I often get asked what my most memorable severe weather year would be. You have to remember that I’ve only done worked this ‘job’ since 2008. Well, I have to admit, nothing has ever been like that first year. There hasn’t been a year like 2008 – and we should all be happy about that. From the fatalities and injuries stack up from the countless severe weather events to the floods, none of us in the weather community can ever say that there was something like that year since then.

Probably the most memorable event would be from the May 25th-27th severe weather outbreak. For the first day of the outbreak, the Storm Prediction Center had posted a moderate risk in Minnesota/Wisconsin and in Kansas, Nebraska, and SW Iowa. The first moderate risk would eventually be extending into central Iowa. We knew that it was going to bad – and bad in a lot of areas – we just didn’t know where the worst would happen. Models were showing southeastern Iowa would be the hotspot put no one figured that NC Iowa would be hit so hard.

The National Weather Service in Des Moines had issued a Tornado Warning at 4:22pm for NW Grundy, NE Hardin, Butler, and SE Franklin counties until 4:45pm. The storm was said to be in Aplington approximately twenty minutes later. At the time, I didn’t have the high-resolution radar software as shown in the picture. I had the basic, National Weather Service website pictures, that showed whole-state data, and that was it. At the time, the system didn’t look as intense as it would later on. The tornado continued to be radar indicated but did not become confirmed. 

That tornado warning expired on schedule at 4:45pm without confirmation. However, less than a minute later, the weather service office in Des Moines reissued the warning for the backend of the system that was, according to doppler radar, producing a tornado seven miles southwest of Aplington,  moving northeast at 36 MPH. This tornado was expected to be in Aplington less than 10 minutes later and Parkersburg in 15 minutes.

Again, continuing to look at the radar products, I had a friend mention to me that the backend of the system was beginning to show some interest. I brushed this off as the data wasn’t giving a clear showing, and plus, the storm was beginning to get into the fringe areas of KDMX, the Des Moines NWS doppler. My friend kept pushing me to reexamine the area and I was in words – astonished. The velocity data was so clear, it would be what course instructors would use in how to interpret tornadoes. Fine cut, clear cut, didn’t matter what you would have said – it was there, there at all levels. By this time, it was less than five minutes away from Parkersburg, and it was a matter of time before this monster of a storm would show it’s final product. 

The National Weather Service was issuing update statements during this process and noted that a confirmed tornado was reported at the intersection of county road T19 and highway 57 in Butler county, heading toward Aplington. The next update noted that this a ‘large’ tornado and that multiple tornadoes were now being reported.

The feeling at this point is simply sadness. We all try to keep doing our jobs, but it’s hard to continue when you realize a large and deadly tornado is less than five minutes from a populated town and probably has already caused injury. You can do all in your power to help warn people, but in the end, there’s always that “one storm” that doesn’t get covered.

Tornado reports just continued to come in as the storm strengthened and moved into Parkersburg and New Hartford. The radar images could not get any clearer – a large hook echo as seen on reflectivity and velocity images was only getting stronger. Now, looking at archive data in our radar programs, we still are astonished about the power of the storm itself. Now it was just a matter of getting the word out to get people to shelter, and just pray that people listen. 

So, the system passed. We were still covering the cell as it had hail with it but the majority wanted to just call it quit. The storm survey team went out over the next couple of days and sent out their results.

Nine fatal.

Seventy injuries.

Devastation in the state. 

Nobody could comprehend it or even mourn it. We didn’t know what to think. There was additional severe weather in the following days that we had to cover but nobody could get those two numbers out of their head.

Six fatal.

Seventy injuries.

Most in the weather and media community didn’t know what to say. They tried their hardest to get the word out. But that’s just how weather works. It can change in an instant without notice. We can spend all of our money and work our hearts out, yet, it will never change the way weather works – it will do as it wants when it wants. All you can do is try to keep people safe during said weather and get the word out about it. 

The NWS survey team concluded that the Parkersburg was an EF5 – the highest on the EF scale, at 205 MPH. Still didn’t change anything that it was called on being the second deadliest tornado in the state. 

So, yes, all in all, you could say this would be a tornado that professors would use in the basic “how to find tornadoes via doppler radar data” classes, but, it leaves a painful part in your brain when you can say you could have done more. What could we have done to save more people and prevent additional injury? No one knows, but the best thing we can do is remember those nine people that were killed from this ‘tornado-from-hell’.

That’s all I have. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iqRk86WP9E&w=420&h=315]