Wow, well today was one of the more wild weather day’s Ive experienced! I counted a total of 4 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and 2 Flash Flood Warnings for both Collin and Denton counties. Then there was the one Tornado Warning for extreme south east Collin county which set off the sirens here which was pretty stupid (youll see why below). Numerous storm reports came in of all types, very high winds up to 70mph, hail up to 1.75 inches, flooding into houses, covering streets under 2 feet of water, and even one tornado report in Greenville 35 miles east of Frisco. One of the more notable damage reports that I am sure most have heard of is the collapse of the training building the Dallas Cowboys were using. According to myfoxdfw.com , 12 people were injured during the collapse though none of them are life threatening. The NWS has performed a damage survey already and determined this was due to a microburst and not a tornado. Details below:
…RESULTS OF VALLEY RANCH DAMAGE SURVEY…
BASED ON A SURVEY OF THE ON-SITE DAMAGE…RADAR IMAGERY…AND
EYEWITNESS REPORTS…THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DETERMINED THAT
A MICROBURST IMPACTED THE VALLEY RANCH AREA OF FAR NORTH IRVING.
MAXIMUM WINDS NEAR THE GROUND WERE ESTIMATED NEAR 70 MPH.
RESEARCH HAS INDICATED THAT WIND SPEEDS IN HIGH WIND EVENTS OFTEN
INCREASE CONSIDERABLY IN THE LOWEST FEW HUNDRED FEET ABOVE THE
GROUND. THEREFORE…IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE THAT WINDS GREATER THAN
70 MPH AFFECTED THE UPPER PORTIONS OF THE DAMAGED STRUCTURES.
A MICROBURST IS A SMALL…INTENSE DOWNDRAFT WHICH RESULTS IN A
LOCALIZED AREA OF STRONG THUNDERSTORM WINDS. IN EXTREME CASES…
MICROBURSTS CAN HAVE WINDS WHICH EXCEED 100 MPH.
Today, a total of 1 tornado report in Greenville, 22 hail reports including 3 reports of golfball size (1.75 inch), 18 high wind reports including damage, and 14 flood reports in the Fort Worth forecast area, most of these are in the immediate metroplex. This totals 55 severe weather reports for this area alone!
Additionally, the metroplex has received a substantial ammount of rain in the past 7 days. Today a very healthy part of Dallas and Fort Worth received 3.5 inches or higher, including Frisco. Just 9 miles NW of Frisco, or 3 miles NW of Little Elm, radar estimates a total of 9 inches of rainfall fell today! Below is the radar estimated rainfall.
Here is a screenshot of the locations of all the storm reports that came in. Green FFL and FLD mean Flash Flood/Flood. Green icons with 3 blue circles mean hail. Yellow icons mean wind or wind damage. The red icon is a funnel cloud icon.
Now, allow me to show you a fantastic example of why tornado sirens should not be your primary source of tornado notification. So I am sure most of us heard the sirens sound today. Well, in the screenshot below, you can see where the tornado warning is actually issued for. Its a whole 25 miles to our ESE and the storm is not moving twards us. This is exactly why you cannot trust tornado sirens. Yes, the weather radios did go off for us too, those are limited to county by county notification, so technically since Collin was within the warning box, the radios went off for us. However, the warning text did say south east Collin county, which is definately not where Frisco is.
Guess I have sent out a total of 17 e-mails today, including this one… So umm.. If you dont like the spam then sorry, let me know lol. Today was pretty wild though!
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