"Large, destructive" tornado slams Houston suburbs

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Tim_Tex
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24 Jan 2023, 8:09 pm

https://abc13.com/houston-weather-forecast-today-texas-rain-storm-predictions-temperatures/39346/

It just missed my house by ~2 miles. Miraculously, we didn't lose power or have any damage, but I took precautions and got in a closet with my dog.

Many of the restaurants and stores we frequent had some damage. The main street in my town is an absolute war zone.


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Tim_Tex
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26 Jan 2023, 7:00 am

Update: It was rated an EF-3.

Although Texas is infamous for tornadoes, EF-3+ ones are rare in the southern part of the state, which includes Houston. We did have an EF-4 about 30 years ago, and never any EF5s.


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ASPartOfMe
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26 Jan 2023, 1:03 pm

In recent years, researchers have noticed that fewer tornadoes were touching down in the Great Plains and that more were hitting the Southeast.

Quote:
A tornado that tore through the Houston area on Tuesday was the kind of early-season storm that scientists say has been occurring with increasing regularity — a sign that patterns of severe weather are shifting.

The tornado struck Pasadena, southeast of Houston, seriously damaging homes and other buildings and knocking out power to thousands in the city and its surrounding areas. More than a dozen other tornado sightings were reported as the storm moved across the Gulf Coast, although they have yet to be confirmed by the National Weather Service.

The spate of reported tornadoes adds to changes that experts have been observing in recent years — specifically, that where and when tornadoes occur has begun to shift.

Historically, tornadoes were most likely to strike within a column of the central U.S. that was nicknamed “Tornado Alley.” The area includes parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. In recent years, however, researchers noticed that fewer tornadoes were touching down in the Great Plains and that more were hitting the Southeast.

Tornado Alley’s changing borders can have deadly consequences, said Victor Gensini, an associate professor in the department of earth, atmosphere and environment at Northern Illinois University, who published key research on the topic in 2018 and has studied the shift extensively.

“The No. 1 thing is that we have greater population density in the Mid-South,” Gensini said. “There are basically more targets to hit on the dartboard.”

The differing landscapes are also a factor in a storm’s destructiveness. In areas with tightly packed cities, lots of trees and less open space, for example, a tornado can cause more catastrophic damage

There are also more vulnerable communities across the Southeast, particularly among people who live in mobile homes, Gensini said.

“Half of all tornado fatalities happen in mobile homes,” he said. “If you’re living in a mobile home during a tornado warning, it’s already too late. That’s a major vulnerability.”

Tornadoes can develop at any time with the right atmospheric ingredients, but they are typically concentrated within a season that lasts from March through June. Increasingly, however, such storms are spinning up earlier in the year, in months not usually associated with strong tornado activity.

The first three weeks of 2023 have already had some of the highest numbers of reported tornadoes for this time of year, Gensini said.

We’re well above average in terms of the number of tornadoes that we would expect for the month of January,” he said.

A major reason for the stormy start to the year is a naturally occurring climate pattern known as La Niña, in which cooler-than-average water in the Pacific Ocean influences weather systems around the world.

Both La Niña and its warmer counterpart, El Niño, affect the positioning of the jet stream, which is powered by temperature differences between the cooler polar region to the north and warmer air masses to the south. Scientists think changes in the jet stream may help explain the uptick in storms — with increasing atmospheric instability possibly affecting areas under the flow of fast-moving air — but it’s still an area of active research.

“The jury is still kind of out on that, but that’s kind of a preliminary hypothesis that our group is trying to start testing,” Gensini said.

Global warming is also likely to be a factor, experts said, although detecting the specific effects of climate change on tornadoes has been more challenging than with other extreme weather events, such as hurricanes.

Part of the difficulty arises because studies have suggested competing effects, said Christopher Weiss, a professor of atmospheric science at Texas Tech University.

As the world warms, atmospheric instability will increase, creating conditions more favorable for storms to develop. Yet, at the same time, strong wind shear, where winds increase and rapidly change direction at different atmospheric heights, is forecast to decrease as a result of climate change. Weaker wind shear could reduce the amount of warm, rising air in storms and therefore suppress the formation of tornadoes. Scientists are still trying to understand what these seemingly conflicting outcomes could mean for tornadoes, but Weiss said studies have suggested that a warmer climate will produce more storms.


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26 Jan 2023, 6:40 pm

Keep us updated and continue to stay safe!


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27 Jan 2023, 8:05 am

AnonymousAnonymous wrote:
Keep us updated and continue to stay safe!


Most of the businesses that weren't damaged have their power back on and have resumed operations. Even some of the ones with roof damage have opened with generator power and limited operations.

The tornado blew out the entire front door of a grocery store, stripped the siding off the Walgreens in the same shopping center, and hollowed out a strip center. A wall collapsed at the skating rink I went to as a child (for the records, I am a horrible skater), and it blew off the roof of the animal shelter the next town over (the same one where we got Penny, my dog).

All the employees and animals at the shelter were uninjured.

Only one injury and no fatalities, which is amazing for an EF-3 tornado.


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Tim_Tex
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27 Jan 2023, 8:08 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:
In recent years, researchers have noticed that fewer tornadoes were touching down in the Great Plains and that more were hitting the Southeast.
Quote:
A tornado that tore through the Houston area on Tuesday was the kind of early-season storm that scientists say has been occurring with increasing regularity — a sign that patterns of severe weather are shifting.

The tornado struck Pasadena, southeast of Houston, seriously damaging homes and other buildings and knocking out power to thousands in the city and its surrounding areas. More than a dozen other tornado sightings were reported as the storm moved across the Gulf Coast, although they have yet to be confirmed by the National Weather Service.

The spate of reported tornadoes adds to changes that experts have been observing in recent years — specifically, that where and when tornadoes occur has begun to shift.

Historically, tornadoes were most likely to strike within a column of the central U.S. that was nicknamed “Tornado Alley.” The area includes parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. In recent years, however, researchers noticed that fewer tornadoes were touching down in the Great Plains and that more were hitting the Southeast.

Tornado Alley’s changing borders can have deadly consequences, said Victor Gensini, an associate professor in the department of earth, atmosphere and environment at Northern Illinois University, who published key research on the topic in 2018 and has studied the shift extensively.

“The No. 1 thing is that we have greater population density in the Mid-South,” Gensini said. “There are basically more targets to hit on the dartboard.”

The differing landscapes are also a factor in a storm’s destructiveness. In areas with tightly packed cities, lots of trees and less open space, for example, a tornado can cause more catastrophic damage

There are also more vulnerable communities across the Southeast, particularly among people who live in mobile homes, Gensini said.

“Half of all tornado fatalities happen in mobile homes,” he said. “If you’re living in a mobile home during a tornado warning, it’s already too late. That’s a major vulnerability.”

Tornadoes can develop at any time with the right atmospheric ingredients, but they are typically concentrated within a season that lasts from March through June. Increasingly, however, such storms are spinning up earlier in the year, in months not usually associated with strong tornado activity.

The first three weeks of 2023 have already had some of the highest numbers of reported tornadoes for this time of year, Gensini said.

We’re well above average in terms of the number of tornadoes that we would expect for the month of January,” he said.

A major reason for the stormy start to the year is a naturally occurring climate pattern known as La Niña, in which cooler-than-average water in the Pacific Ocean influences weather systems around the world.

Both La Niña and its warmer counterpart, El Niño, affect the positioning of the jet stream, which is powered by temperature differences between the cooler polar region to the north and warmer air masses to the south. Scientists think changes in the jet stream may help explain the uptick in storms — with increasing atmospheric instability possibly affecting areas under the flow of fast-moving air — but it’s still an area of active research.

“The jury is still kind of out on that, but that’s kind of a preliminary hypothesis that our group is trying to start testing,” Gensini said.

Global warming is also likely to be a factor, experts said, although detecting the specific effects of climate change on tornadoes has been more challenging than with other extreme weather events, such as hurricanes.

Part of the difficulty arises because studies have suggested competing effects, said Christopher Weiss, a professor of atmospheric science at Texas Tech University.

As the world warms, atmospheric instability will increase, creating conditions more favorable for storms to develop. Yet, at the same time, strong wind shear, where winds increase and rapidly change direction at different atmospheric heights, is forecast to decrease as a result of climate change. Weaker wind shear could reduce the amount of warm, rising air in storms and therefore suppress the formation of tornadoes. Scientists are still trying to understand what these seemingly conflicting outcomes could mean for tornadoes, but Weiss said studies have suggested that a warmer climate will produce more storms.


The southeast is called Dixie Alley. There is a town in Alabama that was hit by two EF-5s within 30 minutes of each other in the 1974 Super Outbreak, and by another in the 2011 Super Outbreak.


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Texasmoneyman300
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27 Jan 2023, 8:16 am

Tim_Tex wrote:
https://abc13.com/houston-weather-forecast-today-texas-rain-storm-predictions-temperatures/39346/

It just missed my house by ~2 miles. Miraculously, we didn't lose power or have any damage, but I took precautions and got in a closet with my dog.

Many of the restaurants and stores we frequent had some damage. The main street in my town is an absolute war zone.

I am so glad you are safe.



Summer_Twilight
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27 Jan 2023, 8:46 am

Tim_Tex wrote:
https://abc13.com/houston-weather-forecast-today-texas-rain-storm-predictions-temperatures/39346/

It just missed my house by ~2 miles. Miraculously, we didn't lose power or have any damage, but I took precautions and got in a closet with my dog.

Many of the restaurants and stores we frequent had some damage. The main street in my town is an absolute war zone.



Thank you for keeping us alert and I am glad that you are safe. I am interested in meteorology and tornadoes have always interested me. From what I read, you said this was an EF-5, I am curious, how wide was the tornado?



ASPartOfMe
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27 Jan 2023, 12:38 pm

Summer_Twilight wrote:
Tim_Tex wrote:
https://abc13.com/houston-weather-forecast-today-texas-rain-storm-predictions-temperatures/39346/

It just missed my house by ~2 miles. Miraculously, we didn't lose power or have any damage, but I took precautions and got in a closet with my dog.

Many of the restaurants and stores we frequent had some damage. The main street in my town is an absolute war zone.



Thank you for keeping us alert and I am glad that you are safe. I am interested in meteorology and tornadoes have always interested me. From what I read, you said this was an EF-5, I am curious, how wide was the tornado?


National Weather Service Houston - SOUTHEAST HARRIS COUNTY TORNADO SUMMARY
1000 yards


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