Anyone else fascinated by Tornadoes?

[carrmillus]

.........that picture of the high school is directly north of my folks house,just across the street, only thing left of it was the stone fireplace and part of the chimney!!!.......... ..................

...another story from the 1936 tupelo tornado..my grandmother had an old singer treadle sewing machine in the dining room, and it was gone!!..not a trace of it anywhere!!...two days after the tornado a man called who lived on green st.(which is about a mile and a half away) and said he had her sewing machine!!..my dad wet to pick it up, it was sitting upright in his front yard, intact!!!....he had found her name in one of the 6 pull-out drawers which were intact, still full of needles, patterns and stuff-nothing was missing and it had been blown over a mile away from their house!!!........

[carrmillus]

Everything I know about tornados I learned from Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton.

Seriously though...I've never been directly involved with a ground tornado, but during my Navy career, I've seen over 25 beautiful water spouts while cruising the mighty seas. Our ship came within 500 yards of one...while turning to get out of the way. The churning water made us pitch and roll for a bit. Unfortunately, the CO would not allow anyone out on deck to get photos. Some sailors were able to grab some from the bridge, but I was not able to get a 'shared' copy.

As a side note: I was on a wooden minesweeper back in 71, anchored to a buoy in Hong Kong harbor when a Cat 1 hurricane came through. It was not a direct hit, but it sure did cause that small 192 foot ship to toss about. Gave a whole new meaning to "batten down the hatches."

Didn't mean to highjack the OP...just wanted to throw out a different experience.

Here's the ship I was on at the time. USS Excel, MSO 439.

...what a neat-looking ship!!..my late uncle would like that photo!!..he was on the USS Washington (BB-56) in WW2!!!!.......... ...............

[Sharpnshinyknives]

.........that picture of the high school is directly north of my folks house,just across the street, only thing left of it was the stone fireplace and part of the chimney!!!.......... ..................

...another story from the 1936 tupelo tornado..my grandmother had an old singer treadle sewing machine in the dining room, and it was gone!!..not a trace of it anywhere!!...two days after the tornado a man called who lived on green st.(which is about a mile and a half away) and said he had her sewing machine!!..my dad wet to pick it up, it was sitting upright in his front yard, intact!!!....he had found her name in one of the 6 pull-out drawers which were intact, still full of needles, patterns and stuff-nothing was missing and it had been blown over a mile away from their house!!!........

You hear so many stories like this, it just hard to figure out what the heck is going on inside of these things. I had an old timer who showed me his garage once. He pointed to a fan belt that was stuck up in the corner between the roof and the wall of the garage. A tornado had lifted his roof just a tiny bit and the suction pulled that fan belt almost out before the roof went back down in place.
I watched a couple of videos today of the 1974 super outbreak and was struck by how in the one that hit Xenia Oh you can see the multiple vortex’s tearing around each other. It looks like a kid kicking a toy house, stepping and kicking another one. I see why when tornadoes hit sometimes they spare one house and demolish the one right next door. You can clearly see that in this arial photo of Xenia.

[carrmillus]

....how rare are French tornado's???...3 of us were sitting on the loading dock at nancy gen. depot, france, summer of 1961, having a beer while our sgt. was "awol", and one of the guys hollered and pointed and said "look, a tornado"!!, and sure enough, about 2miles away was a tornado which stayed on the ground for maybe a minute before it dissolved!!!.......... .................

[Sharpnshinyknives]

Not real common but they do happen there and some are as strong as they get. There seems to be some geography that makes them more common in one part and not another. It’s interesting that they have records of tornadoes going back over 1000 years. When I have traveled in Europe I am always taken aback at how long their history goes back. The US in comparison only has a few hundred years of history. It’s easy to forget how young our nation is at times.
I think tornadoes happen on every continent of the world except Antarctica.

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

Back on the farm in California, on hot summer days, we would get little whirlwinds that would be maybe a 1-3 foot across and would last just a few seconds. We used to try to run into them (they were always gone by the time we got there, and all we got was dust in our nose). California has had some actual tornadoes, although they were typically only big enough to tear the roof off a porch or screw-up some power lines. Last year we actually had one just about a mile from my house!
https://laist.com/2019/12/26/a_tornado_ ... county.php

[Sharpnshinyknives]

TFL, Dust devils have been a fascination of mine as well as tornadoes. Some of them can get pretty strong and can do damage to buildings. There is a video online of one that blew through a birthday party and took a bounce house pretty high in the air. If there had been a kids in there, there would have been casualties, but fortunately no one was in it at the time.
A dust devil scared the liver out of me a few years ago. I was fishing in a farm pond in early summer so the fields were just starting to sprout. Suddenly on the edge of the field this thing just came out of nowhere, I think it formed on that spot, and it was moving fast. It swirled up dust and debris in an instant blowing hard and moving forward and crossed the pond and continued on right through me. I had dust and pieces of straw and leaves all over me. The intensity, speed and noise all startled me and had me wondering where to hide.

[Sharpnshinyknives]

March 2 2012 was the day of another small outbreak of tornadoes. Henryville IN was hit by this monster EF4, as was parts of Kentucky and Ohio. This tornado was huge and on the ground for 48 miles. It wasn’t rain wrapped so it was visible for many miles away, which added to it’s terror. As you can see from some of these photos, the structure of this tornado was very apparent. There are many video’s of this tornado as it approached the towns and houses it demolished. Winds reached 175 miles an hour and the tornado was 1/2 mile wide. 14 people were killed in this storm. One was a baby found in a field that died a couple of days after the tornado. There was a school demolished by this tornado in Henryville and there are some fascinating videos taken from security cameras inside the school. The cafeteria wall is sucked outward and winds rip through the inside. Fortunately most had left the school. The school sent the kids home early because of the warnings. One bus driver saw the tornado bearing down and took the kids back to the school where they sheltered and were saved.
This storm also tied a record for the largest hail stones in Indiana, 4 1/2” diameter.
This is the kind of storm that gives you nightmares.

[samb1955]

Not me, a little too close to one in the late sixty's, Palm Sunday.

[Mumbleypeg]

The Texas Highways Magazine November 2020 issue contains an article about historical natural disasters in Texas, and how the people persevered. Tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, floods and fires, and yes, epidemics - “it’s going to be all right, and come what may, Texas will abide.”

Here’s a couple of pictures I found interesting regarding the April 4, 1922 tornado which knocked over the Czech Moravian Brethren Church near Dime Box, TX. The original church building pictured here was completed in 1911, destroyed by tornado in 1922, rebuilt and re-opened in 1924, destroyed by a fire in 1954, rebuilt again, and still holding services today.

Ken

[cudgee]

March 2 2012 was the day of another small outbreak of tornadoes. Henryville IN was hit by this monster EF4, as was parts of Kentucky and Ohio. This tornado was huge and on the ground for 48 miles. It wasn’t rain wrapped so it was visible for many miles away, which added to it’s terror. As you can see from some of these photos, the structure of this tornado was very apparent. There are many video’s of this tornado as it approached the towns and houses it demolished. Winds reached 175 miles an hour and the tornado was 1/2 mile wide. 14 people were killed in this storm. One was a baby found in a field that died a couple of days after the tornado. There was a school demolished by this tornado in Henryville and there are some fascinating videos taken from security cameras inside the school. The cafeteria wall is sucked outward and winds rip through the inside. Fortunately most had left the school. The school sent the kids home early because of the warnings. One bus driver saw the tornado bearing down and took the kids back to the school where they sheltered and were saved.
This storm also tied a record for the largest hail stones in Indiana, 4 1/2” diameter.
This is the kind of storm that gives you nightmares.

Great photos, they relay the power and how scary these events are, i have been through one cyclone in my life, but nothing like these.

[treefarmer]

The Texas Highways Magazine November 2020 issue contains an article about historical natural disasters in Texas, and how the people persevered. Tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, floods and fires, and yes, epidemics - “it’s going to be all right, and come what may, Texas will abide.”

Here’s a couple of pictures I found interesting regarding the April 4, 1922 tornado which knocked over the Czech Moravian Brethren Church near Dime Box, TX. The original church building pictured here was completed in 1911, destroyed by tornado in 1922, rebuilt and re-opened in 1924, destroyed by a fire in 1954, rebuilt again, and still holding services today.

Ken

That 2nd picture is amazing! Once in a while photos of small buildings that have been moved intact by a storm, tornado, etc. is seen, but to just flip a big frame building on it's side is really interesting! Questions, lots of questions that no one can answer..... I'm sure that lots of that material was salvaged and put back into the rebuild.
Treefarmer

[Sharpnshinyknives]

That Henryville tornado was terrifying Derek. It could be seen for many miles. There are lots of videos of people filming this thing coming at them for 7 or 8 minutes. Not being rain wrapped helped people to see it and take cover, but the sheer power that you can see coming is petrifying.
Ken, those pictures of that church are pretty amazing. For a structure to survive intact like that and yet tipped over shows how well built the frame of that building was. Probably built from native hard woods. Like the first house we bought as a couple, it was built in 1860 and you couldn’t drive a nail in any of the beams or studs, you had to drill to hang something on the wall in those places. They don’t build them like that any more.
Thanks for sharing those photo’s. What a history that church has.