METEOROLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVASTATING 27 APRIL 2011 TORNADO OUTBREAK

By many metrics, the tornado outbreak on 27 April 2011 was the most significant tornado outbreak since 1950, exceeding the super outbreak of 3-4 April 1974. The number of tornadoes over a 24-h period (midnight to midnight) was 199; the tornado fatalities and injuries were 316 and more than 2,700, respectively; and the insurable loss exceeded $4 billion (U.S. dollars). In this paper, we provide a meteorological overview of this outbreak and illustrate that the event was composed of three mesoscale events: a large early morning quasi-linear convective system (QLCS), a midday QLCS, and numerous afternoon supercell storms. The main data sources include NWS and research radars, profilers, surface measurements, and photos and videos of the tornadoes. The primary motivation for this preliminary research is to document the diverse characteristics (e.g., tornado characteristics and mesoscale organization of deep convection) of this outbreak and summarize preliminary analyses that are worthy of additional research on this case.