>Another City and almost another DOWNTOWN TORNADO

This time around it was Minneapolis that got the scare. Back in 2007 it was right in the heart of Brooklyn, New York which in fact was the second tornado touchdown in Long Island with one near Islip, NY about a week or two earlier. The year before, an area very close to O’Hare International Airport to the northwest of Downtown Chicago got the fright with funnel clouds where roaming the turbulent skies as severe thunderstorms exploded over the flat corn fields to the west of the city.

New York City is prone with nasty winterstorms and indeed nasty summetime thunderstorms that produce strong winds, flooding rains, hail and violent lightning have have killed many. But yesterday morning saw a remarkable display of just how violent thunderstorms in Manhatten and surroundings areas can be when a violent severe thunderstorms unleased 80-mph straight line winds across the city, forcing the downing of hundreds of old Central Park trees. Again, the city was lucky in the most part. This event and the 2007 tornadoes on Long Island are a worrying display of just how close it can get from near miss to shear havoc and massive damage.

The reasoning behind the vicious line of thunderstorms was because of a strong cold front that raced in from the Ohio Valley that drove energy both at the surface and aloft into a hot, humid air mass hanging over the East Coast, erutping the storms is dangerous storms. Likely a combo of colder than normal air aloft, a jet stream and spin creating the turblence that was simply forcing down the the ground and then spread out as straight line winds. The builings act like wind tunnel, so even though winds outside of Manhattan may have been say 60 mph, once funneling through narrow urban canyons, those winds converged on various points and speeded up the winds. Once hitting the Park they were 80 mph. The nature of the urban geography and the park is likely what created this event and the park is probably extremely vunerable to stronger winds blowing through streets towards the park.

We’ve had a few accounts of downtown tornado touchdowns with Fort Worth and most recently the famed Downtown Atlanta EF2 tornado in March 2008 that showered downtown streets with glass from skyscrapers, pieces of buildings, signage, traffic lights and other objects that became missiles in a city that had many people in two seperate arenas that were packed viewing sporting events when the tornado touched down. Remarkably, though there was a lot of damage, no fatalities were reported. If there had of been people streaming out from these events at the time of the tornado, this would have been a disaster with thousands killed.
It’s inevitable that a tradgedy will hit, whether it be a major hurricane striking a city and places like New Orleans or Houston do not dodge the bullet of a passing hurricane or a strong tornado touching down in the heart of a major city. The right conditions where there for a tornado to touchdown in the southern periphery of metropolitan Minneapolis and apparently fell apart as it treked northward towards the heart of downtown. According to Meteorologist and Founder of WeatherNation, Paul Douglas, the conditions came together fast and furious over Minneapolis.

He wrote this in his blog:

New Orleans was lucky in many a sense, as 1) Katrina was not as strong as when in the Gulf when it struck the Louisiana coast and 2) winds were only cat 1 or at most cat 2 in New Orleans. What many don’t realise about Katrina is that it was the surge that did such damage, not wind. New Orleans’ geography was what let them down not because of the storm’s intensity, despite the fact it was so large. If Katrina was stronger and went directly over New Orleans, there wouldn’t have been a city left. Like if Andrew went directly over Miami. Too many near misses make for longer overdue risk as cities grow. One day a major tornado or hurricane will impact the heart of a major city. Places like Chicago are like sitting ducks to tornadoes and a strike there is overdue, easpecially when that city is spreading further west into the flat fields that countless tornadoes have ripped up and only a matter of time before one drops into downtown. Atlanta is a modern example of what can happen. New York’s Long Island twisters of 2007 are a chilling reminder that even places like Brooklyn can have twisters drop right over them. Why not Manhattan, It was just over the East River after all.

Miami, New Orleans, New York have all been hit by strong hurricanes in history. It will happen again sometime, only difference, there’s more people living in these places now than 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years ago. What once was forest, swamp or fields are now suburbs of these cities.

Thanks for reading.

-Mark