I have been noticing the awseon strength of the jet stream that has been over northern Florida, then settles southward with the front. The difference between this cold front and air mass clash and others was the existence of the strong vertical wind shear associated with the storms. tubes of horizontal rotation in this type of environmnet are tilted into the thunderstorm updrafts and concentrated, especially those along esisting boundaries - where the strongest shear is in the lowest 1 kilometer. This results in a rotating cell called a supercell. Climatology shows that many of the supercells that produce tornadoes in the southeast US in the winter occur at night as these did.
My heart goes out to Florida,I know the Storm Prediction Center recognized the pattern well and had tornado warnings out. But people need to have NOAA Weather Radios (VHF frequecy). These have alarms that wake you up in the middle of the night.
Also these tornadic thunderstorms were moving as fast as 50 knots...making warning lead times shorter than they often are. We face the same scenarios here in the Plains in the early Spring when the tornadoes can move as fast as a speeding car on a highway. Come May and June they typically move more slowly 20 to 35 kts. It is a strange winter indeed!
NOAA has sent scientists out to investigate and to estimate just what size the Tornado or Tornadoes were,
Had to have been quite a large one from the pictures that we seen on TV.
I think that the VHF NOAA warning radio is a good idea, I know that My Cousin that Lives in Oak. has one and swears by it. Most of these things hit while people are sleeping.
Jinks, I have one of those radios and are great.
Last night the radio sounded the alarm 4 hr before
the storm.
You turn the radio off and if there is a storm coming
the radio sound the alarm even if it is off,and trust me you will wakeup,Its louder than a smoke alarm.
It also have Citizen Band for comunication.
.....................Eagle................
