The new Super Outbreak?

There has already been a lot written on the 27 April 2011 tornado outbreak. My objective here is to catalogue images that are available on many websites' short-term archives (but will disappear in the next few days). The numbers are very impressive: at least 340 killed, making it the 2nd deadliest US tornado outbreak ever behind only the 18 March 1925 Tri-state tornado outbreak with at least 747 fatalities, several violent tornadoes (EF4+, including a preliminary rating of EF5 in Smithville, MS), probably over 100 tornadoes total, and thousands of structures damaged or destroyed. The numbers will be updated as NWS continues its storm surveys and local emergency management continue their recovery operations. Some are speculating that the death toll might approach the Tri-state toll (although with 400 more fatalities needed, let's hope that's just speculation). Here are a selection of imagery:

Another few counties

This is more to hyperlink the website (in case I forget it, it's saved here) than to update my map- although I did visit several more counties in central Pennsylvania! You can make your own map at http://counties.visitedmap.com. Congrats, Mike & Jen; I'll put up some pictures soon.

And what a gorgeous day it was!

Today looks to be one of those days: full sunshine, temperatures in the mid-60s F, and severe weather to follow out in the plains! Spring is here, and life is good :)

26 years ago today - the Super Outbreak

The tornado outbreak that inspired the Fujita Scale, millions of dollars in research, and lots of improvements in emergency management and public weather information dispersion.

A satellite loop, courtesy of Christopher Kaiser:



A summary of the outbreak, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Counties I've visited

So courtesy of our friends over at Mob Rule, I created (from memory, so it's a rough approximation) a map of the counties I've visited over the years. You can certainly see some patterns: the interstate highway system (of which I've made heavy use in criss-crossing the country!), high density of counties in N. Carolina (where I grew up) and Oklahoma (where I lived 6 years and drove everywhere in pursuit of storms), and a few airports here & there (most notably Anchorage, AK). I'm thankful for the chance to see and know more about my country- but still note that the >1000 counties I've been in only constitutes about 30% of the total counties in the US. (Wow, don't know if I should be motivated to travel more, or discouraged by the task ahead!)

My counties visited: