Researchers using high-resolution computer simulations have discovered that the size of raindrops or hailstones inside a storm cloud influences whether that cloud will spark a severe thunderstorm or spawn an even more destructive tornado.
Most of the New York City subway system was back in service by this evening's rush hour after a fierce morning storm disrupted transit service throughout much of the region and unleashed a rare and destructive tornado that whipped southwestern Brooklyn with winds of up to 135 miles an hour.
This spring, a series of exceptionally destructive tornado swarms has wreaked deadly havoc across the South and Midwest, while a historic flood shoved its way down the Mississippi River.
Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, have crafted a virtual recreation of the destructive tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, in 2013 using radar data recorded at the time, New Scientist reports.
CDT (2210 UTC), a very large and exceptionally destructive tornado struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and about 40 minutes later, the same tornado struck the northern suburbs of nearby Birmingham.
The storm, rated F4 on the Fujita scale, also caused more than $400 million in property damage along an 11.3 mile path, and ranks as the ninth most destructive tornado in American history.
In the aftermath of the first tornado, an official inquiry was conducted into the failure to predict the destructive tornado.
Another destructive tornado occurred in Virginia.
The Hamden tornado was by far the most destructive tornado of this family, and possibly the most damaging of the entire outbreak.
The most destructive tornado in the outbreak occurred on the evening of May 4 in western Kansas, where about 95% of the city of Greensburg in Kiowa County was destroyed by an EF5 tornado.
