Absolute Vorticity

Just a reminder that today is the 9 year anniversary of the Piner tornado. This also went on to hit Moscow in Clermont County. There are a lot of tweets and posts on Social Media today in memory of this.

There is a reason we do what we do. We don’t want to see people hurt and things destroyed, but it is the reality of Mother Nature.

Here are some of the photos I got near the scene, when I ran some radio equipment to Red Cross field units on that Friday night.
Pics 1 & 2 - trees snapped like twigs. 2 story house without a roof. Marathon Gas Station under construction. The building was cinder block walls and a roof and it was destroyed, while the canopy was fully intact. This also dropped the Duke Energy high tension lines into the Ohio River. USCG had closed river traffic at this location.

Seen a lot of stuff on social media about it today. My memory was that the tornado warned cell passed about 10 miles south of me across S Boone co on its way to do damage in Piner, KY then on to the river where it got Moscow. Then 2 1/2 to 3 days later, a clipper system moved thru bringing NKY 2-3" of snow.

I also remember some unique things what had never heard before while on WARN/Skywarn net.

Debris falling out of the sky in terms of paperwork in Delhi, with NKY addresses on it.
The sky looking black and nasty- like scary looking.
Debris falling on the runways at CVG- like 2x4s, and wood and other stuff. It initiated an extended full ground stop even after the storm to clean up the runways, taxiways, and tarmacs.

One thing that stands out to me was temps were in upper 30s to start the day, and I believe were still in the 40s late morning/noonish . I remember thinking there's no way we can get the instability in time. Another amazing learning experience meteorological

Video of an EF3 near Crittenden, KY:

The Clermont county sheriff at the time put a large collection out on Flicker of the damage around Moscow. The house I grew up in wasn’t too badly damaged, but lost its porch (6th and 7th pictures, next to the church). https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheriffaj ... 960216997/

March 2, 2012 was without a doubt one of the most stressful times for me as a forecaster. I was at Ohio University studying meteorology and journalism at the time. The days leading up to the tornado outbreak featured a general consensus among the forecast models that there was big trouble on the way for the Ohio Valley and points south. The night before, I took a break from data analyses and took a walk to the gym to workout. I had a very bad feeling the entire time. Finished the workout, came back to Sargeant Hall, and spent another few hours looking over the newest model runs before calling it a night. I knew the next day would feature a lot of bad news.

After about three hours of sleep, I was up and at it tracking the early meteorological details for the day. Having lived through an F-4 tornado as a youngster, it was incredibly difficult to watch conditions fall in place that could (and eventually would) produce major tornadoes in the tri-state area. All while I was in Southeast Ohio on the outside looking in to what was going to be a destructive day in my stomping grounds.

I skipped all classes that day and posted up in the commons area of my dorm hall as major tornado producing supercells tracked just to the south of Cincinnati.

Pretty sure my “holy shit” moment came when the weather service issued a Tornado Emergency for areas along and south of the river, as well as CVG initiating a ground stop due to significant debris falling onto the runways from the large tornadoes tracking just a couple miles to the south of the airport.

Attached is one of my posts from the morning of March 2, 2012. Probably some of the strongest wording I’ve ever used to relay a significant weather concern in my long history of posting weather updates.

The following severe season (2013) was wild in Oklahoma. Moore and then El Reno. My Meso Met Prof was actually involved in the El Reno data sampling. She was in the radar vehicle (DOW) that observed the insane winds from the El Reno tornado.

After that, summer 2013 involved me back in town and meeting up with the late Rich Apuzzo for lunches. Per his request we usually settled on Panera. He would suggest that I join his site (W3) and then I would say yeah only if you join AV and we would both laugh.

I do miss the lunches with him. He would judge me for picking off the tomatoes from my sandwiches

good stuff here; What an historic weather day that one was.

House of Cards wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:17 pm good stuff here; What an historic weather day that one was.

For sure! One of the positives about the day was that these were “plains style” supercells which allowed for better warning time versus the spin ups we usually see around here. Lives were lost, but no doubt many were saved with the extended warning lead time.

Here are some videos ILN made about the day from their perspective.

Trevor wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:20 pm

House of Cards wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:17 pm good stuff here; What an historic weather day that one was.

For sure! One of the positives about the day was that these were “plains style” supercells which allowed for better warning time versus the spin ups we usually see around here. Lives were lost, but no doubt many were saved with the extended warning lead time.

I had a reply on the March thread about this one; I remember reading the forum leading up to and then the actual day of the event. My boss was ready to send me home because not only did I not do a thing work-wise, but my continual "Oh My God's" or "Holy Smokes!" were causing everyone around me to keep stopping their work to see what I was seeing at the moment.

House of Cards wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:56 pm

Trevor wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:20 pm

House of Cards wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:17 pm good stuff here; What an historic weather day that one was.

For sure! One of the positives about the day was that these were “plains style” supercells which allowed for better warning time versus the spin ups we usually see around here. Lives were lost, but no doubt many were saved with the extended warning lead time.

I had a reply on the March thread about this one; I remember reading the forum leading up to and then the actual day of the event. My boss was ready to send me home because not only did I not do a thing work-wise, but my continual "Oh My God's" or "Holy Smokes!" were causing everyone around me to keep stopping their work to see what I was seeing at the moment.

I feel ya! Like I said in a previous post, I skipped all of my classes that day and posted up in my dorm conference room for a solid eight hours tracking and updating my FB page, forum, and also making calls to family and friends back home. Longgg day for sure.

finally finished watching all 4 parts, that was a very well done documentary ILN put together.

House of Cards wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 7:08 pm finally finished watching all 4 parts, that was a very well done documentary ILN put together.

Agreed! ILN posted it a year after the outbreak. I watched it when it came out and try to watch it every year around this time. It’s good stuff