The Pilger, NE, Twin EF-4 Tornadoes of June 16, 2014: A Case Study

In-depth meteorological discussion of the localized tornado outbreak that occurred across central/northeast Nebraska on June 16, 2014, which included the infamous Pilger, NE, twin EF-4s. We'll discuss the extremely favorable environment that fostered these tornadoes, as well as a separate supercell that produced a photogenic tornado near Burwell, NE, and we'll at least attempt to ascertain why the Pilger supercell's two violent tornadoes were able to coexist in such close proximity.
Big thanks to storm chaser Stephen Jones for the awesome thumbnail image; you can find him on Facebook (Storm Chaser Stephen Jones) and here on KZbin (Tornado Intercept).
NWS Omaha's event page: www.weather.gov/oax/event_arc...
Lemon and Doswell (1979) paper on tornadogenesis: www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff...
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
3:07 Meteorological discussion
25:07 Radar analysis of the Pilger supercell
35:24 Discussion of the Burwell tornadic supercell
41:27 Why twins?

[@tfk_001]

"During the tornado alley storm season, its very common for me to witness multiple large tornados on the ground at the same time. What made this day so extraordinary is that I didnt wake up right afterwards" Pecos Hank on Pilger

[@dannygray4898]

Fantastic job here mate. This is by far THE best deep dive into this event I've ever seen. The footage from this day was incredible aswell. Cheers!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you; I really appreciate it!

[@railfanmaximstill7279]

29:39 That was the moment where the Wakefield Tornado took the rope stage of the Pilger Tornado and sent it flying to the other end of the mesocyclone to decay. The Pilger Tornado at that point moved at 108 MPH It also went all the way around the Wakefield once at that speed

[@deandracarter8468]

I greatly appreciated you calling one of the hodographs an "absolute unit"

[@anthonywhavers8232]

Oh I was waiting for this one. Such an historic day. I remember seeing the coverage on the Weather Channel (back when it actually covered the weather) and being in disbelief. Fantastic job yet again.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you!!

[@_GreenSkies_]

I am really enjoying the analysis going on here. I don't yet understand all of it but it's deeply fascinating. Commenting for the algorithm because this is looking criminally underrated

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you so much!

[@Boxscot49]

I came in here simply interested in a twin tornado and ended up feeling like I was in school again and I don’t at all mean that in a bad way. The study of how these storms are produced is pretty incredible to learn about.

[@r.w.bottorff7735]

This channel is the perfect day to day meteorological companion/tornado interest combo. Great work, wonderfully dense, yet easy to follow, thank you CC!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you so much!

[@jenniferkubik478]

Thanks for studying these tornadoes in my neck of the woods. I live in central Nebraska, while these happened in northeast Nebraska. I remember the storm system with these tornadoes. It passed through our area before it became that. The weather was really unstable back then.

[@younghurricane1995]

Them twin tornadoes were a beauty 😍 .. but sadly they did a lot of damage but I'll never forget they both quickly formed into EF4s at the same time, unreal! Seeing videos of two tornadoes on the ground at the same time is a natural beauty

[@kevinjoyce285]

That sounding around the 24th minute was absolutely PACKED. Eff Inflow isn't the main thing to look at, but I think it helps in some situations. 406 is definitely a lot to work wit there

[@skywatcher8120]

Would love to see you do one of these on the April 26, 1991 outbreak. I am a survivor of the EF4-5 Oologah, OK tornado that hit that day. Will never forget that day. Also had the Red Rock, OK Tornado and the Wichita/Andover, KS tornado that killed so many in the Golden Spur mobile home park. I know doing older events is harder to do because the lack of data ,but still would love to hear your thoughts.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

April 26, 1991 is high up on my list of case studies to do. Such an incredible event…glad you made it out ok from the Oologah tornado, what a beast that was, one of many that day.

[@questionitall3053]

That’s an incredible story bro. I live in Manchester, north of England, so have only seen small tornadoes. I do remember being in Maryland at an uncles back in May 2001, and saw a rotating beast of a storm, but no tornado. I’d love to go chasing properly in mid west USA.

[@Rhi_wx]

As always an absolutely brilliant analysis Trey; such a fascinating case study. Definitely one of those events that anyone with an interest in meterology / storm chasing wishes they could've been there to witness, myself included!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you, Rhi! Yep, so wish I could’ve been there for that.

[@lifeintornadoalley]

One of my first solo chases. Was a weird day to be stuck between these as my dog locked me out of my truck. Was worth chasing for sure!

[@tfk_001]

You got to see something that you will likely never see ever again even if you chase every single storm on this planet. Worth it is a huge understatement

[@jacobmccain8082]

You weren't running away from the world's largest vacuum. You clearly couldn't be trusted 😂

[@phillipgrammer9429]

I love your case studies. This may be an unpopular opinion and feel free to ignore, but I would love to see some case studies (maybe brief) on events that didn't produce. Explanation on the setup and what was expected and then a breakdown of what about the setup ended up inhibiting severe weather. Or just keep doing what you are doing, its awesome!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thanks so much! I’ve got some failure cases on my list; in fact, the next case study I’ll be releasing is a look at the May 20, 2019 TX/OK high risk that was supposed to be a very high end tornado outbreak but underperformed significantly.

[@johng.7560]

Love your channel, I have learned so much in a very short time. You definitely have the best format for learning I have come across. Your skew-t and hodograph series was really well done. Any time the tornado gods plan an event, I will come to you to see how they make it happen.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you so much; I really appreciate that!

[@aaronjones1469]

Nice case study. This is a very rare thing to happen with two monster tornadoes happening at the same time.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you! Very rare indeed; not sure if we’ll see this again any time soon.

[@aaronjones1469]

@@ConvectiveChronicles Your welcome. Never say never though, because with weather nothing is guaranteed. Hopefully, this doesn't happen again.

[@craigusselman546]

Could you imagine being on the highway between those two freaky

[@paradoxicalpoet1525]

You might be my favorite KZbinr. This was awesome!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

That means a lot; thank you!!

[@hueydevotedUH1]

This is probably the most incredible tornado related events I have ever seen. Just amazing!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Agreed!

[@TAStormChasing]

Thanks for the upload. Happy holidays!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Happy holidays to you, as well!

[@myria9644]

i was waiting for this video! thanks cc.

[@peachxtaehyung]

Thank you for this! I've always been confused about this event because like you said most of the time one tornado is weaker and the other stronger

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

My pleasure; thanks for watching! It certainly was a mind-boggling case.

[@soonerduck9622]

Loved the inclusion of the Lemon/Doswell schematic, illustrating a possible clue, or ingredient, as to what could have led to the production and maintenance of the tors. Good stuff.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thanks so much!

[@MarkStD]

Thanks for the analysis on this one. I remember watching this on a live stream. A suggestion for another case study would be the June 1, 2011 greater Springfield, Massachusetts EF3 that had a path of 37 miles. Something you don't see outside of the plains.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thanks for watching! I do plan on doing a video on the Springfield event. Definitely a unique event for the New England region.

[@iandouglas4145]

These vids always deliver. Thanks again.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you!

[@iandouglas4145]

Very much looking forward to your analysis of May 27, 1997.

[@CoolBreeze1232]

No idea what is going on but smart enough to follow along. Fascinating stuff

[@SvrWxArchive1807]

Once again. Another great video! One of the most comprehensive and consice analysis of this day! For future reference for Nebraska, I know it's weird, but Norfolk is pronounced like "Nor-fork" long story I know haha. If you're curious. 2014 was quite the year for Eastern Nebraska. On May 11, Mother's Day had one of the more prolific cyclic supercells seen in this region in a while. It had the Beaver Creek EF-3 and tornadoes into the Omaha metro. June 3 might be the most interesting imo. What started as a day where strong tornadoes seemed likely turned into one cluster which produced 80-90mph winds and baseball size hail to places north of Omaha. Some of the images from Blair constitue the worst hail damage I've ever seen, homes looked like Swiss cheese.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thanks so much! "Nor-fork"...wow, I never would've guessed! Thank you for the correction. And yes, 2014 was fairly slow in general but it turned out to be a pretty active year for Nebraska, capped off by the Pilger and Coleridge days back-to-back in June.

[@DjPyro2010]

That OAX 1900 skew T is probably the most impressive observed sounding I've ever seen. The most impressive calculated sounding was one from the June 14 2023 southeast outbreak with 3900 mixed layer cape, 211 3cape, 909 effective helicty, and 87 knots of effective shear

[@jross2229]

Great video. Learned a lot!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you!

[@alexbuilds706]

Excellent breakdown, new sub… Maybe throw some more visuals of the storm in the first half for the algo but really well done and informative 🥂

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you!

[@mattmichael6792]

Informative and fascinating. I watched from a afar in central Iowa by way of radar and satellite. That was an amazing storm from those Vantage points. The echo tops were pretty epic though I don’t remember the numbers

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you! Yeah, that storm was a beast...it shot up to over 60,000 feet before it put down the initial Stanton tornado.

[@ChipsDaCat]

This was a great video! Cant wait for more!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thanks so much!

[@MightyMuffins]

Fantastic job dude. I actually remember seeing these from videos and photos on twitter back when this was on-going from Upstate NY and was like "this is one of the most insane tornado sequences I ever seen". The shear fact these were 2 EF4s and twins.....IDK if we will see this again in our lifetimes.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you! Couldn't agree more; I'm not sure something like Pilger will be happening again any time soon.

[@supertornadogun1690]

Yeah and they even both did EF4 damage at the same time.

[@MightyMuffins]

@@ConvectiveChronicles Agreed. I got 2 case study suggestions if you plan to do them down the road, The infamous Greensburg tornado but also the EF5 that always seems to be forgotten, the Parkersburg-New Hartford tornado from 2008. So little information seems to be on the Parkerburg EF5.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

@@MightyMuffins Those are both on my list. Greensburg was such a beast, and you're right; not much info exists on Parkersburg. Plan on doing both as case studies in the future.

[@MightyMuffins]

@@ConvectiveChronicles Right on. Yeah the the Greensburg one was a beast. Those were in the early YT days when i was graduating HS around Albany so video was tricky to find at the time, however what video has been shown from it is one of the most insane tornadoes ever. I have no clue how people chased and even got semi-close to that cause even the rare lightning strikes that back lit it, the tornado nearly filled the frames.

[@radstorm]

When I was a kid I recall the news showing twin tornadoes in Indiana on Palm Sunday outbreak, 1965, I have seen lots of photos, but not the actual short film clip someone made..it was spooky as heck. Sadly many lost their lives that day..

[@sirensproject]

Love the analysis!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you!!

[@SShrikke]

I sometimes hear you're more likely to get two or more long-lasting tornadoes at the same time if your hodograph is nearly perfectly circular with the boundary backing the surface winds. This case happened when speed shear wasn't too intense, coinciding with the extreme instability of mid June.

[@galdutro]

The curvature in the hodograph at 21z in Sioux city reminds me of a sounding from a event that produced a very powerful tornado in southern Brazil, that completely wrecked a community in the municipality of Francisco Beltrão, back in May 13th, 2015. It produce some of the most gut-wrenching vehicle damage I know of in any tornado in the southern hemisphere.

[@catgat4973]

i like your videos they're very insightful and thoughtprovoking. however i dont really understand the Z measurement, does that stand for time, place, or both?

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you! Z stands for Zulu time (also called Greenwich Mean Time or UTC Time). It basically gives a way to tell time that doesn’t involve changing time zones. For the Plains, CST is UTC Time - 6 hours, and CDT is UTC time - 5 hours. For example, if we wanted to find out what 18z is in CST, we’d do 18z - 6 hours = 1200 hours = 12:00pm.

[@railfanmaximstill7279]

2:41 They rarely use Fremont Nebraska in target area names in outlooks they will show it in the outlook but rarely ever put it in there

[@TempoDrift1480]

I stop by there every now and then. You can still see lots where people have gathered up whatever was left of their stuff and quite a few empty lots. It's a really somber feeling to tell the truth. It's just hard to wrap your head around what happened there. It's like it was a setup or something. It came in the south West corner intersection and left town in the North East corner. Just wiped out the center.

[@jenniferkubik478]

I was wondering, could you do June 3rd, 1980 for Grand Island, Nebraska? We had seven tornadoes that night. I don't know how much meteorological data you can find from over 40 years ago. I am curious what you can say about that obvious unstable weather situation.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

That event is on the list! Unfortunately, data archives are often incomplete that far back, so that might add some difficulty, but I do plan on doing a case study on that event in the future.

[@steveeymann6374]

I had friends in pilger during that storm. Luckily they were ok but the town was devastated.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Glad they were ok

[@whitneypickle]

Watching this after my neck of the woods had anticyclonic tornadoes tonight. Hope to see a video about what conditions create an anticyclonic storm. 4 tornados, Tillman and Cotton counties in OK, night of April 30th, 2024 (roughly 9:30ish p.m. C.S.T.)

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Usually they are brief and form on the rear flank downdraft gust front, but that was not the case tonight. Very interesting evolution.

[@Cdunlapweather]

The pigler tornado was the fastest Intel dec 15 last year. Amazing video

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you! I used Pilger as the fastest ever because its speed has been explicitly calculated by meteorologists and holds the official world record (see Pecos Hank's video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nX7apGurmr19bbc). It's definitely plausible the 12-15-21 tornado outbreak had some that moved faster, but more study will be needed to confirm that.

[@Cdunlapweather]

@@ConvectiveChronicles Yea I saw his video. I remember reed timer posting something on twitter saying that theirs a new fastest tornado at 115 it but more research will be needed

[@robchasing3140]

Great video! One question: is there a way to tell from a sounding if a supercell will be more cyclical in producing tornadoes or if the tornadoes will be longer track and fairly uninterrupted?

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you! So those are two behaviors that can overlap; you can have long-track cyclic supercells that produce multiple long-track tornadoes…it’s all based on the wind profile. Supercells that produce long-track tornadoes reach a balance with the ambient environment, meaning they go through all their maturation processes and then are able to sustain themselves for a super long time due to ample streamwise vorticity/shear in the environment until something (like more stable air) weakens it. The long track tornadoes are usually confined to the upper echelon wind profiles…your classic highly curved low-level hodograph; Cameron Nixon defines the best of these as the “forever meso” hodographs: cameronnixonphotography.wordpress.com/research/the-storm-relative-hodograph/

[@robchasing3140]

@@ConvectiveChronicles thank you so much! Wow, Cameron’s page is a treasure trove of knowledge!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

He’s an absolute expert at hodographs (and a lot more). His site is basically the hodograph bible!

[@Casey_E]

Not multiple Vortices but 2 parallel EF4's a few football fields apart!! what a sight

[@getinthespace7715]

Geeze. Can you imagine if these were 1 big one. Would have been a monster.

[@ezera7616]

This day kinda makes me scared on what could've happened if we didn't see those height rises... that parameter space is absolutely bonkers from 18z...

[@Zero-is-infinite]

Def like these case studies. I never grasp it all at once but I run the vid through AI so I can make a test based on the content to test how much I’m retaining and learning.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

That’s awesome; thank you!

[@jawmedia7575]

excellent work, have you thought about the tornado day back in may of 2019? may 28th 2019 dayton ohio tornado

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Thank you! Yes, that is on my list!

[@jawmedia7575]

I live 30 miles east of dayton. It was an insane night that night.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

@@jawmedia7575 I bet! I remember watching the radar as we were heading back from chasing in Kansas and just having a pit in my stomach watching the debris signature on radar.

[@Elysian777]

I was following a few chasers this day and I can't recall which one it was, but I was on one that got the tornadogenesis of these, live. Then he or another chaser that was on them (can't recall which) put up a drone to check the damage. I remember bouncing in my chair, yelling to my partner about it.

[@Raceb8420]

Every time I look at a hodograph, I used to imagine that a meteorologist somewhere secretly had their 3 year old draw it. Now I look at the joules/kg part of the gragh to see if tornadoes are likely. If the area is shaped like a tornado, I know things are about to get a bit dicey.

[@jaredpatterson1701]

If there's a list of unique tornado events, this one definitely is top 5 on that list! Another unique one is the supercell that went the wrong way in Jarrell

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Absolutely; a Jarrell case study is coming very soon!

[@garylagstrom3864]

The weird part was at the beginning it appeared to be three funnels😳😳😳😬😬😬😵😵😵😱😱😱 but either way that is as Jim Morrison of the world famous Doors would say: IT’S A MONSTER OF ENERGY!!! A MONSTER!!!!

[@colin7244]

At 34:49 it is the true at the time that it was the fastest tornado on record, until December 15th, 2021 with that tornado warning with the tornado moving northeast at like 115 mph or something like that

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

I used Pilger as the fastest ever because its speed has been explicitly calculated by meteorologists and holds the official world record (see Pecos Hank's video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nX7apGurmr19bbc). It's definitely plausible the 12-15-21 tornado outbreak had some that moved faster, but more study will be needed to confirm that.

[@colin7244]

@@ConvectiveChronicles pow ponder on weather did mention about one of the tornadoes possibly holding the new record but their does indeed need to be a study on that outbreak

[@demonicwolf69]

Should do coleridge ne it happened just a few days after an stalled out for almost an hour before dieing off. Really cool as a local too this storm.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

It’s on my list!

[@mattmichael6792]

And hey, not a tornado, but how about the great Iowa derecho? I really don’t understand the set up that made that happen. Everybody here, even the weather service was surprised. It was an incredible event to witness.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

That was a very interesting event; I will add it to the list!

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

@@baronvonslambert Dang, that's crazy; thanks for sharing that.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

@@baronvonslambert Wow, can't even imagine going through that. I've chased hurricanes before, but it's a whole lot different when your own home is in the crosshairs of a powerful system like the IA derecho.

[@paradoxicalpoet1525]

So I'm curious about the tornadoes rotating one another, why does that happen?

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

So the Fujiwhara effect (the name for two vortices rotating around each other) happens because the vortices are spinning in the same direction (cylconically in this case). Just like how two magnets can be attracted to each other, two vortices spinning the same way will be attracted to each other. As a result, they begin to rotate about the common center between them, and eventually they will rotate around each other. Usually, if one vortex is larger than the other, the larger one will dominate, and you can have a situation where they interact with each other so closely that they will form one larger vortex after merging.

[@mrbuck5059]

A CAPE of 9000. I will create a CAPE of 9000. CAPE 9000. Tornado Maker.

[@samuelraytheweirdcontentgu8551]

34:45 it is the fastest unofficially unless you count the el reno sub vortices(I think there sub vortices)'which were I think 175 mph but the nws counts a ef2 during Dec 15 2021 as the fastest which it traveled 85 mph

[@mitchconner2021]

This supercell was a monstrosity. Absolute unit of a thing. Or I guess technically two supercells just chillin? Idk im stoned binge watching these videos lmfao

[@chrisisnothere8548]

🔥

[@jameswillis1742]

I wonder how the Pilger twin tornadoes compare to the 65 palm Sunday twin tornadoes

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

I believe the Palm Sunday twins were actually one tornado with two distinct vortices, whereas the Pilger ones were two separate tornadoes.

[@vanessaaftonvanny3289]

Please do henryville and sullivan indiana tornadoes

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

I already have a case study on Henryville: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHPUfKOjlLmmiJo

[@timetraveler1973]

its just ironman and the flash combining together to defeat thanos.

[@nileprimewastaken]

i only realized this was 45 minutes once i was 17 mins in. i thought it was 4 hrs 5 mins lmao

[@patricklaurojr7427]

As much as love this storm amazing twins but everytime watch and see it hitting pilger I get upset knowing at the time a mother was running from it from her trailer to get to a store with her 2 little girls and it tossed all 3 of them the oldest little girl was able hide behind a cylo and tornado threw mother and youngest and the mother was in a coma for 2 weeks had wake up with news her youngest didn't make it. So frigging sad

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Absolutely; very sad story.

[@patricklaurojr7427]

@@ConvectiveChronicles awful did u hear about it ? Little Cassie murphree beleive her name was smh poor mother and ontop of it when did Lil research on mother she has a older son who was on the run by police for robbing a gas station gun point so now she has dead daughter a son in jail and oldest daughter only one left

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

@@patricklaurojr7427 Yeah, that's awful

[@patricklaurojr7427]

@@ConvectiveChronicles and her and her kids were living in Alabama but she broke up with baby daddy and moved back home to Nebraska. I dunno how she still lives there I would not want see a tornado ever again. But guess alabama is just as bad lol

[@allenkranawetter9482]

Oh crap

[@cassandraperini]

You sound like the nararrator of khan academy.

[@ericascali5427]

😢😢😢😢🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@evirs]

I would be really interested in a case study of a day where all the ingredients were in place for a major outbreak, but not much materialized (May 20 2019??)... could be a nice change of pace that allows you to really dig deep into the meteorology behind the atmosphere

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

You read my mind; 5-20-19 case study already recorded and will be released in the next week or so. Also have some other underperforming setups on the list.

[@evirs]

@@ConvectiveChronicles Awesome I'm excited for it

[@thenewhandlessuck]

Watching this as a life long Nebraskan, and right after the Arbor Day disaster. Do you plan on covering the tornado outbreak of April 26, 2024? Those were equally parts terrifying and fascinating to see.

[@ConvectiveChronicles]

Yes, that is in the works

[@thenewhandlessuck]

@@ConvectiveChronicles excited to see it