New study sheds light on the April 27, 2011 storms

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAAY) - A study conducted by a team at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and Dr. Kevin Knupp, director of the UAH Severe Weather Institute and Radar and Lightning Laboratory, sheds light on different factors that made the super storms of April 27, 2011.

The study points out three factors: gravity waves, topography, and surface roughness, which caused storms to intensify or produce more tornadoes. Topography is the layout of the land and surface roughness is, for example, a forest or lake.

According to the study on April 27, 2011, 199 tornadoes touched down in the state of Alabama. The storms killed 361 people, and caused more than $4 billion in damage. The storms are on record as the most devastating outbreak since the U.S. started documenting tornadoes in 1950.

One of the UAH team theories is that "tornadoes can be stretched and intensified or squeezed and slowed by slopes that fall or rise beneath them." According to Dr. Knupp the data they collected supports this theory.

WAAY-31Chief Meteorologist Spencer Denton said, "This research that they do, it helps us better understand tornadoes. It helps us better understand how they form and whats going to happen with them as they form and as they move across the area, so I think its vital the type of research that they're doing."

The study was funded by the National Science Foundations Rapid Response Research Program on a 150,000 dollar grant. It will be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. You can read the study named "Meteorological Overview of the Devastating 27 April 2011 Tornado Outbreak" at http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00229.1

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New study sheds light on the April 27, 2011 storms