Possibly 40 tornadoes roared through parts of the United States Plains on the evening of November 16 and into the morning of November 17th. Accuweather’s website has some impressive video footage of a massive tornado near Pampa, Texas. As I monitored social media, I saw a few nom-meteorologist friends remarking about how strange this seemed. “It’s not tornado season” seemed to be the thinking. Tim Marshall, a meteorologist, storm chaser and engineer with Haag Engineering Company, says:

The same conditions that produce the spring severe weather season also reappear in the fall (although it is to a lesser degree). It’s the never ending ebb and flow of the seasons.

Dr. Harold Brooks of NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory captures it perfectly:

Tornadoes can happen any time of year. It looks like the November 16th outbreak is the biggest outbreak of significant tornadoes in November on record this far west.

Dr. Brooks’, one of the foremost tornado experts in the world, preliminary assessment affirms at least two things. It isn’t necessarily weird to have tornadoes in November, but this was a rare outbreak in some ways. James Ladue, Senior Instructor at the Warning Decision Training Division of the National Weather Service, echoed some of Brooks initial thinking. He provided me with multi-radar/multi-sensor rotation tracks for the strongest portion of the outbreak. He told me in a message:

I think this outbreak is unprecedented for so far west, so late in the fall. But the model forecasts were spectacular, and that helped the NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center do a fantastic forecast for an enhanced outlook 2-3 days ahead of yesterday.

from Forbes – Tech http://ift.tt/1X5p5El
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