Weather Nerds - OTD 21 years ago, the "tornado emergency" is born

When faced with an extremely dangerous weather situation, the National Weather Service forecasters, both at the national offices and local forecast offices, will ramp up the verbiage in their notes to try to get across the potential severity of the situation.

I mean... if you lived in SE Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina then you're aware of the dire "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks... perhaps longer" warning from NWS New Orleans on the morning of 8/28/05

Such was the case on May 3, 1999, a somewhat unexpected tornado outbreak day in the central plains.

The NWS Storm Prediction Center had only given the day a "slight" chance of severe weather (2/5) during the early morning, but by early-afternoon the SPC realized the atmosphere was set-up for a significant severe weather outbreak and, after getting their buddies down the hall at the Norman, Okla. local forecast office to do an unscheduled weather balloon release, bumped up the risk all the way up to "high" (5/5) for most of Oklahoma.

At 3:30 PM, a rain cell started to catch the eye of the forecasters at NWS Norman and a severe thunderstorm warning was issued

About 45 minutes later, that same cell started to look tornadic, and the day's 1st tornado warning was issued

Over the next 2 hours, that cell continued to cycle, dropping several tornadoes along its path...

Then, around 6:30 PM, it put down yet another tornado, but one that would change the way tornado warnings are sent out forever.

Over the next 20 minutes, NWS Norman watched the cell get that classic hook look, and could look on local TV to see what the storm was doing

Realizing that a high end tornado was bearing down on the Oklahoma City metro area, the NWS Norman forecasters tried to find a way to better communicate that there was a deadly tornado about to hit a highly populated area... and at 6:57 PM meteorologist David Andra issued the first ever tornado emergency

quote:

---

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORMAN OK
657 PM CDT MON MAY 3 1999

...TORNADO EMERGENCY IN SOUTH OKLAHOMA CITY METRO AREA...

AT 657 PM CDT...A LARGE TORNADO WAS MOVING ALONG INTERSTATE 44 WEST
OF NEWCASTLE. ON ITS PRESENT PATH...THIS LARGE DAMAGING TORNADO
WILL ENTER SOUTHWEST SECTIONS OF THE OKLAHOMA CITY METRO AREA
BETWEEN 715 PM AND 730 PM. PERSONS IN MOORE AND SOUTH OKLAHOMA CITY
SHOULD TAKE IMMEDIATE TORNADO PRECAUTIONS

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. IF
YOU ARE IN THE PATH OF THIS LARGE AND DESTRUCTIVE TORNADO...TAKE
COVER IMMEDIATELY.

DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED THIS STORM MAY CONTAIN DESTRUCTIVE HAIL TO
THE SIZE OF BASEBALLS...OR LARGER.

LAT...LON 3524 9784 3511 9769 3536 9735 3552 9754

ANDRA

---

That tornado would be the Bridge Creek/Moore F5... 36 people died directly from the storm and 5 more died afterwards with nearly 600 injured

It would be a significant tornado in another way... the idea that taking cover from a tornado underneath an overpass was also (FINALLY in the eyes of some meteorologists) debunked as at least 3 people died and several others seriously injured while hiding in the upper corners of overpass bridges

YouTube - KFOR live coverage of Bridge Creek/Moore F5 tornado 5/3/99