Tornado Comparisons From Earlier in the Week

There has been so much occurring this week, I would like to catch up on a couple of items.

I wrote a story about Wichita dodging a Moore-sized bullet Sunday afternoon. You might want to click on the link to refresh your memory. Here is a map from the NWS showing where the tornado touch downs occurred.

How similar were the two situations? Striking.

Here is the rolled up hook echo southwest of Wichita and headed for the densely populated city.

Here is a similar hook as it was moving toward Moore.

Here is the Wichita Doppler tornado signature from the FAA's Terminal Doppler Weather Radar. This is a very strong tornado signature.

From the National Weather Service's WSR-88D (using a different color system) here is a very similar couplet moving toward Moore.

Yet, for reasons I can't explain, the tornado lifted right at the city limits in Wichita but continued to Draper Lake in the case of the Moore tornado.

Keep in mind that the several tornadoes that touched down southwest of the city and did damage of EF-2 intensity. But, when we research how to cut down on false alarms, we need to include research in predicting when a tornado is going to lift. We are better at anticipating when a tornado will form and touch down than we are when it will end. It is another item we need to put on our research list.

If we had been able to make a highly confident prediction the tornado would not have moved over Wichita, we could have prevented a lot of consternation and some economic loss.