The region where Mrs. Cow was born and raised and held her first post-college job was making the news on Wednesday due to tornados ripping through the countryside.?ÿ In fact, one missed the cemetery where her parents and numerous other relatives are buried by only a handful of miles.?ÿ One photo on Facebook was obviously taken from a spot about a mile south of the cemetery looking to the north as the tornado was passing over the main highway. The odd coincidence was that one rural farmstead that sustained major damage nearby was home to the Warning family.?ÿ Seeing tornado and warning in the same sentence during tornado season is very common but this is the first time I ever heard of a Warning tornado.
While I was scrolling rapidly through Facebook earlier I stumbled onto this message to women in Kansas:?ÿ This is drop a house on a witch season, so some of you had better make some changes quick.
Memory of the Udall, KS tornado in 1955 was mentioned in news stories again.?ÿ That tornado was the impetus to start better tornado forecasting and improved broadcasting of warnings.?ÿ Here is one tidbit linked to the May 25, 1955 disaster to the city of 600 people:
On May?ÿ25, 1955, the deadliest tornado to ever hit the state of?ÿKansas?ÿstruck Udall at 10:35?ÿp.m.[11][12]?ÿThe town was demolished by a 1,300?ÿyd (0.74?ÿmi) wide F5 tornado, no building within the city limits was untouched, including the?ÿgrain elevator,?ÿwater tower, old grade school, new high school, city hall, three churches. The water tower had been knocked over and the streets were flooded. Vehicles were thrown hundreds of yards and mangled beyond recognition, including a pickup truck that was wrapped around a tree and stripped of everything but its frame and tires. 77 people died and 270 were injured, 192 buildings (170 homes) were destroyed. Around 50% of families lost one or more members.[13]
Before striking Udall, there were no warnings issued by the?ÿWeather Bureau. Unknown to them, the same tornado-producing thunderstorm had just laid waste to the city of?ÿBlackwell, Oklahoma, where 20 died and 250 were injured.
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NOTE: Blackwell is a bit less than 50 miles SSW of Udall.
Why is it that your tornadoes are so intense as compared to what we in Florida call a tornado, which is probably what you call a dirt devil? ?????ÿ
Tornadoes are fairly rare in Massachusetts. One of the deadliest in this state happened two years before the Udall tornado:
From Wikipedia:
The 1953 Worcester tornado was an extremely powerful tornado that struck the city and surrounding area of Worcester, Massachusetts on Tuesday, June 9, 1953. It was part of the Flint??Worcester tornado outbreak sequence, which occurred over a three-day period from June 6??9, 1953. The storm stayed on the ground for nearly 90 minutes, traveling 48 miles across Central Massachusetts. In total, 94 people were killed, making it the 21st deadliest tornado in the history of the United States.[1] In addition to the fatalities, nearly 1,300 people were injured and 4,000 buildings were damaged. The tornado caused $52?ÿmillion in damage, which translates to $503?ÿmillion today when adjusted for currency inflation. After the Fujita scale was developed in 1971, the storm was classified as F4, the second highest rating on the scale.
At approximately 4:25?ÿpm (EST), the tornado touched down in a forest near the town of Petersham, and proceeded to move through Barre, where two people were killed.[3] It then moved through the western suburbs of Worcester, where 11 more people were killed. The storm then passed through Worcester, where it destroyed Assumption College and several other buildings, killing 60. After striking Worcester, it killed 21 more people in the towns of Shrewsbury, Southborough, and Westborough, before dissipating over Framingham. According to National Weather Service estimates, over 10,000 people were left homeless as a result of the tornado.
@flga-2-2
'Naders are just a part of life in the Plains.?ÿ Just like earthquakes in CA and retired people in FL; they're just there and you can't change it.?ÿ?ÿ
I've been in four tornadoes.?ÿ I sat two of them out in a storm cellar and one of them I was in bed..for a few moments...until I got under the bed.?ÿ
And I sat through one in a '67 Chevy PU with my 2 and 5 year old sons.?ÿ We were on our way to a shelter and made it as far as a car wash.?ÿ I figured the brick walls were the best cover I was going to get in a pinch.?ÿ We were all hunkered down in the floor of the PU.
Note:?ÿ The noise was so great I never heard the metal roof of the car wash as it abruptly took wing.?ÿ I don't know where it landed but it was a long ways away from where it started.
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and retired people in FL
Yea, they all migrate here and then this starts...... ???? ?ÿ
The answer to the "why not Florida" question lies in the climatology of regions.?ÿ A powerful cold front that originates in the Canadian Rockies can roll downhill SSE along the eastern side of the range for a great distance along the plains as there is little ground resistance against it causing turbulence.?ÿ Meanwhile a powerful warm front, at a higher general altitude, can emerge from the Gulf of Mexico headed NNW bringing huge amounts of moisture with it for a thousand miles.?ÿ Somewhere in the middle the two will collide with varying levels of intensity.?ÿ One will overpower the other creating the opportunity for massive thunderstorms and tornados to form.?ÿ The line where that collision occurs may be a thousand miles in length.?ÿ Many times the so-called I-44 corridor is the recipient of these wonders.?ÿ When they collide further to the northwest the tornados may be in the Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin alignment.?ÿ Whey they collide further to the southeast the tornados may in the Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky alignment.
Florida's eastern side and western side are too close together and too similar in temperatures to provide the intensity of a collision to escalate to tornados.?ÿ It can happen, but much less common and generally less intense.
@holy-cow?ÿ ?ÿYep, I live east of that. Mobile AL gets more snow than I do even at same latitude. But we get the?ÿ onshore showers they don't. A weather person in Pensacola is wrong a lot.
@holy-cow As far as the lesser ground resistance to the winds it reminds me of what an Okie friend said, "There ain't nothing between here and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence, and it's down".
Andy
Someone will prove me wrong, but here goes.?ÿ If you start at the US/Mexico border at precisely west longitude 102.00000000 you will not hit a city of over 500 population, if any city, while following the longitude line to the US/Canada border.?ÿ This should just slide past Midland and Lubbock, Texas, depending on exactly where those city limits actually are.
Never seen one. Seen the aftermath. You always hear they sound like a freight train, that's how you know a tornado is coming.?ÿ So if you hear click-clack click-clack .. click-clack click-clack?ÿ that's a tornado ???ÿ ?????ÿ
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That won't work for me.?ÿ We average about one train per hour on the track a quarter mile from my house.?ÿ We tune that out so we barely notice them.
