Page 7 - Ef 5 News Today

Tornado covering the path of about 250 miles and that will be the longest single track tornado and whats also unusual is we dont get tornadoes in the month of december however, ef-4 tornadoes have only occurred 19 times in the us in the month of december going back to 1950 ef-5 tornadoes only twice the most recent 1957 we still have to get confirmation whether these storms were that strong, but looking at some of the damage weve seen down there, certainly a possibility. there is a threat of seve...

Church. what i have shown you so far this morning is so far one block. i can tell you this goes on throughout the entire town. were in kind of the downtown area of mayfield and i have not seen a single building at least in downtown mayfield that survives this, probably i dont know repair. if you go a mile from here, there are some areas, residential areas that look completely untouched. if you go in the other direction we havent been able to get to just yet, those houses are wiped off down to ju...

Contrast of temperatures, 80 in memphis, 30 in minneapolis, thats where you see this very volatile weather pattern. lets show you a rewind of the radar last night. in all my years doing this, ive never seen a tornado outbreak quite as destructive as this. we saw about 150 tornado warnings right across this area. you can see the map painted in red, and those are all the tornado reports. 38 tornado reports. one tornado in particular could have been on the ground, possibly, were going to get an ass...

Disasters. the national weather service will go out and individually investigate each tornado that touched down to determine how strong it actually was. some of the preliminary reports showing winds in excess of 250 kilometers per hour. that makes it what is called an ef-3 tornado. that is an enhanced fujita scale. that is a scale that we use to show the destruction of the wind associated with tornados. but believe me, it actually goes higher than ef-3. you can see ef-4 to ef-5, which obviously ...

Confirmed at a higher level, maybe an ef-4, ef-5. going into edwardsville and defiance in illinois, we also have ef-3 damage possible here as well. when i say more than ef-3, were talking ef-4, ef-5, which is devastating to incredible damage and winds in excess of 200 miles possibly. 200 miles per hour. >> wow. yeah, that is very powerful. tyler malden, thank you so much. after the break, we will get an update from kentucky emergency manager michaels doss with the latest on the recovery effort...

Guessing its going to be an ef-5 and not knowing they were going to get a direct hit, im sure. im sure it was just a shock to them when they got hit. >> so heartbreaking. were fortunate for people like you who are helping with the rescue efforts. im sorry about whats happened in your hometown. commissioner todd hayden. were expecting a live update from the governor of tennessee at any moment. the devastation on the ground is frankly beyond belief. as im telling you right now, this man says hes...

Well. national weather service going to each individual touchdown of tornadoes and rating them in the enhanced fujita scale. that is a scale that takes into consideration wind strength and damage. of course, still investigating all of these individual areas, but what theyre finding is damage consistent with winds in excess of 200 to 300 kilometers per hour. this stands anywhere between an ef-3 to ef-5 tornado. i mean, this is just absolutely incredible. were talking about catastrophic devastatio...

The storm there was ef-5 damage. one thunk we do know from the radar imagery, there was debris 35,000 feet in the air. that would be coming from 40, 50 miles southwest of here where this tornado started and then traveled from likely over 200 miles, debris that was picked up in the air, probably peoples belongings scattered 200 miles or so from somebodys home, their photos, memorabilia, birth certificates, all the people really hold on and treasure. right here in mayfield seems to be the town tha...

Town. that was at 9:27. that was three minutes before the tornado actually moved through. there was that notice but i cant imagine that fear that was invoked in people and what they felt, you know, was going to happen in the next three to five minutes. so as we went through, we had many, many warnings. we actually just had our tornado watch drop. that was a half hour ago. our last recent warning just dropped about 15 minutes ago. so we are in the clear in terms of that. so when this all wraps up...

Echo. that area right where mayfield is that kind of juts out, you can see the darker reds to the north of it. thats usually what we call like the hail shaft. in this case that was probably some debris being picked up by the radar also. that little hook right near mayfield, thats right where the tornado was located. its well defined signature that tells us on radar that theres a tornado so the tornado emergency was issued well in time. the problem that you have with these ef-4, ef-5 tornados is ...