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OUTBREAK of the CENTURY Stephen F. Corfidi,* Jason J. Levit and Steven J. Weiss NOAA/NWS/NCEP/Stor

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OUTBREAK of the CENTURY Stephen F. Corfidi,* Jason J. Levit and Steven J. Weiss NOAA/NWS/NCEP/Stor P 5.2 THE SUPER OUTBREAK: OUTBREAK OF THE CENTURY Stephen F. Corfidi,* Jason J. Levit and Steven J. Weiss NOAA/NWS/NCEP/Storm Prediction Center, Norman, OK 1. INTRODUCTION The Super Outbreak of tornadoes of 3-4 April 1974 remains the most outstanding severe convective weather episode of record in the continental United States (Figure 1). By nearly every metric imaginable, the outbreak far surpassed previous and succeeding events in severity, longevity and extent. A sampling of statistics only partially conveys its enormity: 148 TORNADOES …95 F2s or stronger …30 F4s or F5s 48 KILLER STORMS …335 dead …More than 6000 injured PATH LENGTHS UP TO 90 miles (145 km) …Total path length > 2500 mi (4000 km) F2s OR GREATER PRESENT FOR EACH THREE HOUR PERIOD BETWEEN 12 UTC / 3rd AND 15 UTC / 4th AT ONE POINT, 15 TORNADOES IN PROGRESS AT SAME TIME TEN STATES DECLARED Figure 1. Tracks of the 148 Super Outbreak FEDERAL DISASTER AREAS tornadoes documented by Fujita (1975). Further appreciation for the phenomenal nature of the Super Outbreak may be gleaned from Figure 2, which depicts the maximum, week-long running total of F2 or greater tornadoes since 1875. Entire years noted 120 for their prominent tornado counts (e.g. 1953 and 2003) pale in comparison to the 18-hour period that 100 began around midday on 3 April 1974. Twenty-five 80 F3 or greater long track (>25 miles (40 km)) tornadoes occurred during the same period, more 60 than triple the annual average of such events since 1880 (C. Broyles, personal communication). 40 More than thirty years have passed since the Super 20 Outbreak inflicted its horrific human and physical toll 0 on the Midwest and the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. 1875 1895 1915 1935 1955 1975 1995 Despite its breadth and intensity, comparatively little has been written regarding the event’s synoptic and Grazulis (1875 - 1989) mesoscale meteorological evolution. In particular, NWS (1950 - present) only limited attention has been given to understanding __________________________________________ Figure 2. Maximum, week-long running total of F2 or * Corresponding author address: Stephen F. Corfidi, stronger tornadoes per year since 1875. Data in red NOAA/NWS/NCEP/Storm Prediction Center, 1313 from Grazulis (1993); dotted black, NWS/SPC Halley Ave, Norman, OK 73069; email: database (Courtesy of R. Schneider) [email protected] why so many significant, long-lasting tornadic storms across north Texas and eastern Oklahoma ahead of occurred. the Pacific cold front trailing south from the Kansas low. This activity soon organized into a forward In the present paper, the surface and upper air propagating MCS that continued east into Arkansas analyses contained in Hoxit and Chappell (1975), and early Wednesday. additional data are used to present an updated synoptic and subsynoptic overview of the 1974 Super The thermodynamic environment across the south Outbreak. Emphasis will be placed on (1) identifying central United States late Tuesday was characterized the major factors that contributed to the development by a broad swath of steep low to mid tropospheric of the three main convective bands associated with lapse rates that extended from the southern and the event, and (2) identifying the conditions which central Rockies east to the Mississippi Valley (Figure may have contributed to the outstanding number of 4a). Lapse rates were close to dry adiabatic over intense and long-lasting tornadoes. In addition, much of western Texas and Oklahoma. While plumes output from a 29 km, 50 layer version of the Eta of mixed layer air originating over the high plateau of forecast model using data from the NCEP/NCAR the southwestern United States and Mexico are reanalysis grids (Kalnay et al. 1996) will be presented commonly observed in soundings taken over the to assess the model’s skill in depicting synoptic and Plains and Mississippi Valley prior to spring tornado mesoscale aspects of the outbreak. outbreaks, the extent of the potential instability in this case is notable. Nevertheless, because of the absence of substantial boundary layer moisture, 2. SYNOPTIC ENVIRONMENT significant surface-based convective available potential energy (CAPE) was confined to areas along 2.1. Tue 2 April the front near the Gulf Coast (Figure 5a). The morning of Tuesday 2 April 1974 was characterized by a broad, low amplitude large scale 2.2 Early morning, Wed 3 April trough over the continental United States (Figure 3a). Embedded in the trough were two moderately strong The combination of potent dynamic forcing and shortwave disturbances, one of which was located favorably timed diurnal factors promoted substantial over the Ohio Valley, and the other just entering the strengthening and broadening of the south Great Basin. The latter impulse was associated with southwesterly low level jet over the lower Mississippi 500 mb wind speeds in excess of 100 kts (50 ms-1) Valley early Wednesday. During the pre-dawn hours, across southern California, while downstream speeds 850 mb wind speeds increased to more than 50 kts were less than 50 kts (25 ms-1) over the southern (25 ms-1) across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama Plains. The eastern shortwave was deamplifying at as the Kansas low deepened to 980 mb. The this time and was associated with a weakening associated northward transport of moisture resulted in surface low over the eastern Great Lakes. rapid warm sector destabilization from the Gulf Coast to the Tennessee Valley. By 1200 UTC, CAPE of By late in the day, the Great Lakes low was over 1000 J/kg was present as far north as the Ohio River Quebec, with a cold front that curved from off the New (Figure 5b) as the Gulf Coast warm front redeveloped England coast across southern Virginia into the northward (Figure 3b). However, because of the northwest Gulf of Mexico (not shown). Surface presence of the elevated mixed layer plume (Figure dewpoints south of the boundary were moist for the 4b), most of the CAPE was “capped” to unassisted time of the year, ranging from the low 60s (16 C) in deep surface-based convection. north Florida to the low 70s (21C) over coastal Louisiana. The western part of the front began to While the elevated mixed layer plume prohibited the return northward as a warm front Tuesday evening as development of deep convection over much of the increasing westerly mid level flow and the eastward warm sector, the favorable thermodynamic advance of the Great Basin impulse induced strong environment for cold downdraft production, in lee cyclogenesis east of the central Rockies. This conjunction with increasing moisture inflow, fostered cyclogenesis was also fostered by the presence of continued intensification of the Arkansas MCS. By strong, along-stream variation of the upper level flow dawn, the convective system extended in a broken in the exit region of the western states speed band from southern Illinois across far western maximium (Uccellini and Johnson 1979); 300 mb Kentucky into central Arkansas. The line of storms speeds at this time ranged from nearly 140 kts (70 produced severe weather at several locations, and ms-1) in southern Nevada to less than 80 kts (40 ms-1) was the first of the three, supercell-containing in Oklahoma and north Texas. convective bands that would affect the east central states that day.1 The jet maximum associated with the Great Basin shortwave trough continued to propagate east southeast Tuesday evening as a weak disturbance in the flow reached central Oklahoma (not shown). At the same time, the lee cyclone deepened to less than 1 In this paper, the term “convective band” will be 984 mb and edged east into Kansas. As warm favored over “squall line” to emphasize that the advection increased over the southern Plains, predominant convective mode remained quasi-cellular scattered high-based thunderstorms developed rather than linear throughout the event (a) (b) (c) Figure 3. 1200 UTC Surface (left) and 500 mb (right) plots, with English units. 500 mb height contours in Daily Weather Map analyses from (a) 2 April, (b) 3 feet; contour interval 200 ft. Wind speed in knots. April and (c) 4 April 1974. Surface pressure in mb; Half barb = 5 kts (2.5 ms-1), full barb = 10 kts (5 ms-1), contour interval 4 mb. Standard abbreviated station and flag = 50 kts (25 ms-1). Because a thermal gradient was present at 700 mb shows, by 1800 UTC surface-based CAPE in excess west of the Arkansas MCS at 1200 UTC (not shown), of 2500 J/kg was present from the lower Ohio and one might conclude that the system was associated Mississippi River Valleys south and east to the Gulf with an elevated frontal zone or “cold front aloft” as Coast.; values were greater than 3500 J/kg over parts described by Locatelli et al. (1989). However, the of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. In thermal gradient was not well-defined at the time of addition, because of the seasonably rich nature of the storm initiation over the southern Plains, and temporal boundary layer moisture inflow (dewpoints in the mid and spatial continuity of the feature as revealed by the to upper 60s), values of mean mixed layer CAPE rawinsonde data is not sufficient to confirm the were nearly as great (not shown). presence of an elevated front. Similar thermal gradients have been attributed to elevated fronts in The Illinois/Kentucky/Arkansas convective band the vicinity of other forward-propagating convective (hereafter referred to as Convective Band One) systems when, in fact, they actually reflected localized continued east across the Tennessee and Ohio corridors of evaporatively-cooled air in the wake of the Valleys at an average speed of 60 kts (30 ms-1) rear-sloping MCSs (e.g., Rose et al.
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