21st Conf. on Severe Local Storms and 19th Conf. on Weather Analysis and Forecasting/15th Conf. on Numerical Weather Prediction

Wednesday, 14 August 2002
Impact of Small Tornadoes on National Weather Service Operations 29 July, 2001
John J. Kwiatkowski, NOAA/NWS, Indianapolis, IN; and D. L. Sherrieb
Poster PDF (510.7 kB)
On July 29, 2001 funnel clouds and F0 tornadoes developed over portions of central Indiana. Associated radar returns would normally have been considered too light for precipitation. No damage was observed, but the event was widely visible and generated considerable public excitement. This required an response from the Indianapolis National Weather Service to a situation in which normal data acquisition methods were of little use. The response was complicated by the event being both high profile and low danger, which no established procedure was ideally suited for. The meteorological and operational histories of the event are discussed, with an eye toward spurring discussion on the handling of similar episodes.

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