SEVERE WEATHER THREAT: 3/17/22 - 3/18/22
Mar 18, 2022 9:56:03 GMT -6
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grisairgasm, charitymike-Bridge City WB, and 1 more like this
Post by bayou on Mar 18, 2022 9:56:03 GMT -6
I don't have the facts and figures, so I can't speak statistically or precisely, mainly anecdotally, but in general, my feeling is that you have as high a chance or a higher chance of getting some or *any* kind of low end severe weather during general thunderstorms during the summer where there is no watch issued or big fuss made about severe weather, as you do during these hyped events. I am talking about southeast Louisiana and the central Gulf Coast area. A lot of these spring events don't even bring thunderstorms here, just low topped convective rain.
I turned 40 today. I can remember tracking storms since the 90s, and I have a good memory of local severe storms in the BR area since before that. What we keep seeing (severe weather forecasts busting here altogether in south Louisiana or the storms missing to the north, or both) is not new. Beyond my memory, climatology shows this as well.
Because of geographical placement, southeast Louisiana is pretty much never going to meaningfully participate in the large severe weather events to the north. Yes, there are some times like the April 2011 Derecho which bring widespread severe reports from the coast or near there and extending well inland into the interior southeast. But for the most part, big, warm and windy warm sector severe outbreaks just do not happen near the Gulf. Even the large tornado outbreak at the end of April that year largely spared places south of 31 degrees N. Our impacts from the large, historic outbreaks to the north are typically glancing or non existent outside of strong, warm winds feeding storms to the north.
Most of our tornadoes happen during small outbreaks, sometimes not even expected till a day or two before. These events tend to feature smaller, weaker, shorter track tornadoes, and muted severe weather in general compared to places just north. As long as the continents remain where they are and we abide in our subtropical climate, this will not change.
High end severe weather can and does occur here. F4 tornadoes have been documented in south Louisiana, but its exceedingly rare, and even EF3 tornadoes are rather uncommon here. If I remember right, outside of Hurricane Hilda, only two F4 tornadoes are documented in south LA. Even visible, non rain wrapped tornadoes are not common,but I stood on the levee in St. James in 2017 and watched a tornado near the Sunshine Bridge that looked as stereotypical as any tornado you could imagine. However those scenarios are by far the exception here.
I think it puts meteorologists in a difficult situation, but we see this happen too many times to pretend like it's not "a thing." What I mean is, we go through this same ritual multiple times a year. I get it, the models will often show all kinds of alarming things coming together that COULD cause something bad here, but those same models typically overestimate the convective placement and coverage across south LA and then when the high resolution models come into range, we see them showing convection predictably well to the north, and these models are disregarded or not even mentioned. Why? Why were they ignored yesterday?
Bottom line is, it takes a rare set up to create big tornadic storms in south Louisiana. It's good we don't get them more. But it's frustrating for the common person to be warned over and over again, and I think it is unreasonable to expect the average person, who does not understand or care about our unique severe weather climatology, to either be content with so many false alarms (failed outlooks, watches, warnings) or to examine the models and real time weather to see if this is just another case of crying wolf.
I turned 40 today. I can remember tracking storms since the 90s, and I have a good memory of local severe storms in the BR area since before that. What we keep seeing (severe weather forecasts busting here altogether in south Louisiana or the storms missing to the north, or both) is not new. Beyond my memory, climatology shows this as well.
Because of geographical placement, southeast Louisiana is pretty much never going to meaningfully participate in the large severe weather events to the north. Yes, there are some times like the April 2011 Derecho which bring widespread severe reports from the coast or near there and extending well inland into the interior southeast. But for the most part, big, warm and windy warm sector severe outbreaks just do not happen near the Gulf. Even the large tornado outbreak at the end of April that year largely spared places south of 31 degrees N. Our impacts from the large, historic outbreaks to the north are typically glancing or non existent outside of strong, warm winds feeding storms to the north.
Most of our tornadoes happen during small outbreaks, sometimes not even expected till a day or two before. These events tend to feature smaller, weaker, shorter track tornadoes, and muted severe weather in general compared to places just north. As long as the continents remain where they are and we abide in our subtropical climate, this will not change.
High end severe weather can and does occur here. F4 tornadoes have been documented in south Louisiana, but its exceedingly rare, and even EF3 tornadoes are rather uncommon here. If I remember right, outside of Hurricane Hilda, only two F4 tornadoes are documented in south LA. Even visible, non rain wrapped tornadoes are not common,but I stood on the levee in St. James in 2017 and watched a tornado near the Sunshine Bridge that looked as stereotypical as any tornado you could imagine. However those scenarios are by far the exception here.
I think it puts meteorologists in a difficult situation, but we see this happen too many times to pretend like it's not "a thing." What I mean is, we go through this same ritual multiple times a year. I get it, the models will often show all kinds of alarming things coming together that COULD cause something bad here, but those same models typically overestimate the convective placement and coverage across south LA and then when the high resolution models come into range, we see them showing convection predictably well to the north, and these models are disregarded or not even mentioned. Why? Why were they ignored yesterday?
Bottom line is, it takes a rare set up to create big tornadic storms in south Louisiana. It's good we don't get them more. But it's frustrating for the common person to be warned over and over again, and I think it is unreasonable to expect the average person, who does not understand or care about our unique severe weather climatology, to either be content with so many false alarms (failed outlooks, watches, warnings) or to examine the models and real time weather to see if this is just another case of crying wolf.