10th June 2005 Karoonda Tornado

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An approaching front and NW rainband combined to bring deperately needed season breaking rains over much of the eastern and central parts of the state.

The synoptic and sat image well represent the system.

Synoptic Chart

Sat Image

At about 5:00pm on the friday afternoon(10th) it became apparent that a signicant storm line was approaching the Adelaide coastline as can be seen on THIS RADAR IMAGE

Accompanying this line was very active electrical activity and strong winds. I followed the storm line from Coromandel Valley to Meadows driving through torrential rain and non-stop lightning for the whole 25km's. I was taking photos when the phone rang. "Better get home the shed is flooding" was the message. I raced home to find 3 inches of water covering the shed floor and waterfalls of water cascading down the paddocks. It was just too much water for the paddocks and drains to handle! 22mm from 5:30pm to 8:00pm! The graph from the WX clearly shows the deluge. Amazing rain rates!     Weather Station Rain Graph

However, water dries up and in real terms we were the lucky ones. The system weakened a bit as it left the ranges giving no indication of what was to come. However as it hit the flats and Mallee districts it exploded back into action forming a “gust front” with torrential rain that extended from Nuriootpa to Meningie. The areas in its path got a much needed drenching and localised water damage was commonplace. The storm line passed over Karoonda in just a few short minutes at around 8pm. But this was all the time it needed. Carnage! Powerful winds and possibly even an F1 tornado (according to official BOM reports) ripped through the very heart of the town wreaking havoc and leaving a trail of destruction the like of which is so very rarely seen in SA. On the Sunday after the event I paid a visit to the town to check out the damage myself. I was gobsmacked as I drove into the town. The destruction on some of the houses was complete. The total roof superstructure is just gone, iron, roof beams the lot. Insulation from the roofs is clothing nearby trees like a sad sort of foliage. Yet the house next door is untouched with the pot plants still on the veranda. 10 metres away lies the football clubrooms roof in a twisted mess. The clubrooms are 200 metres away. 2 distinct lines seem to have hit the town, one lifted and then dropped again. The sheer force of it is mind boggling. Whole posts WITH their concrete bases ripped up and thrown 200-300 metres away. Pieces of splintered timber like spears hurled incredible distances. Amazing no-one was killed.
Some of the stories are...
A bloke had the fridge in his shed picked up and thrown several metres.
Another shed door was pushed with such force that a caravan inside the shed punched a hole through the door with its towbar.
One person went out to bring in their cockatoo and cage and it was gone. Cage and all!
Yet another is missing a cow.
One old Lady, whose house was untouched right next door to a completely devastated one, was going through the routine of feeding her wild birds and commented to me rather calmly that "it was scary - never seen so much lightning" Scary is a bit of an understatement I should say. Meanwhile 2 doors down residents are packing a few remaining household goods into a tandem trailer. There is no roof on the house and the windows are blown out.
Turn 180 degrees and the line of destruction leads right up to their doorstep. Some of the images I captured from around Karoonda along with a map of the damage path can be seen from the link below.

CLICK HERE FOR IMAGES FROM THE EVENT

A few more interesting tales.

One Lady in Karoonda whose house was in the direct line of one of the damage paths and lost the verandah of her house, concrete bases on the poles and all, tells the story of how she assurres her grandkids that the storm can't be too bad the trains are running. Look you can hear a train running through the town" What she was not aware of is that no trains were running at all and what she was hearing was the sound of the storm! While it can be a bit of a myth that "train like roaring" is without doubt a tornado it is a commonly described noise associated with tornadoes. High pitched wining or squeals are also commonly heard.

Another report which VERY strongly supports the tornado theory comes from an old fella who was watching the lightning from his front verandah towards the open space of the oval at the height of the storm. He tells of actually viewing a funnel on the ground in the light of the lightning flashes! A pretty good story from (I am told) a reliable source!!

The Stock Journal reports an amazing tale from a farmhouse 7km south of Bowhill (on the River Murray). The story as written by Deanna Lush reads as follows

" STATE NEWS : AGRIBUSINESS AND GENERAL

Tornado causes $20,000 damage to Bow Hill farm
Deanna Lush
Thursday, 16 June 2005

BY DEANNA LUSH

WHILE Karoonda township bore the brunt of a tornado that tore through the Mallee on Friday night, it reportedly hit Bowhill first ­ causing up to $20,000 damage to Kym and Karen Krollig's property. They sustained damage to a spray cart and wool press and lost part of the house roof and shearing shed side panel at their farm, seven kilometres south of the town. A massive tree is precariously hanging over another shed and insurers have called in professionals to remove it. Mrs Krollig says there is still plenty of cleaning up to do, but husband Kym is out getting started on their 400-hectare cropping program. "It started just down the road from our house in a gully and came through our place then took off half of the roof of the house across the road," she said. "I looked out the window with the lightning and I could see a great swirl with leaves and tin blowing, and there was a huge roar. I thought the whole place was going to go."

Whole story HERE. Story copyright of The Stock Journal and Deanna Lush.

What is particularly interesting about this report is that the Bow Hill location is pretty much in a straight line to Karoonda with the direction the storm front was travelling. The map below displays this. The Waikerie Road out of Karoonda is in direct line with the Bow Hill damage and was one of the paths of damage through Karoonda. More than coincidence I think.

The radar loop is very interesting and really does not hint at anything with such power developing and "touching down". Then again it only shows precipitation. Would be great to have a doppler radar image from the area!

 

Such storm dmage is not uncommon in this area with tornadoes and microburst/ straight line wind damage reasonably commonplace. I have seen the results in scrubland on numerous occasions myself. What is unusual (and unfortunate for residents) is that it hit a town full on. Low population densities make such obvious destruction a rare event indeed.

Trying to ascertain with absolute CERTAINTY just what hit Karoonda is difficult as the damage path hints at both straight line winds (microburst) and tornado. At first look I was quite sure that it was NOT a tornado. However with more and more information becoming available its a very strong possibilty that it was indeed a twister. The BOM are of the belief that an F1 tornado, possibly 2 (hence the 2 lines) was the cause of the damage. Its interesting to note here that even they also feel that there may be 2 causes commenting that the damage was caused by "a combination of straight line winds from the precipitation outflow with an embedded tornado or two near the leading edge of the outflow." We may never know for sure. There were certainly some interesting quirks in the damage paths. (See this page for some more information on tornadoes and damage paths.) One thing is for sure, the towns people will never forget it!

The last word should perhaps come from the BOM themselves whose reply to an enquiring email from Tim Eckert reads as follows

Thank you for your enquiry.

After inspection of the site myself yesterday (Tuesday 14 June), I reached the conclusion that the damage I saw was most likely the result of tornado rather than straight line winds. I reached this conclusion because of the
pattern of damage that I found. There was a narrow (~50m) swath of damage through the town. This damage originated near the Waikerie Road approximately 1 km from town and moved in a southeasterly direction for
almost 2 km. In the town there is a line of pine trees that roughly ran across the damage path. In this line of pine trees there were some trees that were severe damaged and others immediately adjacent that were untouched. To my mind, that is reasonably good evidence of tornadic
activity.

It is very rare to see evidence of rotational damage from tornadoes, in my experience. This is because the vast majority of tornadoes in South Australia are of type F0 or F1 (on the Fujita scale). As a consequence, the wind speeds on either side of the funnel can be nearly an order of magnitude different due to the velocity being composed of the translational speed of the storm and rotation speed of the funnel. For example, if the storm was moving at 80 km/h, and the funnel was rotating at 100 km/h (F0), then the velocity relative to the ground on one side of the funnel would be 180km/h and 20 km/h on the other. Understandably then, the winds on one side of
the funnel cause no damage.

I agree that straight line wind damage and tornado damage can at times be very difficult to differentiate. I can assure you that I have made no assumptions in reaching the conclusion that the damage I assessed was
most likely the result of a tornado. It is quite plausible that a tornado and straight line wind damage could originate from the one storm, since the genesis of
tornadoes usually occurs near the boundary of the storm updraft and the precipitation downdraft. The precipitation downdraft (or wet microburst) is the cause of straight line winds.