Flashback: March 2nd 2012

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog. This post is only to talk a look back at the historic tornado outbreak of March 2nd 2012. In this post I will share my feelings, actions, and thoughts from that day. Also I will talk about some senarios that did happen and what could have happened.

I want to start with showing you these SPC products. These images play a big role in a storm chasers agenda and where to chase. Why am I telling you this? Because two things. One, storm chasers go after tornadoes. Two, storm chasers never come to Kentucky to chase because all the trees and mountains making it hard to see the sky which plays a HUGE rold when storm chasing. It's very dangerous to chase in Kentucky, but on this day the biggest and most well known chasers were in Kentucky.

The first image is a categorical graphic. There are three categories. Slight, Moderate, and High. Now before you look at the image please note that a HIGH risk is only issued a few times a year. Actually you'd be lucky to see it issued twice in one years time. It's very rare.

Thats a HIGH risk area for over 75% of the state. Here's a look the the chances for tornadoes that day:

Don't look at this image and think, "oh, 30% that isn't too bad." In fact a 30% hatched area is very bad. Thats a high risk for long lived, long track, massive tornadoes. Even the 10-15% area is an elevated risk.

I for one had seen this outbreak coming for days ahead of time. This day was actually a break-through day for me. Knowing that during the day of this severe weather event was ongoing was frustrating for me. I tried to get the word out and people failed to listen, instead people went on making fun of the posts I made and posting pictures of a clear sky saying "look at this tornado". Yes, I wish I was wrong, but sadily I wasn't.

The image below was taken during the day of March 2nd.

This picture was taken by Tiffany Stanfield, you can just see how calm conditions were leading up to the events that took place later on that day. Thank you Tiffany for the picture!

Alot of people will look at conditions outside and see exactly what you see in the picture above and think "well it looks good outside so I don't think anything will happen." DON'T BE FOOLED! When skies looks clear, nice and warm it's actually doing more harm than good. The more sun you see means the more unstable the air is causing the instability levels to go through the roof. That makes an elevated risk for severe weather.

Before these storms moved in I was chasing smaller cells myself. The less severe ones just trying to get some pictures. I had a weather radio on me and I heard a tornado warning being issed. Pannic quickly set in and I took off towards my home as fast as I could. I knew that this point I could be more of a value of getting the word out and any new information rather than getting in the way of any damage and risking my own life.

I then got word of several injuries and deaths as well. This bothered me alot more than words can describe. The fact that not many people took this day very seriously was aggrivating but I can understand why many of you didn't take it too seriously because this is the hills of eastern Kentucky... Tornadoes just doesn't happen over here. Thats the bottom line.

Several things have to come together in order to produce a tornado outbreak of this magnitude. Basically you can say these combinations came together to form nothing short of "prefect conditions" for tornadoes. Yes, one or two of the basic elements can be missing and tornadoes still form but with that being said the tornadoes would be relatively weak and last nothing more than 5 minutes at the most. All of those elements were present on March 2nd, thats what made it to be such a historical day in weather.

As weather events as horrible as this one happens, Meteorologists and Scientists work to better understand thunderstorms and why some produce tornadoes and others do not. They also work to better track tornadoes and predict them as well. With each significant weather event that happens this group of men and women learn more and more and eventually we will be able to predict tornadoes efficently.

Tornadoes can happen anywhere. Hills, cities, bodies of water have no protection from tornadoes. A tornado once tracked up a hill in LA and damaged the famous "Hollywood" sign. Tornadoes have been known to start off a "water spouts" and come onto land causing destruction. Joplin Missouri is one of the latest big cities to be hit by a tornado. In the Joplin tornado, at least 65% of the town was rubble. No body of water, city, or hill is completely safe from a tornado.

I ask of only one thing from all of you as we get closer and closer to the severe weather season of 2013. Please know what to do in weatehr situations, and be more prepared. sadily, sometimes it takes a disaster such as the March 2nd outbreak to realize how prone to certain weather events we really are. It's always good to know where to go and what to do when a tornado strikes.

Thanks for reading and please stay safe this severe weather season. I will keep you up to date through out the year like always. Take care everyone.