The preview to a multi-day volley. As the first wave in the series rotated through the trough, the next one helped carve the buckling jet-stream deep into the southwest U.
In the meantime, low pressure developed in the lee of the Rockies, as they tend to do in big Plains tornado events. SPC is the national office in charge of forecasting storms, and issuing severe weather watches. Even for a storm-hardened population, moderate risks are the days that get attention when they are issued. The exception to that rule was a lone supercell, which produced a narrow, but strong tornado in Ellis County. This storm was documented by Reed Timmer and Joel Taylor, as seen in the video below.
Towards dusk, another supercell formed to the north of the storm which produced the tornado in the video. Concurrent with this development was a strengthening in the wind fields at all levels as the low pressure trough approached from the west. While most thunderstorms tend to weaken or transition into complexes in the Plains after dark, the Greensburg case was an exception.
Thanks to continued moistening, due in part to a strong low-level jet stream a few thousand feet above the ground, conditions remained favorable well into the overnight.
By 10 p. CDT, or roughly when the Greensburg tornado moved through the town, it was abundantly clear that a high-end environment was in place. An examination of the crossovers winds at different heights at this time reveals highly favorable veering with height over Kansas. Nearly southeasterly flow at the surface, shifting to nearly west-southwesterly at mb. All with strong southerly flow at mb. As a result, a coupling of high instability and plentiful low level shear characterized the environment.
Therefore, conditions were quite ripe for strong and long-lived tornadoes in west-central Kansas, since the supercell had already overcome the capping inversion. The thunderstorm was of a truly historic magnitude, one that has scarcely been seen even in the most tornado-ravaged portions of the United States. While the parameter space was indeed high end, the amount of energy that this supercell expended during its exceptionally long lifespan dwarfs most comparative events that can be thrown at it.
For those following the storm and relaying critical information, figuring out where one end of the Greensburg tornado started and the other ended was tricky, even in frequent lightning flashes illuminating the beast. For those watching the storm unfold on radar, it was truly jaw dropping. The velocities showed this was a violent, violent tornado.
The radar loop below covers the tornadic life of the Greensburg cell. The very strong and long-lived rotation is clearly evident, as are some other things. One circulation weakens as another takes over to the east. Radar closeups: 4-panel over Greensburg Zoom reflectivity smoothed Velocity. As the monstrous tornado cut a path towards Greensburg, warnings from the NWS office in Dodge City became increasingly dire.
At p. CDT, a tornado emergency was issued by Mike Umscheid, strongly hinting of the impending destruction. It was one of the only uses of a tornado emergency born during the May 3, outbreak at the time, and the warnings are heavily credited with keeping the disaster as minimal in the death toll category as possible. Smith, also a Kansas resident in addition to meteorologist and author, gave high praise to all involved that night.
Despite great warning, Greensburg is only about 1. So the tornado impacted the whole town in some way. The scene was perhaps better described as post-apocalyptic than post-tornado. When it comes to houses, the difference between a 4 and a 5 is often whether the house is rubble still in place or if the house is blown away entirely. Trees are debarked in the strongest tornadoes like Greensburg, leaving them standing as disfigured sentinels amidst piles of rubble, or snapped and sent to far-off places.
Those standing might also feature puncture wounds from things like a flying sipping straw, or other weird objects. Vehicles are tossed as far as a mile or more in some cases. Even basements are not a guarantee of survival in the worst events, as projectiles may be launched only to later fall into them.
That was the state of Greensburg after the tornado passed. The persistence of this storm and its repeated cyclical tornado barrages was staggering. The power of wind. Exterior view of Kiowa County Memorial Hospital. Banner Image Credit :. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Last modified :. Steps to Resilience : This content supports the highlighted step. Tools :. Topics :. Building Resilience in the Energy Sector. Extreme Events. Building Health Care Sector Resilience.
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