Supercells have raked their way across the state of Mississippi this morning and early afternoon. I believe there is a tornado still on the ground in NE Mississippi as I type this entry. Towns have been hit, homes flattened, cars blown off the road, and apparently there are fatalities and people trapped in Yazoo City, Mississippi. They have set up a command center and the National Guard has been called in to assist with relief efforts.
The track of this cyclical tornadic supercell is one for the books. It stretches almost entirely the whole way across the state of Mississippi and it's still going...about 150 miles+ so far...
Not many chasers are out there due to the TERRIBLE chase country but keep checking back with the live streams as you might get lucky and catch a glimpse of one of these wedges.
Fortunately, they cancelled the NASCAR event in Talledega, Alabama...at least Emergency Managers are paying attention.
I guess I'm not surprised with these reports (36 so far) given the High Risk and PDS watches that have been issued...the day is NOT over yet...the convective peak is still upon us and these storms WILL go throughout the night with scores of more tornadoes expected. The mesoscale analysis composite indices are off the charts...it's ridiculous...0-1km EHI's around 10...sigTOR's of 10...etc, etc...
Above image is from after the tornado went through Yazoo City...note the red dots...those are the tornado reports associated with the same storm...impressive!
Back to bed I go...night shift part 2...
49 tornado reports.. good call on the outbreak Justin! Although you have to suspect that most of those tornado reports in Mississippi were from the same long tracked tornado. Not sure if it was down the whole time, or came in cycles.. but impressive nonetheless. With all the advanced warning, fatalities still reported.. some tornadoes are just not survivable unless you're under ground. I was also a little surprised that numerous cars were flipped on Interstate 55.. you figure that state troopers would have shut down the highway knowing that a tornadic storm was heading that way. Not enough time to react perhaps?
ReplyDeleteYeah Rob,
ReplyDeletefor such a long tracked event one would think that emergency management officials would have told law enforcement or even fire personnel to block off the major highways in the path of the tornado.