the state's biggest on record if not contained soon before winds pick up again