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Posted on Mon, Mar. 03, 2008

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Greensburg, Udall storms eerily similar, experts say

In 1955, and again in 2007, twisters flattened Kansas towns

BY STAN FINGER

The Wichita Eagle

As meteorologists assessed what was left of Greensburg after a tornado decimated the Kiowa County town in May, they were reminded of another moment in history 52 years earlier.

Udall.

In the deadliest tornado in Kansas history, the town south of Wichita was wiped off the map by a twister that struck at 10:35 p.m. on May 25, 1955.

It killed 82 people.

There hadn't been another tornado like it until Greensburg was hit the night of May 4.

The comparisons pretty much stopped there, however -- until meteorologist Mike Smith began revisiting the Udall tornado as part of research for a book.

The more he studied the Udall tornado, the more he saw something else: Greensburg.

"From the research that I've done, Greensburg and Udall are probably the most comparable tornadoes that I've come across," said Smith, founder and chief executive of the Wichita-based private forecasting service WeatherData Inc.

They're so much alike, Smith said, they're practically twins.

"It's uncanny, to be quite honest with you, how similar the tornadoes are," said Chance Hayes, the warning coordination meteorologist for the Wichita office of the National Weather Service. "It's jaw-dropping."

The similarities are numerous, Smith said. They include:

• Both tornadoes measured EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. That's the highest rating on the scale, with sustained winds in excess of 200 mph.

• Both destroyed 95 percent of the town they struck and damaged the remaining 5 percent.

• Both traveled north, rather than the usual southwest-to-northeast track.

• Both were extremely difficult to see because they were wrapped in rain and hail at night.

• The tornadoes struck at essentially the same level of darkness: Greensburg was hit three weeks earlier and farther west, but earlier at night.

• The radar echoes of the supercell thunderstorm complexes that produced the Udall and Greensburg tornadoes are so similar that when Smith put maps of the two atop each other they look like virtual copies.

"That's about as identical meteorologically as you are ever going to get in terms of a supercell thunderstorm," Smith said.

But he stops short of calling the Udall and Greensburg tornadoes identical twins, because there are distinctions.

Greensburg was larger -- 1 ¾ miles wide to Udall's 1 ½ miles wide. The Greensburg tornado looped back around about 270 degrees before it fell apart, Smith said. There's no evidence the Udall tornado looped at all.

The May 4 tornado "almost reattacked Greensburg," Smith said.

Hayes said he was amazed by the similarities between the two tornadoes.

"It's almost one of those 'Pete and Repeat' things," Hayes said.

With 1,500 residents, Greensburg was about three times the size of Udall, Smith said. If Udall's casualty rate had occurred in Greensburg, it would have meant more than 240 deaths and nearly 800 injuries.

The fact that the death and injury toll was as small as it was -- 11 deaths and 59 injuries -- is testimony to improvements in technology and forecasting, officials say.

But that doesn't mean folks should relax their guard.

"The odds of it happening are there every single year," Hayes said. "We've been very fortunate that it hasn't happened, but the threat is still there and all we can do is continue to prepare for it."

Reach Stan Finger at 316-268-6437 or sfinger@wichitaeagle.com.