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2019 Rain Thread


Biff Tannen

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Ok so I live in DFW and the surprise factor for these storms was pretty big. The local guys as late as yesterday morning said the primary threat was wind/heavy rain as the cold front came through but it would be short lived. And I think it was the channel 5 guy who said low tornado chances. Basically I’m not sure the first mega round that did the damage was even forecasted? Two tornadoes at least right?
 
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Cap broke early in several spots and allowed those storms to fire up. Disjointed storms are always most dangerous from a tornado perspective. The line that came through overnight was a son of a bitch but didn’t pack the tornado punch.

There’s a long explanation about how storms feed themselves and how broken lines invest more energy individually making them a high threat to spin up tornados but I’m no PhD nor did I sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.
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Oh shit.  I heard Walnut Hill had its tile roof ripped off, didn't realize it was wrecked.

That's a shame, that's a quaint, dare I say cute building.

Honestly, TJ was in pretty bad shape compared to the other North Dallas high schools (North Dallas HS itself notwithstanding).  Could have stood the re-do.

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25 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Between this and the June storms I imagine RIP to our insurance premiums.

They were already going bananas all across the state. This won't help.

EDIT: At least we're not California. It's next-to-impossible to find affordable coverage there now days.

Edited by C-Man
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Assembling the reports, it appears that the tornado started just north of Love Field, which would mean north of NW Hwy, crossed the tollroad between Walnut Hill and Royal, and crossed 75 at Forest.
It shouldn't have done much in Highland Park proper (south of Mockingbird) or UP (south of NW Hwy).
The later-night, earlier morning winds were more dramatic.  Except:  Right in the midst of the sirens as the tornado was being reported at the tollroad, it was eerily still.  And we lost power so we couldn't hear the fucking weather dude freaking out.  No data, either.  So that was fun.
IIRC [mention=1044]luke duke[/mention] lives in the area affected.  Check in, friendo.


I’m still here. We have power and the house is in damaged. A bunch of people about a half mile from me are fucked.
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Looked like Walnut Hill Elementary took even more damage than TJ based on aerial shots. I don't see how they'll be able to hold classes there until the spring at the earliest.


Walnut Hill is a total loss. Kids will be sent to Joe May for the foreseeable future. Cary MS is probably a total loss. TJ will be closed for the rest of the school year (at least).
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11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

A buddy who is on the west side of 75 came across 12 AC units that had been relocated by the tornado.  He managed to get some friends and haul 10 of them away, but had to leave two behind, because they were in a parking lot that had some people around.

your buddy is a looter?

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10 hours ago, Zepol87 said:

Side Note: Royal China is delicious

Double Side Note: Jew need to make reservations ahead of time if you are planning to eat lunch there Christmas Day.

 

8 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Most of the houses that were hit were of pretty high-quality construction, too.  No mobile homes or fox and jacobs shit.  Most are full brick veneer.

There’s at least one house I know of west of the tollway that was late ‘60s-ish with vaulted ceilings &  lots of wall without brick and it’s mostly gone. 

Also, the houses between the tollway and St. Mark’s (west of Preston) were thrown up in what seemed like a matter of months in the early ‘80s on slab foundations (not pier & beam) and a dozen+! of those houses look like collapsed structures made only by gluing 2x4s together. 

Those houses will be raised and what is built in their places will look nothing like the shit I described. 

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2 hours ago, C-Man said:


269be4103d739937a214ac47ffe27419.jpg

I spotted my parents’ house in that path. It has roofless houses to the west of it AND to the east of it. It absolutely SHOULD NOT HAVE ITS ROOF, but it does because the front door blew open and the door to the garage was sucked out and the garage door ripped apart and the pressure in the house dropped even though my brother closed the front door and raced my parents to interior closets.

 The exterior wall toward the twister was pulled outward, several inches from the carpet that used to be “wall-to-wall”, but they didn’t lose the roof and they didn’t lose the wall. 

Crappy foundation shifting has led the doors to not being perfect fits and that’s probably whit the front door blew open (was sucked open), so its faulty condition saved it for now, though it will probably have to be razed. 

Several people I know suffered damage to having their homes destroyed. 

The olds/empty nesters will collect insurance and sell their lots. There will be a major exodus of the olds, new houses, and an IN-migration of younger families. 

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18 minutes ago, LonghornJones said:

I cant remember which neighborhood you live/used to live in, but you should drive down Stults to see how close this got to Mass Haven Elementary.

Oh yeah,  I knew it was close. I'm in Oak Highlands but used to live off Vista View.  Was the Y hit at all?  Haven't been down there at all yet.

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37 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Oh yeah,  I knew it was close. I'm in Oak Highlands but used to live off Vista View.  Was the Y hit at all?  Haven't been down there at all yet.

Both sides of Greenville have tree damage at that exact spot but not sure about that structure. I know the storm in June knocked out all of the skylights over the pool. South of Whitehurst has nothing but debris that just fell out of the sky.

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33 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

I’m in the Electrical Distribution business as a District Sales Manager in the DFW area. Between yesterday and today we had so many delivery trucks on the road to assist contractors and service providers, I had to dispatch sales representatives to deliver material, I even took generator wiring to a long term customer of ours to assist with St. Marks this afternoon. The amount of devastation in that area is something I couldn’t comprehend. It was unbelievable. How no one at this moment hasn’t been killed is astonishing.

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3 hours ago, The Original CaliHorn said:

...even took generator wiring to a long term customer of ours to assist with St. Marks this afternoon. The amount of devastation in that area is something I couldn’t comprehend. It was unbelievable. How no one at this moment hasn’t been killed is astonishing.

I just got off the phone with a friend since high school. We had texted yesterday after I saw some of the photos of the rubble that used to be her mom’s house but forgot to ask her how she was handling it, because it was the house she grew up in. (My parents moved out of my childhood home 13 years ago and it was demolished less than 40 hours after the deal closed, so I have no attachment to the current house... that will probably end up being demolished.)

My friend was saying “All the trees are gone. GONE. I mean, you can’t recognize anything. I drove past [mom’s street] and didn’t even realize it.”

Her mom was in her [the mom’s] bedroom when the power went out*. She went downstairs to find a flashlight 🔦 and then the tornado hit. The arrow is pointing to her mom’s bedroom. 

9990179-E-43-F9-48-F6-9360-627-F34-F1-EA

*a high school classmate lives on that same street about 100 to 150 yards west of the girl’s mom and he said that his trampoline was lifted up and tore down power lines. That one friend’ trampoline might have save the other friend’s mother’s life. 

The mom who nearly died is pretty messed up psychologically at the moment. It sounds like she’s still in shock. 

I’ll be arriving in town Thursday night and will get my first look at everything on Friday morning. 

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13 hours ago, The Original CaliHorn said:

 How no one at this moment hasn’t been killed is astonishing.

Yeah, it is amazing, and nothing short of it, that no one was killed.   I know there were / are questions about how much advance warning was given but something went right in that respect. 

Or it was just sheer, unbridled luck. 

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Thomas Jefferson area had about 5 minutes advanced warning if you were not watching the Cowboy game. If you were watching the Cowboys there was no advanced notice. Channel 5 KXAS did not break programming with radar and location till the tornado was over the tollroad.

Preston Hollow area had about 12 minutes of warning.

I started watching the weather closely when large hail was kicking out of storms to the west and started putting up things and moving the cars into the garage. That was 8:45. By 9:00 we were starting to look at getting ready to shelter.

If you were watching the Cowboys game on NBC Channel 5 you would be unaware of any of this because they did not break into the Cowboys game till very late. Tornado sirens were going off shortly after 9pm in North Dallas but they are hard to hear inside larger well built homes.

Miracle no one was killed. KXAS Channel 5 is now facing enforcement action by the FCC by not broadcasting the tornado warning with written words and vocally for the disabled as required by law. They also blocked the Emergency Alert System warning which is another FCC enforcement action on their license. According to other media sources they will face sanctions and heavy fines.

Edited by CHEF DIESEL
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Wow.  Not being in DFW, I had just assumed Channel 5 was giving weather updates during the commercial breaks or at least running a crawl.  I hope the producer or whoever set the policy gets fired.

As to advance warning, the NWS' Storm Prediction Center had Dallas in a moderate risk category for severe storms, including tornadoes, and enhanced for the northern counties.  Enhanced is a relatively high concern that usually is issued only a few times per year.  That prediction was up 20 hours before the tornado hit and a tornado watch for DFW had been issued before the game started (I noted it in the game thread.)

And yes, channel 5 knew about it.  Sunday morning:

 

Edited by clapclapclap
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Maybe it's already been explained in this thread and I missed it, but it's crazy to me that both of our massive storm events in Dallas this year (June and last Sunday) seemingly popped out of nowhere.   I think the "enhanced and slight" risk shown in the tweets above really referred to the line that was supposed to hit around or after midnight.   Everyone was aware that line was coming (and it did blow through around 1AM) but I don't recall anything being expected before bedtime.  I remember because I had just finished smoking some turkeys and was eating when we saw initial flashes of lightning etc, around 8:15 and had to scramble to get things picked up outside.  It kind of goes to show that even with all the technology we have these big events are pretty damn unpredictable.

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KXAS Channel 5 issued an apology about not breaking into the Cowboys game:

https://www.nbcdfw.com/weather/stories/NBC-5-Dallas-Fort-WorthKXAS-Statement-Regarding-Sunday-Oct-20-2019-Weather-Coverage-563578861.html

Quote

During Sunday night's Dallas Cowboys game, we made a mistake by not immediately interrupting the football game with a Tornado Warning.

Although our meteorologists were tracking thunderstorms across the area when the National Weather Service issued a Tornado Warning for Dallas County, we delayed breaking into programming for six minutes.

When it comes to dealing with severe weather, we know that seconds matter. We should have broken into football programming sooner. We apologize and want you to know that we’re doing everything in our power to make sure this does not happen again.

We look forward to regaining the trust of anyone we may have disappointed.

Ol' Meterologist Harold Taft who was the patriarch of Texas weather worked for decades at KXAS. He would take a flamethrower to that station if he was still alive for not breaking programming. Knuckleheads at Channel 5 are ruining the legacy he built there as a trusted source of weather. Have to stick I guess with sensationalized roll your sleeves up Nebraskans like Pete Delkus over at Channel Ocho.

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On 10/21/2019 at 4:14 PM, Surly Bevo said:

 


Cap broke early in several spots and allowed those storms to fire up. Disjointed storms are always most dangerous from a tornado perspective. The line that came through overnight was a son of a bitch but didn’t pack the tornado punch.

There’s a long explanation about how storms feed themselves and how broken lines invest more energy individually making them a high threat to spin up tornados but I’m no PhD nor did I sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Maybe it's already been explained in this thread and I missed it, but it's crazy to me that both of our massive storm events in Dallas this year (June and last Sunday) seemingly popped out of nowhere.   I think the "enhanced and slight" risk shown in the tweets above really referred to the line that was supposed to hit around or after midnight.   Everyone was aware that line was coming (and it did blow through around 1AM) but I don't recall anything being expected before bedtime.  I remember because I had just finished smoking some turkeys and was eating when we saw initial flashes of lightning etc, around 8:15 and had to scramble to get things picked up outside.  It kind of goes to show that even with all the technology we have these big events are pretty damn unpredictable.

As stated in this quoted message, the 'Cap Broke' in the two major areas (south of downtown, and north of downtown) which allowed for the hot, humid air from the daytime to ascend high into the atmosphere really easily.  That causes incredible instability, and that instability is what allows supercell storms that produce tornadoes to develop in impressively short order.  

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1 minute ago, Trey3216 said:

 

As stated in this quoted message, the 'Cap Broke' in the two major areas (south of downtown, and north of downtown) which allowed for the hot, humid air from the daytime to ascend high into the atmosphere really easily.  That causes incredible instability, and that instability is what allows supercell storms that produce tornadoes to develop in impressively short order.  

So at what point in time did the meteorologists watching this realize the cap broke early?  Or is that something that's unknown until all hell breaks lose.   I follow a lot of the local weather guys on twitter and although I certainly could have missed it, I don't recall seeing anything in the hour or so leading up to the event that put me on alert.  Same with the shit show in June.

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8 minutes ago, Skipper said:

So at what point in time did the meteorologists watching this realize the cap broke early?  Or is that something that's unknown until all hell breaks lose.   I follow a lot of the local weather guys on twitter and although I certainly could have missed it, I don't recall seeing anything in the hour or so leading up to the event that put me on alert.  Same with the shit show in June.

If you go back and look at the genesis of the storms, they pretty much 'exploded out of nowhere'.  That's when the cap broke.  The incoming cool front had a lot of outflow boundary to it, that outflow boundary can lead the front by several hours (main front hit DFW area around midnight if I'm not mistaken).  Since that boundary will force hot/humid air upward (and it was several degrees warmer than forecast on Sunday), if the cap doesn't hold, you have massive instability on your hands in the spots where the cap is broken.  

 

Very similar to the Jerrell tornado in it's origination.   It happens more often than you think, but it is quite a unique scenario as well.  They don't often lead to events like the other night, you have to have perfect conditions.  

Edited by Trey3216
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10 minutes ago, Skipper said:

So at what point in time did the meteorologists watching this realize the cap broke early?  Or is that something that's unknown until all hell breaks lose.   I follow a lot of the local weather guys on twitter and although I certainly could have missed it, I don't recall seeing anything in the hour or so leading up to the event that put me on alert.  Same with the shit show in June.

Channel 8 was talking during their 5:30pm newscast on Sunday evening about the cap still in place but could break. Around 6 a large storm started building to the SW of DFW. The anvil ruined the sunset and made it hard for me to finish grilling dinner outdoors without lights on in Dallas.

One of the best guys to follow on storms is Steve McCauley. Not sure if he is still with Channel 8 but he does an excellent job forecasting weather from his house in Heath near Rockwall.

https://www.facebook.com/wfaa.steve.mccauley/

If you look back through his facebook feed he started posting about the storm at 7:07pm.

 

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Yeah, the scattered storms popped up around Mineral Wells and Stephenville in the 5 o'clock hour.  Various cells related to that moved or kept popping up as they rolled all the way across the Metroplex.  Several brief potential tornadic spinups picked up by radar apps along the way, I recall seeing them near Weatherford and Saginaw, but I don't recall if any were enough to prompt a tornado warning until the Dallas one.  After seeing one of those that's why I noted in the game thread at kickoff that the area was under a tornado watch. 

img_6152.jpg?resize=800,280&ssl=1

 

An hour before kickoff the local NWS wasn't sure what they'd do but was keeping an eye on them:

https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=FWD&issuedby=FWD&product=AFD&format=CI&version=36&glossary=1

National Weather Service Fort Worth TX
622 PM CDT Sun Oct 20 2019

.AVIATION...
/00Z TAFS/

Main concerns in the immediate short term are the little cluster
of initial convection to the southwest of the Metroplex. This
initial activity appears to be in response to the leading edge of
stronger forcing spreading in from the west and will continue to
fight some drier air aloft over the next hour. It`s a little
uncertain whether or not this will hold together and directly
impact the airports. We`ll show a VCSH to start the TAF off at the
major Metroplex airports and continue to monitor this closely.

Otherwise, the main show will arrive after dark in the 4-8Z
timeframe when thunderstorms are expected to erupt along the cold
front. We`ll continue with a VCTS at 4Z with prevailing TSRA from
6-8Z. The front will be accompanied by a wind shift to the
northwest and quickly improving conditions. VFR is expected to
prevail on Monday with north winds around 10 kt.

 

The smaller discreet storm cells separate or well ahead of a front are often the most dangerous.  BTW, that cluster near Longview produced some small tornadoes, including near Carthage.

Storm Prediction Center put out a couple of Mesoscale discussions for the area at 5:43 and 8:36 that local mets would have picked up on as areas to watch/causes for concern.  Those are always publicly available on their website:

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin-spc/getmd.pl?target=20191020

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md2085.html

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md2090.html

Edited by clapclapclap
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