A Historically Active Tornado Season

Sorry to interrupt the Bachelorette, but my mind has been spinning frantically due to the recent deluge of severe weather.  The meteorological setup for the last two weeks has been compared to some of the worst historical severe weather scenarios, including outbreaks in 2003 and 2011 that I remember well.  The streak of “tornado days” (with 8 or more tornado reports) just ended at a staggering 13, the longest such streak since 1980.  And the streak of consecutive days with a reported tornado anywhere in the U.S. is the longest since 1991.  The sustained severe weather has been supported by a combination of factors: namely, a reasonably strong el niño influencing the jet stream, persistent cold air from the Rockies, and low-level moisture from a warm Gulf of Mexico and extensive surface flooding.  The ingredients are in place for storms to form on repeat, with warm humid surface-level air wanting to change places with cold air aloft, accelerated by a curving jet stream.  As the synoptic regime is covered extensively by recent press releases (shoutout to my colleague Dr. John Allen who was interviewed for practically every story), I find myself focusing on individual tornadic events, both to cope with the devastating losses to these communities and to understand the surface features that may have influenced the lifecycles of these specific tornadoes.  

Before getting into the rundown, I must touch on the catastrophic flooding throughout much of the domain.  Many parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri have received 10 inches or more above normal rainfall during May, so the land that isn’t flooded has saturated soil and/or lush vegetation.  It is indisputable that this abundance of surface moisture has fueled these severe weather outbreaks, as it is inconveniently located on the boundary between unseasonably warm air to the south and unseasonably cool air to the north.  A stationary front has created a dangerous terrarium of sorts, incubating severe storms on the daily.

Key tornadic events:

5/18/19: The Texas panhandle was under a strong triple point as the stationary warm front parked over the Kansas-Oklahoma border.  However, a few EF2 and EF3 tornadoes occurred farther south around Midland-Odessa and San Angelo, TX.

5/19/19: The high plains experienced elevated convection, to the glee of storm chasers.  This is the best case scenario for severe weather, as magnificent footage was taken of tornadoes in western KS with no loss of life or property.

5/20/19: This was a high risk day for most of Oklahoma, but thankfully there were no injuries in the two EF2 tornadoes (Mangum, OK and Peggs, OK) or in the long-track EF1 in Pittsburg, KS.

5/21/19: A continuation of the previous day’s conditions spawned several QLCSs across eastern OK and much of MO.  I was busy watching the radar in Springfield, since the largest tornado of the day was a long-track EF1 through the country 30 miles to the east of me.

5/22/19: The 8th anniversary of the Joplin tornado brought a scary situation: a storm that had previously spawned 2 tornadoes in Oklahoma intensified into an EF3 wedge about 5 miles to the north of Joplin.  While no one in the Joplin area was harmed, there were 3 fatalities farther down the storm track in Golden City.  The same night brought a devastating EF3 tornado to Jefferson City, damaging the capitol building and killing 4.  Jay, OK was also hit by an EF2…so far the correlation between tornado touchdowns and towns has been noticeably high.

5/23/19: The tornado risk jumps back to the west as the southern edge of El Reno, OK is hit by an EF3.  Again, it’s miraculous that there were no deaths considering that the tornado was strongest as it crossed I-40 and crashed through a motel.  The small town of Laverne, OK was also spared as an EF3 lifted upon its approach.

5/24-26/19: The streak of tornado days was kept alive by virtue of multiple tornado reports on a couple of weak, hopping tornadoes.  However, there was still significant damage incurred in Plainview, TX; Urbana-Champaign, IL; and Sapulpa, OK.

5/27/19: Dayton, OH was hit by the first of 3 scary supercells after sundown…an EF4 tracked all the way across the north side of the city, causing extensive damage and killing one elderly man.  Nighttime tornadoes in urban areas are the ultimate nightmare scenario, but from what I’ve been reading, this disaster was handled exceptionally well at all levels.  The other storms dropped EF2 tornadoes in Ohio and Indiana.

5/28/19: Another EF4 formed outside of Lawrence, KS and tracked to the western suburbs of Kansas City, doing its worst damage to Linwood, KS.  Some positive news came from this storm, as Reed Timmer and his team were able to launch sensors into the tornado, collecting invaluable data on the conditions inside the vortex.  Again, no deaths and 18 injuries seems incredibly lucky.  An EF2 near Reading, PA headlined a smaller severe weather outbreak in the Mid-Atlantic.

5/29/19: Canton, TX was the epicenter of a few EF0-EF2 tornadoes, just 25 months after a rash of EF2-EF4 tornadoes hit near the town.

5/30/19: Finally, the streak of tornado days ends with a single EF0 report in Wisconsin.

Long-term forecasts show a probable shift in the jet stream, hopefully ending this prolonged pattern of severe weather. Of course I have been running the surface CAPE simulation over various domains throughout this weather pattern, and I have plenty of new cases. Preliminary model data shows some promising predictive results, but every forecast will need to be thoroughly cross-checked with other meteorological data from these events prior to publication.  Coupled with data from storm chasers and a new release of topography layers by the USGS, I have quite a lot of data to sift through this summer. 

The Doomsday Forecast of 5/20/19

Today’s forecast was one of the scariest I have ever seen from the Storm Prediction Center. A ‘high’ risk day (5 out of 5), with up to a 45% chance of an EF2 or stronger tornado touching down within 25 miles of any point in western OK.  The local news outlets certainly sounded the alarm by Sunday, proclaiming that today’s storm system had the potential to be historic and drawing comparisons to other devastating outbreaks – most notably 5/24/11, which produced the long-track EF4 Piedmont tornado in what is widely studied by research meteorologists as one of the strongest observed supercells ever.  Today’s setup featured most of the hallmark ingredients of an active tornado day: high dew points in the warm sector, a well-defined dry line, steep temperature gradients both vertically and across a stationary front, and a vertical wind shear profile that was off-the-charts.  Schools were cancelled across much of the state in anticipation of an event with ‘numerous supercells with long-track tornadoes.’  But events of that severity are rare, posing uncertainty for meteorologists.  I was holding out hope that this forecast was an overreaction due to uncertainty, with the logic that it’s better to over-warn for a storm that turns out weaker than to under-warn for a storm that turns catastrophic.

I am not a meteorologist. But a meteorologist I know pointed out the absence of one key variable on tornado days: the capping inversion.  When instability and wind shear are extremely high, as they were today, storms tend to erupt all at once as a squall line.  Today, supercells were rare in the warm sector (at least near the frontal boundary – there were some long-lived supercells farther to the southwest in TX).  I thought my untrained eyes were missing something, but this subdued result may spark a discussion within the severe weather research community on the balance between wind shear and capping.  And there were no fatalities due to this storm system.  More analysis to come, but I’d call that a best-case scenario!

The Russell Westbrook Effect

(Update, 7/13/19:  This post aged strangely…I never imagined that this would be the last time seeing my favorite player don the jersey of my hometown team.  Of course it’s a tough loss, likely more painful than any playoff exit.  But it’s reminding me of so many spectacular moments over the years, best articulated in this heartfelt tribute from the Ringer.  Thanks for the memories, Russ, it’s been an unforgettable ride.)

After Damian Lillard ended the Oklahoma City Thunder’s season with an iconic stepback 37-footer in Portland several days ago, I’ve had numerous brooding thoughts about my favorite team’s most recent early playoff exit.  First of all, Lillard’s stellar outing in Game 5 was perhaps the greatest individual performance I’ve ever seen in 15+ years of watching the NBA.  He was able to score at will with high degree-of-difficulty moves, and there’s not much more a team can do than play tight defense.  But despite sweeping the regular season series against the Blazers this year, this playoff series was not close for the Thunder.  Doomed by a failure to sink 3-pointers consistently in a league where 3-point shooting has become the single most important ingredient for winning, the team simply can’t keep up with the scoring barrages of modern basketball as currently constructed.  As the cornerstone of a team built around athleticism, effort, and physicality, Russell Westbrook has unfairly received the lion’s share of criticism for his style of play and his central role in the Thunder’s recent postseason struggles.

Beginning even before his MVP season in 2017, proponents of the NBA’s analytics movement have knocked Russ for a range of reasons, particularly his comparatively inefficient shooting splits.  Several prominent members of the media have jumped on this bandwagon of constant criticism, followed by an army of keyboard warriors.  Even diehard Thunder fans have voiced some vitriolic frustrations with Russ, as his inconsistencies have become magnified over the past two seasons.  Flashes of brilliance have been swallowed by an overwhelmingly negative narrative, that Russ is a bad teammate who only cares about his individual statistics, that Russ’s emotions prevent him from playing smart basketball, that Russ has backslid into an ‘extremely overrated player,’ even a ‘laughingstock.’  While I rarely talk about sports on a public forum, the narrative has become so brutal around my favorite player that I feel the need to interject.  I’ve watched his entire career, and I have several reasons to believe that he’s an all-time great player who is wildly misunderstood.

Even the most hateful detractors agree that Russ stands above the rest of the league in one attribute: effort.  He became a successful NBA player because of his relentless determination, working tirelessly on his athleticism and stamina so he can play at full throttle for an entire game.  He’s simply wired to always play harder than anyone else on the floor.  It’s a heroic fault, especially as the league warms up to other star players sitting out entire games under the guise of ‘load management.’  To those who suggest that Russ should play slower or with less emotion, I think that’s too much to ask, and I frankly don’t understand why that’s being suggested.  Relating this to my brief and less illustrious athletic career, I laid it all on the line for practically every track and cross country race.  Like Russ, my pregame preparation never wavered: my rest and warmups were carefully timed, my stretching routine was executed in the exact order, and a precise number of peanut butter sandwiches were consumed.  My performance was consistent, showing slight improvement throughout the season as my fitness and strategy improved.  But when the state meet came around, I always got passed by a few competitors who saved their breakout race for the perfect occasion.  Apparently other high school boys didn’t dig down to their limit of excruciating, full-body pain every week.  I would search internally for another gear, but alas there was none.  Because I used my top gear for the end of every single race…I was just wired that way.

This physical determination is not to be confused with focus: the mental component that can make a person unstoppable.  A focused Russell Westbrook is a beautiful thing to behold, firing pinpoint passes to teammates, leaping into passing lanes for sensational steals, blasting through seams into the lane, rising up and releasing in-rhythm jumpshots at his apex.  Basketball is a cerebral sport, and the ‘zone’ is very real: when I play, I can only access this zone of top focus maybe 20-30% of the time.  I experience the same challenges with focus on tasks that feel like work, especially coding.  When I’m in the zone, I feel like I can create anything.  But it doesn’t last long, often yielding to prolonged frustration, like a writer’s block on whatever I try to do.  Summon all the effort in the world and this barrier remains impassible without the requisite focus.  And I find it incredibly hard to summon focus.  If my experience is any indication, Russ’s infamously ill-advised bricks and out-of-control turnovers are primarily a product of his unceasing effort but intermittent focus.

Because you know what, it’s tiring to try hard all the time, much less give the focused effort required for high-level basketball.  I know we’re told from a young age that we should always give our all, but I think that Russell Westbrook is an outlier in terms of applying that advice to his life.  While I don’t deliver quite the same intensity of effort as Russ, I still experience frequent burnout from pushing myself toward distant, possibly unattainable goals.  I’ve seen flashes of burnout in Russ’s game too, first in the 2017 playoffs when Russ’s herculean efforts repeatedly came up short against the deeper Houston Rockets in fourth quarters.  When faced with an uphill battle (and the Thunder have had numerous such battles, especially since 2016), Russ lowers his head and charges into the challenge, a truly admirable trait.  A credit to his leadership, the rest of the team has absorbed his identity of hard-nosed hustle, manifested as an exciting and frenetic brand of basketball that is unique around the league.  But the Thunder collectively lacked a clarity of focus to execute their schemes when it counted this year.  Perhaps his focus will one day match his intensity, but until then Russ has carried OKC (team and city alike) into battle for years and will continue to do so.  His energy is infectious, his play is electric, and his attitude is fearless.  Now get off his jock, America. 

Note: I’ve never met with a sports psychologist, nor do I know the first thing about sports psychology.  These are just some amateur observations based on my own attempts to muster focus and effort; I genuinely don’t know how my experience compares to other people’s internal response to such challenges.  Image credit: USA Today