BAMOS
Jun 2020
22
Article
A damage assessment of the 20 May
2020 tornado in Waurn Ponds, VIC
Dean Sgarbossa, Joshua Soderholm, Kevin Parkyn, Peter Otto, Steven McGibbony
Bureau of Meteorology
Email: [email protected]
Note from the Editorial team: The Enhanced Fujita scale is a linear function of the Fujita scale in the previous article.
During the early morning hours of 20 May 2020, a Quasi Linear
Convective System (QLCS) associated with a vigorous cold front
produced a confirmed tornado that resulted in a narrow path of
destruction through the southwestern suburbs of the regional
city of Geelong, Victoria. A damage assessment was conducted
by the Bureau of Meteorology 13 hours after the tornado event
which suggested that the observed damage was consistent
with an Enhanced Fujita Scale tornado intensity rating of EF1
with maximum 3‐second wind gust speeds of 138–178 km/h.
Introduction
On 20 May 2020, a Quasi Linear Convective System (QLCS)
associated with a vigorous cold front impacted western and
central parts of Victoria resulting in damaging to destructive
wind gusts and a number of possible tornadoes. Thunderstorms
embedded within the QLCS intensified rapidly as they
approached the Geelong area with at least one thunderstorm
displaying radar evidence of deep vertical rotation associated
with a supercell thunderstorm (Figure 1). This particular
thunderstorm subsequently produced a confirmed tornado
that left a narrow path of destruction through the suburbs of
Waurn Ponds, Grovedale and Mount Duneed located southwest
of the regional city of Geelong, Victoria between 01:10 and
01:13 Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST), resulting in 212
Requests for Assistance (RFA) to the State Emergency Service
(SES), which included 60 houses receiving significant roof
damage and four houses left uninhabitable. One person was
injured and hospitalised due to cuts from flying glass.
Figure 1: Approximate tornado path, State Emergency Service (SES) Requests for Assistance (RFA) and 01:12 am AEST
Laverton 500 m composite Plan Positioning Indicator (PPI) radar reflectivity. Note the location of SES RFAs are situated
within the "hook echo" radar signature indicative of low‐level rotation. Source: Bureau of Meteorology