Cameron Cole Natural Disasters Term Paper Kent Simons 29 November, 2013 Moore Oklahoma Tornado

There was a deadly tornado that occurred close to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on May 20, 2013. This tornado had a record breaking width of 2.6 miles. It was the second top-of-the-scale EF5 twister to hit the area in less than two weeks. Luckily, the massive tornado missed the most populated areas around Oklahoma City. By missing those areas, a lot of lives were saved. "Any house would have been completely swept clean on the foundation. That's just my speculation," El Reno Mayor Matt Smith said. "We're looking at extremes ... in the rare EF5 category. This in the super rare category because we don't deal with things like this often. There were at least 24 recorded deaths cause directly by this tornado. The tornado was on the ground for 17 miles and finally dissipated at 3:26 p.m., according to the Nation Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma. The storm initially touched down west of Newcastle and dissipated east of Moore. The storm first struck near Newcastle, Oklahoma, at 2:56 p.m., 16 minutes after the first warnings went out, according to the National Weather Service. After this first appearance, Moore residents had from 30 to 40 minutes before the storm entered the western part of the city.

The people of Moore had a good amount of time in between the time of the warning they received and when the tornado hit the town. The NWS Norman office issued a tornado warning 16 minutes before the tornado actually formed, which is 3 minutes more than the average warning of 13 minutes. When a trained spotter reports a tornado on the ground, or when Doppler radar indicates that a circulation in a thunderstorm, a tornado warning is sent out. In this case of this tornado, it was the latter that prompted the warning. Warnings go out on local media stations, as well as special weather radios and even some weather apps, so the amount of warning time an individual has can depend on when they actually hear the warning. If someone is not next to anything that displays the warning, they can be in serious trouble. The amount of time to take cover after hearing the alarm is one concern of the Moore residents.

Meteorologists at the Norman office and other NWS offices, including the Storm Prediction Center, in Norman, Oklahoma had been monitoring the potential for a tornado outbreak days in advance, warning residents to be wary and sending reminders about tornado safety (Thompson). So, Moore did have a warning a couple days before it happened and that helped people to prepare. Moore could get hit again in the future. This tornado was actually the fourth to hit the city directly in just 14 years. There was also a devastating EF5 tornado hit Moore on May 3, 1999, killing 36 people and causing an estimated $1 billion in damage. There were also two more tornados that hit the city on May 8 and May 10, 2010. The tornado formed from a string of severe storms that spawned several other tornadoes the day before. Conditions are ripe to form a tornado in such a storm when there is warm, humid air near the surface and colder, drier air aloft, pushing over the warm air like a wedge. The cold air above causes the warmer air below to rise. The water condenses out as the air rises. When this combines with winds that change strength and direction with height in the atmosphere, the system can begin to rotate. An updraft can tighten the rotation and bend it upward, creating a funnel cloud; rain or hail can then push down on the tail end of the funnel, causing the tornado to touch the ground. A gust front marks the leading edge of a thunderstorm's outflow winds, featuring winds spinning about a horizontal axis. When a thunderstorm's updraft interacts with this gust front, the gust front's horizontal spin can be tilted into the vertical and stretched. Like the example of a spinning skater pulling in their arms, stretching a vortex makes it spin faster.

Architecture for Humanity works among several groups to establish a network of locally-focused resiliency and reconstruction strategies (Johnson). They should be advocating and implementing safer building, planning and emergency strategies before the next disaster strikes.

This event may have been able to be predicted. By looking at the clouds and what the movement of them was doing would be the only way that the tornado could have been predicted. There is no way of predicting the size of the tornado though and that happened to be the main factor as to why it was so disastrous. The tornado was announced publically 16 minutes touchdown. The normal announcement is 13 minutes before touchdown so Moore had an extra 3 minutes. The warning messages were broadcasted over local TV stations and local radio stations. Tornados happen all the time in this location of the United States. A tornado actually went through the same area a week earlier. The only thing that was unusual with this tornado is that it hit the suburbs of the town and it was an EF5. The amount of damage that was created

was the reason the rate was so high. So, when it comes to this extravagant of an event, it does not happen very often. There was also an EF5 tornado in the same area in on May 3, 1999. Those are the only two known massive tornados to hit that area. The causes of this tornado was a string of severe storms. Conditions are ripe to form a tornado in such a storm when there is warm, humid air near the surface and colder, drier air aloft, pushing over the warm air like a wedge. The cold air above causes the warmer air below to rise. The water condenses out as the air rises. When this combines with winds that change strength and direction with height in the atmosphere, the system can begin to rotate. An updraft can tighten the rotation and bend it upward, creating a funnel cloud. What caused the tornado to hit the ground was the hail and rain that pushed down on the tail end of the funnel. Human activity in recent years did not cause this to be a disaster. The main reason of the catastrophe was that the town was located where the tornado hit. The town has already been there so there was nothing that humans couldve done to cause the tornado to be a catastrophe in recent years. But, if the town had not been located where it would have been hit by the tornado that wouldve kept it from being a catastrophe. It was definitely worse than it wouldve been 50 years ago because of all the new buildings and houses that have been built since that time. Oklahoma as a whole has taken some actions to effectively prepare. The schools in the area were definitely the most prepared. Moore public schools practice tornado drills to prepare for any tornado that nay hit the area. Schools in this district actually do drills more often than required. Oklahoma has even reinforced tornado shelters in hundreds of the schools across the state. Director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, Albert Ashwood, told reporters, A shelter would not necessarily have saved more lives at the Plaza Towers. Ashwood also said that no disaster mitigation measure is absolute.

Coming from this tornado, there were no benefits. The tornado wiped out a lot of the town of Moore, Oklahoma and only caused damage. Two schools were demolished as well as many other building and homes around the town.

Works Cited

"Deadly Oklahoma Tornado Was Widest on Record." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 4 June 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. "Tornado Devastates Moore, Oklahoma." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. "Moore, Oklahoma Tornado: What Turned It Violent?" The Weather Channel. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. Johnson, Karl. "Avoiding the Next Disaster." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 May 2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. Thompson, Andrea. "Moore, Okla. Tornado FAQ." LiveScience.com. N.p., 21 May 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. Erdman, Jon. "Moore, Oklahoma Tornado: What Turned It Violent?" The Weather Channel. N.p., 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. Marklein, Mary Beth. Safety Experts Say Okla. Schools Were Ready for Tornado. USA Today, 22 May 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

Homewood, Paul. "The 2013 Moore Oklahoma Tornado." Watts Up With That. N.p., 22 May 2013. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/22/the-2013moore-oklahoma-tornado-a-synopsis/>. http://cdn.freelancestar.com/photos/web/2013/5/21/nw_052213tornadopath-large.jpeg