Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Teton Tornado

University of Utah alum Jack Hales has a great blog examining the weather of the Star Valley of Wyoming.  Jack recently retired from a remarkable 46-year career in the National Weather Service that included more than 25 years as a lead forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center (formerly the National Severe Storms Forecast Center) in Norman, OK.  If you are at the SPC, you are a member of the "dream team" of weather forecasting.

Jack's post today examines the Teton Tornado, a rare high-altitude F4 tornado that moved through northwest Wyoming 25 years ago this month on July 21, 1987.  An F4 tornado produces devastating damage and has estimated winds of 207–260 mph.

Blown down trees from the Teton Tornado.  Source: Fujita (1989), photo
by Brian Smith. 
The tornado was even investigated by Ted Fujita, developer of the Fujuta scale of tornado intensity.

Click here to have a look at Jack's post.

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