Mother Nature (WRATH)

[F6]

Mariner -- there are a lot more of us here now than there were years ago, and our technical means to observe and record have improved vastly in recent years -- in this place where these tornadic supercells occur more frequently than in the rest of the world combined and more intensely than anywhere else on this planet, and have been occurring since long before we evolved and will continue occurring long after we've become extinct

the Tri-State F5 in March 1925 had a confirmed continuous path 219 miles long and killed 695 -- there are suggestions the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham may have been continuously on the ground for 220 miles and thus broken that record, but from the radars and other stuff I've seen thus far it seems quite clear it at least briefly lifted NE of downtown Birmingham -- as the storm itself cycled as a new updraft WSW of the tornado (with its own new and growing wall cloud lowering plainly visible from Birmingham, just a few miles to the WSW, at the time the tornado was striking Birmingham) took over to become the storm's dominant updraft, which the storm put down as further violent tornado[es] as it continued further to the NE -- and I'm aware of two tornadoes that were/had damage paths 2.5 miles in width, and a number of others at or above 1.5 miles in width

in terms of data, of what constitutes adequate data, tornadoes are in one sense like floods, perhaps even moreso -- to really be able to nail down the limits of the biggest/worst/most-maximal-of-the-maximal events, you've gotta have good observational records, records which would not only catch but accurately and meaningfully detail such events, that go back at least a few hundred years -- to be confident we've seen an event close to the greatest tornado/tornado outbreak ever seen in these parts, I'd think we'd need at least 500 years -- in terms of keeping those kinds of records, we're still new here, just walked in the door

even this time -- as it happened, the very powerful main upper level low itself never did reach, and thus never did get any of its core dynamics and very cold coldest air aloft interacting directly with, the warm sector -- just got close enough so that part of the strongest winds and colder air aloft around it did get over the top of the warm sector, prompting the warm sector to respond as it then did -- that main upper low moved off from near to the north of DFW (I saw 29.46" on my [accurate] home station that morning) up toward far western upstate New York (triggering tornadoes with damage near Binghamton, from low-topped supercells in a cold-air environment from the surface up) -- if, instead, that main upper level low had moved E to ENE, caught up with the warm sector vertically stacked on an intersection of the trailing cold front and leading warm front say a bit SE of Memphis, and continued E to ENE from there, this event would have been significantly even more intense, and over a larger area

and then there's the consideration that the observational record we do have really doesn't suggest a recent trend toward an increased incidence of violent (F4-F5) tornadoes -- though this event will certainly give that number for this year quite a kick in the pants

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