Last week’s tornado outbreak eerily similar to August 2013 that damaged ‘Hotel Hell’

Flooding, high winds, and tornadoes. That sums up the wild weather Wisconsin had last week across the state. The La Crosse area in southwestern Wisconsin is still underwater receiving over a foot of rainfall. Parts of Madison remain underwater while the northern metro of Milwaukee saw record flooding which included washed out roads and cars flooded out.

Even worse than all of this was the 17 tornadoes reported in Wisconsin last Tuesday, the worst outbreak seen in the state in 13 years. In modern history, this is the one of the worst tornado outbreaks — the title going to the Stoughton Tornado Outbreak which watched 27 tornadoes slam the state on August 18th, 2005. The 17 tornadoes last week were all EF-1s and EF-0s, except one EF-2 in Brownsville, Wisconsin, along the border of Fond du Lac and Dodge County.

Tornadoes come in all forms: they can form in low precipitation environment; also separate cells called supercells, or can be kicked up within a line of storms. These tornadoes were produced along a thunderstorm complex called a quasi-linear convective system or QLCS. These are very fast-moving storms that incorporate tornadoes that are rain-wrapped, or incredibly impossible to see. Without the evolution in tornado technology and understanding how tornadoes work, these twisters would go undetected.

This cluster of thunderstorms was very similar to the system of winds and tornadoes that struck parts of northeastern Wisconsin on the night of August 6th and the early morning of August 7th in 2013. This line in 2013 produced 6 tornadoes, all EF-2s or EF-1s, and caused a line of fiery with damaging winds of over 70 mph along the leading edge. It caused significant damage to hundreds of homes in the Fox Valley, and also in the Denmark and Maribel area. It’s the storm system that caused devastation to Hotel Hell, a historic icon in Maribel.

The big difference between last week’s outbreak and 2013’s outbreak: the time it hit and the tornado count. 2013’s storm slammed northeastern Wisconsin in the middle of the night, another reminder why weather radios are so important. The amount of tornadoes were greater last week likely because of the time they cruised through — during daytime heating with more favorable dynamics.

Before last week’s outbreak, the state had only 10 tornadoes for 2018. Now up to 28 this year, we are above the state’s average of 23.

Chris Nelson is the CBS58 Morning Meteorologist in Milwaukee, WI.

Chris Nelson Meteorologist CBS58

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Morning Meteorologist at CBS58 in Milwaukee. Catch me at 4:30–7am Monday through Friday.

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