The truth about the tornadoes —
More than just hot air
By Brooke Tacker, posted 3/23/06

Sunday, March 12, storms were brewing in central Missouri. Anyone looking outside could tell that the skies had an eerie glow and that things looked a bit too calm to feel safe. It was tornado weather in its most obvious conditions. Two of these were thunderstorms being present and the temperatures being unusually warm for this time of year.

More than 100 tornadoes were reported across the state on Sunday, Eric Aldrich, KOMU meteorologist said. Not all of these were actually sighted, but even besides that, the number was still close to record level.

“On Sunday alone, the number of tornadoes was over the yearly allotment,” Patrick Market, an MU professor of Atmospheric Sciences said.

It is very uncommon for this many tornadoes to be present this early in the season. Tornado season usually lasts from mid-March through April and May and continues to early June, but it was very rare that there were these strong of storms this early. The super cells, or tornado storms, on Sunday were moving at about 60 mph to the north. The strongest super cells were actually southwest of Columbia near Sedalia. There, winds were measured between 200 and 260 mph.

These tornadoes, two of which hit Columbia rather hard, caused a lot of damage around town. Many people who live in north Columbia had serious hail damage to their cars and wind damage to their houses.

“There are dents all over the hood, roof, and side of my car from the hail. It also damaged my front windshield by cracking it on the passenger side and it even knocked off some of the logos on my car.” Mike Lutsch, an MU student who lives in Cross Creek Villas said. Lutsch said that all of the cars that were outside in his neighborhood were dented severely.

Some damages were a lot worse than just dents from hail. Sara Hogan, an MU student’s, grandmother’s roof had 90 percent damage. Her siding also needs to be replaced and 10 of her downstairs windows were damaged.

Though the damages did not ever reach campus, some students were still concerned about what would actually happen.

“I started to think about all my stuff in my room and I wished I had brought some of it with me [to the basement], just if something worse had happened at MU,” Alisha Kimes said.

Many students in the dorms were told to go to the basements by their CAs, RAs, or PAs after the sirens went off. There were mixed feelings about this.

“They [the resident hall advisors] are responsible for our safety when we are in the building, so if they thought the storm was dangerous enough that we could be hurt, I would rather be cautious than not,” Kevin Young said.

Natalie Mayer was at the student rec center when the sirens went off.

“I was running on the treadmill and one of the student employees started yelling for everyone to get off the machines right now! So I just got off, grabbed my stuff, and everyone was directed to go downstairs to brewery. [After] maybe a half hour into it, at like 5 p.m., they told us we either had to go to the locker room or a racquetball court,” Natalie said.

Other students, who were taking cover in basements for example, did not have access to the TV weather reports. They either relied on phone calls from others or the spreading of news down the line whenever someone near them heard something.

“A tornado warning is the highest level of severe weather. It means that one has either been sighted or it is showing up on the radar, so take cover,” Aldrich said. A tornado watch is much less severe in that it just means the atmosphere is primed for tornado storms, so meteorologists are on the lookout. The live radar at KOMU can scan the atmosphere within a 150-mile radius of the station. It picks up on rain, storms and tornadoes, which look like fishhooks on the radar. This is called the “hook echo.”

“Hook echoes are not always seen in Missouri,” Market said.

He described Sunday’s super cells as “classic,” because they are common to Missouri, but still fit the pattern of most tornadoes. Market tried to explain how tornadoes work without writing the book it would actually take to mention every detail. In the simplest terms, a tornado forms when winds cause a wheel effect. Winds are stronger as they get higher from the ground, so as they blow they cause a circular motion that is almost horizontal when looking straight at it. When a portion of this circle is heated from below, it begins to turn vertical, which causes the shape of the tornado most people associate with and that was visible on Sunday.

These storms moved out of central Missouri late Sunday night and into the early hours of Monday morning. Hopefully, this was not a sign of what is to come throughout the rest of the tornado season.

> Back to Corner Post Home