February 27th/28th Storms Recap *UPDATE*

UPDATE: The National Weather Service has updated the tornado count from the storms that rolled through Missouri and western Illinois. The total number of tornadoes from Sunday night and early Monday morning now stands at 17. What really surprised me after the updated tracks came out was how St. Louis County had two more tornadoes since the last tornado roared through Sunset Hills during the New Year's Eve storms. These two EF1 tornadoes went through Babler State Park, over the track of my old middle school (Rockwood Valley Middle School) and thankfully lifted just before it went into Suzanne Ridge and Garden Valley subdivisions where some of my friends live. Here's the latest tornado tracks on Google Earth. You can always go to the NWS website here to see the specifics of the damage and pictures of what the storms left behind.

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ORIGINAL POST: Good evening, folks. Missouri is under the gun for showers and thunderstorms again tonight. Some of the storms have turned severe earlier with tornado warnings in between Columbia and St. Louis and hail around Columbia. Fortunately, no reports of touchdowns as the storms scooted to the north of St. Louis. Speaking of, the National Weather Service out of St. Louis finished their survey of the damage around the area after the storms rolled in late on February 27th. Have a look at the tornado tracks laid on top of Google Earth...

Even though the big story was the storms plowing through the St. Louis Metro area between 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM, there were a few tornadoes up in Monroe, Shelby and Pike Counties.

Straight line damage winds at 90 mph caused damage to this
storageshed just east of Shelbina close to Highway 36. 

Tornado damage just south southeast of Shelbina. Strongest
tornado was rated an EF1 with winds at 90 mph.

Both of the tornadoes in Pike County were rated EF0 with a machine shed damaged. The interesting thing I found out from that tornado was there were missiles from the shed that got embedded into the ground by the tornado. The only other damage around Frankford were three more machine sheds being destroyed and a lot of tree damage with the second EF0 tornado.

Two other areas I want to focus on are right around the city of St. Louis. First I want to start off with the squall line as it moved through Franklin County and headed into St. Louis County.

A squall line is an intense line of thunderstorms that have threats of heavy rain, large hail and/or damaging winds. At this time, 10:53 PM, the squall line was going through Washington, Warrenton and heading as far south as Union and St. Clair. The pink cores over Union were likely very heavy rain or sizable hail over the center of town. Another threat this line had were imbedded areas of rotation as seen below.

You're looking at storm relative velocities, or winds inside the thunderstorm without the speed and movement of the storm affecting radar data. Red colors are winds blowing away from the radar up to the northeast in Weldon Spring and the green colors are winds blowing towards the radar. Not only did the line from a few minutes before 10:53 had 2 distinct areas of rotation, there were several smaller areas of rotation along the line itself. In other words, in addition to straight-line damaging winds, you could've had several brief rain-wrapped tornadoes heading right for the St. Louis area.

The reflectivity above shows the line as it was moving into western St. Louis County around my hometown of Wildwood. The velocities below show that straight-line winds were heading into Wildwood as well in addition to the small areas of rotation along the line. Before the storms raced into West County, a storm spotter did report a tornado touchdown in St. Albans at the intersection of Highway 100 and T just on the border of St. Louis and Franklin Counties. However, the survey team from the NWS concluded that the damage produced was the result of strong straight line winds in excess of 100 mph. Here's a few pictures of the damage as the line came through St. Louis County.

Creve Coeur

Richmond Heights

One more area that I want to touch on is in Granite City, IL. Some people still hold a belief that tornadoes cannot touch down in or close to a metro area. Let me show you how close Granite City is to St. Louis and what they were seeing (or couldn't see).

The radar was picking up a little rotation early on before the storm plowed right into Granite City at 11:27 PM. Again, notice how close Granite City is to the river and to the city limits of St. Louis. The reports said that the EF1 tornado touched down at the intersection of Illinois Highway 3 and Rock Road. That is almost right next to the Mississippi. When it touched down at 11:35, nobody could see it as Granite City was not only being blinded by rain and strong winds but possibly some large hail as well since there were strong reflectivity returns right over the heart of the city. Had the tornado touched down a few minutes before it crossed the river, the north side of St. Louis would have sustained some damage. No matter how you look at it, though, it's amazing that there were no fatalities for this nighttime event. Have a look at a bit of the damage from Granite City's tornado.

I could write a lot more about the other areas that saw tornadoes that night, but the St. Louis NWS office has a link to all the damage pictures and their summary of the events from that night. You can find the whole breakdown here. This is a reminder that Spring is coming and severe weather season is right around the corner. Be sure that you have a plan of action in place so you and your family know what to do in case a tornado warning or any dangerous weather is headed for your area. Have a good night, folks!