Weather Whys; Fall Storms

This is weather-wise. Storm season in the Great Plains is generally from March through May. That's when cold, dry air from polar regions clashes with warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. The result is often powerful thunderstorms, some of which become severe. But in the Dixie states, big storms often come in the late fall as well. Cold pressure systems pull Gulf moisture into the Southland and sometimes spawn weather as dangerous as any scene in the plains. One such event was the tornado outbreak of November 15th and 16th, 1989. On those days, a total of 39 tornadoes roared across areas of the southeast. But by far, the most devastating was the tornado that swept through Huntsville, Alabama. The twister touched down at the Marshall Space Flight Center a few miles from the city itself. At first, the damage it caused rated between a zero and a two on the five-point Fujita scale.

That meant its winds were anywhere between 40 and 157 miles per hour. But as the tornado moved deeper into Huntsville, it intensified, destroying shopping centers, apartment complexes, and a school on the eastern side of the city. The extensive damage along its path indicated the tornado reached a four on that five-point scale, and its winds may have been as high as 260 miles per hour. The Huntsville tornado serves as a reminder that under the right conditions, severe thunderstorms can occur just about anywhere and at just about any time in the year. Weather-wise is produced with the assistance of the Cooperative Institute from Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, the Oklahoma Climateological Survey, and the School of Meteorology, all at the University of Oklahoma. Weather-wise is made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. For Weather-wise, I'm Drew Barlow.