The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for New York City, in effect until 7 pm.
Eight tornadoes have been confirmed in New York City since 1974, according to the New York Times, including last month's Jamaica Bay twister.
Here's what area conditions looked like as of 12:29 Eastern Daylight Savings Time:
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In a tweet yesterday, meteorologist Jim Cantore mentioned a "super outbreak of 1974" when talking about Hurricane Sandy's potential to be a disastrous Hurricane.
That got us wondering: What the heck is he talking about?
The "super outbreak" was the worst tornado outbreak in U.S. history, which happened April 3 and 4, 1974.
An incredible number of tornadoes hit 13 states: Alabama, Georgie, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the technology of 1974 was not able to quickly and accurately predict tornadoes. The National Weather Service needed visual confirmation of a tornado in order to issue a warning, which resulted in an incredible amount of damage.
Even with current warning systems, as Cantore alluded to in his tweet, disastrous tornado storms still happen. From April 25 through 28 in 2011 the largest tornado outbreak ever recorded tore through the Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern United States. 358 tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service in 21 states from Texas to New York and in southern Canada causing an insane amount of damage.
Source: NOAA
Source: NOAA
A line of storms is working its way through Alabama and with it bringing reports of a possible tornado in parts of Mobile, The Weather Channel reported Thursday morning.
No one was injured in the tornado but some buildings were damaged. According to the National Weather Service, the tornado touched down about 7 miles east of Mobile's airport.
The Weather Channel's Mike Bettes tweeted this dramatic picture of a car flipped over at a dealership in Mobile by the tornado:
"This combination will maintain the threat of severe thunderstorms and possibly a few more tornadoes through tonight," weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen said.
The National Weather Service's Weather Forecast Office posted Thursday morning a pretty long local storm report, detailing all of the damage in Mobile.
"Severe damage to residences and businesses" on some streets, as well as downed trees and flipped furniture truck have been reported so far.
Two banks, a medical center, multiple homes, and a hotel have been damaged, with all damage likely caused by the tornado, Bettes posted on his Facebook page.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch earlier today for the following counties:
Autauga Baldwin Bibb Butler Chilton Choctaw Clarke Conecuh Coosa Covington Crenshaw Dallas Elmore Escambia Greene Hale Lowndes Marengo Mobile Monroe Montgomery Perry Pickens Sumter Tallapoosa Tuscaloosa Washington Wilcox.
The watch is set to expire at noon CST.
In Christmas day, more than 34 tornadoes were reported in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. At least 100 homes and businesses were damaged by storms in Mobile, Ala., CNN is reporting.
The video below shows one of those tornadoes tearing through a Walgreens drug store in Mobile, Alabama. From the video description on YouTube:
Just released Footage. Walgreens Pharmacy on Government St. at the loop in Mobile Alabama when a tornado struck the area on Christmas Day. Footage shows both outside and inside of business. Watch as customers scramble to safety. A Tornado struck this same area just five days prior to this Christmas day Tornado.
Nasty thunderstorms send most people running for shelter. Not Mitch Dobrowner. When bad weather starts brewing, the Long-Island born photographer goes chasing after it.
"Photographing a storm is something between a hybrid of shooting a landscape and shooting a sporting event," Dobrowner tell us.
It's not just about paying attention to all the things that make a good photograph — exposure, composition, and focus. It's about having fun "while all hell is breaking loose around me," Dobrowner says of the biggest challenge he faces on the job.
Dobrowner started out by photographing landscapes of the American Southwest. It's during that time that he found himself going after storm systems because of the atmosphere and lighting that it created, he says.
He teamed up with experienced storm chase Roger Hill in 2009, who introduced him to Tornado Alley. That's where the most severe thunderstorms, known as supercells, are most common. Supercells produce strong bursts of hail, rainfall and wind, and often spawn tornadoes. They are powerful and unpredictable.
On July 19, 2010, while tracking a monster hailstorm in Moorcroft, Wyoming, Dobrowner pulled off a dirt road to wait for the storm to come over the hills. He was able to squeeze in a few shots before the tables turned. The large cell began heading directly toward Dobrowner's location, sending the photographer dashing back to his van.
"We were being chased by the storm — instead of us chasing after it. We attempted to get out of its way, and though we eluded its core, the town of Moorcroft, Wyoming was not so lucky," Dobrowner says.
Head over to Dobrowner's website to see more of his work.
Just one week after the East Coast bundled up through a deep freeze, Newark, New Jersey set a record high temperature today, Wednesday Jan. 30, hitting 65 degrees, according to weatherman Jim Cantore. This breaks the previous high of 64, which was set in 1947.
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 65 WAS SET AT NEWARK NJ TODAY. THISBREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 64 SET IN 1947. #NJwx
— Jim Cantore (@JimCantore) January 30, 2013
Unseasonally warm weather hit other areas of the East Coast as well — Meteorologist Scott Sinoff reported that Rutgers hit a high of 68, which doesn't break the previous record, but is pretty incredible.
In Oneida County, New York, an ice jam on Sauquoit Creek is stopping the water from draining, prompting a flash flood warning from the National Weather Service, which will remain in effect until 8:30 pm.
Thunderstorms are battering southwest Virgina, where there's a warning in effect until 4:30 p.m. The storms should hit Philadelphia by 4:45 p.m., the National Weather Service's Greg Forbes predicted earlier today.
Other areas of the country are dealing with tornadoes, which have killed at least two people and injured several more.
Thru 3pm EST, total of 504 #severe wx reports: 15 tornado reports, 468 severe t'storm wind reports, 21 large hail reports.
— TWC Breaking (@TWCBreaking) January 30, 2013
Here's the weather warnings and watches for the U.S. as of 3:48 pm. Visit Weather.gov for the latest information:
Wednesday was a strange day for weather across the nation. Tornadoes hit the Midwest, thunderstorms shot up the East Coast, and multiple places in New York and New Jersey experienced record-high temperatures.
As of this morning The Weather Channel is reporting that there were:
13 confirmed tornadoes in 8 states
676 high wind/wind damage reports
13 reports of large hail
We've collected some of the most striking pictures of the storms and their aftermath. The weather has left 215,000 powerless in the Northeast after high winds — reaching up to 81 miles per hour in some areas — took down power lines.
If you have any others you would like to share, feel free to send them to jwelsh@businessinsider.com or tweet them at us @bi_sci.
The same brutal storm system that spawned severe thunderstorms in the New England region Wednesday evening produced at least one tornado in Arkansas earlier in the day.
ABC News meteorologist Ginger Zee was on the scene in Mountain View, Ark. and captured a massive tornado on the horizon right after it hit nearby Clinton, Ark.
Check it out below.
A powerful storm that spawned at least three tornadoes ripped through northern Texas, killing six people and injuring more than 100.
The fatalities occurred in the town of Granbury in Hood County, where county sheriff Roger Deeds said the storm destroyed nearly 120 homes in one neighborhood.
"At this point... I've got 14 people that are unaccounted for," Deeds told reporters. "It's definitely a nightmare."
Granbury is a town of 8,000 located about 65 miles southwest of Dallas.
"We heard the winds whipping and glass smashing everywhere," one resident toldFox News. "I felt like a long time and when things died down I looked up and saw that the roof was gone."
NBCDFW.com reporter Jeff Smithsaid that "dozens of homes" had been destroyed in nearby Cleburne.
The tornadoes were the deadliest to hit the U.S. so far this year.
Here's an amateur video, showing one of the twisters, taken from someone's back yard in Granbury:
And here's one touching down in nearby Milsap:
On Wednesday night, hail the size of grapefruits rained down on Granbury, Texas, right before as many as three tornadoes rolled through the town, resulting in at least six confirmed deaths, CBS Local reports.
Here's a picture posted by Twitter user Patrick Vondra:
@corbydavidson they had this in granbury, I hope you have your 7 iron ready twitter.com/Vondaddy/statu…
— Patrick Vondra (@Vondaddy) May 16, 2013
And here's video of the hail storm from that evening:
At least one person died and 21 were injured in Oklahoma on Sunday as a massive storm front hammered the Midwest with fist-sized hail, blinding rain, and as many as 26 tornadoes.
Twisters were spotted in parts of Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Illinois, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and local news reports. The day's first tornado touched down near Wichita, Kan. at about 16:45 p.m. EDT.
Here's a veteran storm chaser in Kansas watching a tornado form and confirming when it touches down:
This one of amateur chasers in Edmond, Okla., is just insane:
Chris Francescani of Reuters notes that "hail stones, some as large as baseballs, were reported from Georgia to Minnesota," and the projectiles knocked out power for thousands.
Carl Brewer, the mayor of Wichita, Kan. told Fox News that golf ball-sized hail ripped through the sides of houses in addition to breaking windows and damaging cars in town.
"That alone, and the rain, actually just really did a number on the city," he said. "It was so bad you think a tornado came through."
Fox News reported that one person was killed in Shawnee, Okla., a town east of Oklahoma City where houses were destroyed by a half-mile wide twister.
Check out how massive and powerful this thing is:
Here's one example of the aftermath in Shawnee:
Here's a picture of a 7-year-old girl and her grandfather in the town on Dale, Okla., about 10 miles northwest of Shawnee, waiting as search and rescue efforts take place in their neighborhood.
The extreme weather is expected to continue on Monday, according to the NOAA.
Let's check out that lightning one more time:
A huge tornado hit areas near Oklahoma City Monday afternoon, marking the second time a tornado hit the state in recent days.
Local news affiliate KFOR reports that the twister appeared have touched down in Newcastle, just south of Oklahoma City, before heading through the suburb of Moore. KFOR estimates that the damage affected around 30 square miles.
The state medical examiner's office told ABC News and CBS on Monday that at least 51 people had been killed, but that number was likely to rise. Officials later revised that number down to 24 confirmed dead, including seven children, but cautioned that more bodies may be uncovered in the rubble, according toReuters.
Hospitals are said to be treating more than 120 patients, including 70 children, the AP reports.
This image from the National Weather Service shows the preliminary path of the tornado:
The tornado is believed to have been at least an F4, possibly an F5 (the highest category) and at least a mile wide. The National Weather Service says that the winds may have reached 200 mph during the tornado.
KFOR's news anchor described it as "ripping up everything in its sight," and reporters on the ground said it was leaving "Atomic bomb-like devastation."
The National Weather Service issued a "tornado emergency" for the Oklahoma City area, and has called the tornado "large and extremely dangerous," USA Today reports.
KFOR reporters say that at least two schools in Moore have been hit by the tornado and severely damaged. One reporter described seeing third graders being pulled out of school after the storm, and there are reports that 75 people were in Plaza Towers Elementary school when the tornado hit.
Images from the live feed appear to show parts of the town virtually flattened:
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Video footage from NBC shows large fires, with no fire engines on the scene.
KFOR interviewed one man who survived the storm by hiding in a horse stall. He told reporters that only one horse at the farm survived:
This vine from Oklahoma City resident David Massey shows the damage:
Another Vine from Massey shows people searching through an enormous amount of rubble:
Moore was hit hard by a tornado in 1999 that included the highest winds ever recorded near the earth's surface. A meteorologist for KFOR is predicting that today's tornado may have left more damage.
SEE ALSO: Photos of the devastation in Oklahoma >
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After a damaging tornado tore through areas south of Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, severe weather, including hail, heavy winds, and strong tornadoes, will remain a threat from Central Missouri to North Texas today through tonight, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Here is the latest severe weather map from NWS. Red indicates a tornado warning, yellow a tornado watch, orange a severe thunderstorm warning, and light blue a severe weather statement.
As of 5:23 EDT, The National Weather Service (NWS) in Tulsa issued a tornado warning for southwestern Nowata County and Washington County, both in northeast Oklahoma.
"At 4:21 p.m. CDT...a large and extremely dangerous tornado was located 3 miles southeast of Romona," NWS writes. "This life threatening tornado is capable of extreme damage!"
If underground shelter is not available, the agency says to move to a room on the lowest floor, away from windows. Mobile homes and vehicles should be abandoned.
Here is the latest tornado map from NOAA. The highest tornado probability is centered over Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma City tornado that hit yesterday devastated the suburb of Moore.
This twister was reportedly two miles wide at one point and was bigger and had a wider path than the May 3, 1999 tornado. It could end up being the most destructive tornado in history.
The death toll from the tornado has been revised down to 24. But the recovery effort will be a long one.
For those interested in supporting the people of Oklahoma, the red cross has set up a donation page
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The mile-wide tornado that hit Oklahoma City suburbs today is reminiscent of the the May 3, 1999 tornado that wreaked havoc in the same area — killing 46 and causing $1.1 billion in damage.
It could even be worse.
"There appears to be a wider damage path than the May 3 1999 tornado," Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Lab told Business Insider. "We know of at least 2 elementary schools that were hit."
Recovery crews are sifting through the damage for survivors, and it will be days before we know the full extent of the deadly storm system's damage.
"It appears to be a violent tornado... an EF4 at least," Brooks said. An EF4 is the second highest rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which rates tornadoes by the damage caused.
These tornadoes are violent, and with wind speeds up to 200 miles per hour. Damage from this tornado typically results in a total loss of the affected structure, so underground shelter is needed to survive unhurt.
The twister that ran through Moore was on the ground for 40 minutes, according to the National Weather Service.
"There's a whole bunch of other storms that are tornadoing around the area," Brooks said, and this storm hasn't petered out yet. It could still move on and produce tornadoes over areas near Shawnee that were hit in storms yesterday.
Today's tornado has already crossed paths with the path of the deadly May 3 tornado, including the town of Moore, where those elementary schools are, was also destroyed in the 1999 tornado.
Tornadoes are pretty frequent in Oklahoma, but how disastrous they are depends on what part of town they go through, in a rural area, a tornado might not hurt anyone, but if it goes through the center of the city, there will be a lot of damage.
"We get events of this magnitude every couple of years, and always some of the equation is what gets hit," Brooks said. "The ones yesterday would have been more deadly if they had hit about 30 miles away. They hit mostly rural areas."
Yesterday's storm was also an EF4, but today's was much worse because it ran through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore.
Brooks isn't the only one worried about the potential damage from this mile-wide twister, with local meteorologists covering the story reportedly saying this could be one of the more damaging and severe tornadoes they've ever seen.
A string of severe storms on Monday are brought hail, damaging winds, and strong tornadoes to a wide swath of the nation, affecting areas from central Missouri to North Texas.
ChaserTV.com is streaming live video from storm-chaser vehicles swarming the tornado-devastated region. A static map is shown below, but you can view of the interactive map with featured video over at ChasterTV.
Meanwhile, residents are being warned to seek shelter underground and abandon mobile homes or vehicles in areas where tornado warnings have been issued.
Mother Jones' Clara Jeffrey posts this stunning before/after photo of Moore, Oklahoma, where a massive tornado has leveled buildings (Click on the image to see full-size).
:( Moore, OK before and after: twitter.com/WithDrake/stat…
— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) May 20, 2013
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One of the schools devastated by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma is Plaza Towers elementary.
Here's what it looks like in normal times.
And, via KFOR, here's what it looks like now.
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There's no estimate yet on the total casualties from a devastating tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, which wiped out whole neighborhoods and schools.
The same area was struck by another powerful tornado in 1999, which killed 46.
Below is a list of the deadliest U.S. tornadoes on record from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which notes that death counts for events in the early 1900s and before should be treated as estimates.
DATE | LOCATION(S) | DEATHS | |
1 | 18 Mar 1925 | Tri-State (MO/IL/IN) | 695 |
2 | 06 May 1840 | Natchez MS | 317 |
3 | 27 May 1896 | St. Louis MO | 255 |
4 | 05 Apr 1936 | Tupelo MS | 216 |
5 | 06 Apr 1936 | Gainesville GA | 203 |
6 | 09 Apr 1947 | Woodward OK | 181 |
7 | 22 May 2011 | Joplin MO | 158 |
8 | 24 Apr 1908 | Amite LA, Purvis MS | 143 |
9 | 12 Jun 1899 | New Richmond WI | 117 |
10 | 8 Jun 1953 | Flint MI | 116 |
11t | 11 May 1953 | Waco TX | 114 |
11t | 18 May 1902 | Goliad TX | 114 |
13 | 23 Mar 1913 | Omaha NE | 103 |
14 | 26 May 1917 | Mattoon IL | 101 |
15 | 23 Jun 1944 | Shinnston WV | 100 |
16 | 18 Apr 1880 | Marshfield MO | 99 |
17t | 01 Jun 1903 | Gainesville GA | 98 |
17t | 09 May 1927 | Poplar Bluff MO | 98 |
19 | 10 May 1905 | Snyder OK | 97 |
20 | 3 Jun 1860 | Comanche IA, Albany IL | 92 |
21 | 24 Apr 1908 | Natchez MS | 91 |
22 | 09 Jun 1953 | Worcester MA | 90 |
23 | 20 Apr 1920 | Starkville MS to Waco AL | 88 |
24 | 28 Jun 1924 | Lorain/Sandusky OH | 85 |
25 | 25 May 1955 | Udall KS | 80 |
SEE ALSO: Oklahoma City Tornados Pictures: 'Total Devastation'
