Special Announcement: Remembering the June 1st, 2011 Massachusetts Tornado Outbreak
Hello to all..
It is hard to believe, as many people will feel time has gone by so quickly, but we have reached the one-year anniversary of a historic day in Southern New England Weather History. The June 1st, 2011 Massachusetts Tornado Outbreak will be a day long remembered in weather history. This announcement recaps the tornado outbreak and the lessons learned that apply today.
The June 1st, 2011 event was forecasted by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman Oklahoma as far as 5 days out. This is very rare for New England to be in a convective outlook past 3 days. The outlook of ‘Slight Risk’ for severe weather would continue right up through June 1st. As we got into June 1st, a fast moving area of rapidly developing severe thunderstorms ahead of the warm front affected portions of Southern New Hampshire and Northeast Massachusetts producing large hail. These storms quickly moved out of area and were a sign of things to come and how explosive the atmosphere was on June 1st. Abundant sunshine and rapid heating and destabilization coupled with extremely strong wind shear values, set the stage for a historic major severe weather outbreak in Massachusetts and other parts of New England. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman Oklahoma issued a Mesoscale Convective Discussion highlighting the need for Tornado Watches for much of New York and New England. The Tornado Watches would be issued and supercell severe thunderstorms would move into Southern New England.
Initially the supercells produced very large hail including hail slightly over 4″ in diameter in East Windsor Massachusetts, Berkshire County, which may potentially set the new record for the commonwealth as far as hail size but no tornadic or wind damage activity through 400 PM. This is when the supercell began to take shape in Western Hampden County Massachusetts and set the stage for the large, long track EF-3 Tornado that traversed the area from Westfield to Charlton Massachusetts for a 39-mile long damage path and was on the ground for 70 minutes. Three smaller tornadoes occurred in Western and Central Massachusetts from additional supercells moving through the area. Another area of supercells went through Northern Worcester County into Middlesex and Suffolk Counties producing Golf Ball Sized hail and pockets of wind damage all the way into the Metro Boston area.
June 1st, 2011 underscored how important Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters and non-Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters are to the warning process and how the timely severe weather reporting can not only help the warning process but can also help saves lives. The near real-time reporting of the large EF-3 tornado touchdown with initial preliminary reports in Westfield, the actual spotting of the EF3 Tornado by Western Massachusetts SKYWARN Coordinator, Ray Weber-KA1JJM, and the amazing remote webcam footage from WWLP-TV channel 22 in Springfield Massachusetts helped to tell people that not only was this a radar detected tornado but that it was definitely on the ground and doing significant damage. It is quite likely that many lives were saved by this near realtime reporting of the tornado being on the ground.
Amateur Radio SKYWARN Nets were active on several Amateur Radio Repeaters including the 146.940-Mount Tom Repeater run by the Mount Tom Amateur Radio Club and with Amateur Radio members and SKYWARN Spotters from the Hampden County Radio Association also reporting into the net. The 146.970-Paxton Repeater run by the Central Massachusetts Amateur Radio Club was active for several hours as well. Both repeaters providing significant near realtime reporting for situational awareness and disaster intelligence purposes not only to the media but also to local, state and federal emergency management officials. The Amateur Radio Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP)/Echolink system on the echolink conference *NEW-ENG* node 9123/IRLP 9123 was also active with liaisons from various Amateur Radio nets reporting into the network. While not in the NWS Taunton County Warning Area, the 146.910-Mount Greylock Repeater was active with Berkshire County SKYWARN as run by Rick-WA1ZHM with Walt-N1DQU providing information from the net into NWS Taunton. Net Controls for the 146.940 Mount Tom Net were Bob Meneguzzo-K1YO and for the 146.970 Paxton Net, John Ruggiero-N2YHK. N9SC-Steve Craven provided a critical liaison link from the 146.970-Paxton Repeater Net to the 146.940-Mount Tom Net during the tornadic outbreak. Many Amateur Radio Operators and non-Amateur Radio SKYWARN Spotters reported severe weather conditions despite being at risk from these powerful supercells. We are forever grateful for the reporting that helped save lives. The outpouring of damage assessment pictures and videos and reports near and after the event was unprecedented. This clearly helped Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), local and state emergency management perform their duties to try and bring as many resources to bear on the significant path of destruction carved out by the tornado outbreak.
For the victims, today is likely a painful reminder of what occurred and what loses they face and in some cases are still recovering from in terms of property damage and possibly lives lost. Our thoughts and prayers remain to all those people that are affected and we hope that they’re recovery will complete as soon as possible.
For those not impacted by such a significant event as June 1st and not impacted severely by the likes of Irene and Snowtober last year, this is a reminder that we must all be prepared for these significant weather situations that occur at low frequency but can be with high impact. The more self-sufficient and prepared we are, the easier the situation will be if we are faced with such a significant scenario if it comes our way and potentially occurs in a more widespread way. For those SKYWARN Spotters and Amateur Radio Operators who have not witnessed such severe weather, this is why we train and prepare because we never know the hour or day where a critical severe weather report can help the warning process and save lives.
On a personal level, we never want severe weather like this to happen but if it has to happen, the level of commitment, support and reporting of the situation in near realtime on June 1st with a high level of precision and quality but also in the quantity that the reports came through in our network is a testament to all of you for remaining dedicated and supportive of the National Weather Service SKYWARN program. It is an honor and a privilege for myself and many of our Amateur Radio SKYWARN Coordinators across the NWS Taunton County Warning Area to serve as leaders of the program and we appreciate everything you do, as without all of you, we wouldn’t have the SKYWARN program we have today in our region. Having been the leader of the program for 16 years, this was our finest hour in supporting the NWS Taunton office and saving lives and it couldn’t have been done without all of your support.
We hope this remembrance makes people never forget what happened on June 1st 2011 and remind ourselves again that we must remain, prepared and vigilant especially here in New England where events such as June 1st can happen but on a low frequency basis. Later this summer, a June 1st 2011 video collage will be posted at our SKYWARN video page at video.nsradio.org with recordings of some of the Amateur Radio reports that came in through the network. Below is the NWS Taunton – Massachusetts Tornado Summary, the ARRL Story on the June 1st Tornado Outbreak, the NWS Taunton June 1st Local Storm Report and the Raw Storm log from the WX1BOX Amateur Radio Station.
NWS Taunton Massachusetts Tornado Summary:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/sigevents/jun01_2011_summary.php
ARRL Story from 6/1/12 – Central Massachusetts Experiences Rare Tornado, Area Hams Hasten to Help:
http://www.arrl.org/news/central-massachusetts-experiences-rare-tornado-area-hams-hasten-to-help
NWS Taunton Local Storm Reports:
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/lsr_6_1_11.txt
NWS Taunton-WX1BOX Raw Amateur Radio Storm Log:
http://beta.wx1box.org/local/storm_reports.txt
Respectfully Submitted,
Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: 508-346-2929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://ares.ema.arrl.org
http://beta.wx1box.org