Tornado Outbreak Across Midwest and Southern US

[NT2C]

Tornadoes bring death, injuries, damage to several states

[majorhavoc]

Just one of those tornados carved a 200 mile long swath of destruction through KY?  It almost boggles one's mind imagining such sustained destruction.  It's like portions of those states were carpet bombed.

[Lambykins]

So glad I no longer live in "Tornado Alley". Every storm there stands your hair on end.
The worse thing is when there is a slight (but somehow weighty) breeze....if you've felt this, you know what I'm talking about, then everything goes still. Just still. You notice the sky has a strange greenish cast to it in the clouds...and then a big gust of wind hits. You know what's coming.
Such an eerie experience and one I don't care to repeat.

[flybynight]

So glad I no longer live in "Tornado Alley". Every storm there stands your hair on end.
The worse thing is when there is a slight (but somehow weighty) breeze....if you've felt this, you know what I'm talking about, then everything goes still. Just still. You notice the sky has a strange greenish cast to it in the clouds...and then a big gust of wind hits. You know what's coming.
Such an eerie experience and one I don't care to repeat.

[Anianna]

I just saw the news and the images are astounding.  Entire factories and warehouse operations just decimated in multiple states.  Not like, oh part of the building was damaged, but more like the whole daggum thing is now rubble. 

Just one of those tornados carved a 200 mile long swath of destruction through KY?  It almost boggles one's mind imagining such sustained destruction.  It's like portions of those states were carpet bombed.

Not only that, but it's not tornado season.  Tornadoes this time of year are fairly atypical. 

[RickOShea]

We get a lot of tornadoes here along the GOM, but they are typically the smaller EF-0 and EF-1's, and they usually only touch down for a few seconds, if at all.....nothing like those monsters they get up North. 

[Cascade Failure]

Any members affected or in need?

[Mr. E. Monkey]

We were well enough out of the way here that the worst we got was a tree down across the road in the neighborhood.  Somebody on a local hunting forum posted this gem: 



I thought we had some folks in western KY, but I'm not sure.  Regardless, I hope they didn't need the shoes.

[KentuckyCarbine]

Here are some pics from my summertime "AO". Small cabin on Rough River Lake. The red area circled on the map is the location. The pic is the area down the street where we launch our boat.

Luckily we weren't affected other than the power being out from 2am-5am.

Definitely need to add a parachute to the preps.

[Mr. E. Monkey]

Glad y'all are safe, KC!

[majorhavoc]

Here are some pics from my summertime "AO". Small cabin on Rough River Lake. The red area circled on the map is the location. The pic is the area down the street where we launch our boat.

Luckily we weren't affected other than the power being out from 2am-5am.

Definitely need to add a parachute to the preps.

There for the grace of God, KC.  Glad you and yours are safe!

[flybynight]

Townsite of the former town of Irving KS.
" The town suffered from droughts and a grasshopper invasion in 1866 that darkened the sky, eating all the leaves from the trees and the crops from the fields.

However, the greatest disaster occurred the afternoon of May 30th, 1879. On that day, Irving attracted national attention when two tornados from two separate storm systems leveled the town on the same day. Until the Xenia, Ohio tornado in 1974, no other town in history was every hit by two tornados in the same day. The national media attention of the Irving tornado brought to Kansas the title "The Cyclone State" calling it the storm of the century killing 66 people along its path, 19 in Irving alone; the most to date in Kansas history. Little was known about tornados at the time. The weather bureau, then known as the signal service dispatched a young sergeant by the name of J.P. Finley. Finley's published his findings in "Professional Papers of the U.S. Signal Service, No. 4." Most of Finley's detailed report forms the basis for our knowledge of tornados at the time. Sergeant Finley's work at Irving and elsewhere in Kansas in June 1879 stood as the most comprehensive tornado-outbreak study until University of Chicago researcher Ted Fjuita's work on the outbreak of twisters in the Midwest on April 11, 1965. Finley's accounts from the Irving tornado and others afterwards make him one of the founding fathers of meteorology.

However, what is more intriguing is the famous resident killed in Irving from the 1879 tornado. Daniel Fitzgerald, the author of Ghost Towns of Kansas and website http://www.danielcfitzgerald.com/irvingtornado1879.html described the event from historical document stating, "As the funnel entered the town, the first house it hit was that of the John Gale family; the wind blew them outside and stripped them of their clothing. Dorothy Gale was wedged head first in the mud, her body sticking straight up in the air. The visual picture was gruesome, and newspapers described it that way all over the country. In a later reference to this tornado, it was noted that L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz books, had as his main character a young girl named Dorothy Gale. At the time of the Irving tornado, Baum was a salesman who traveled all over the Midwest." Baum then moved to South Dakota in 1888, editing the local newspaper, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, where he wrote a column, Our Landlady. Baum's description of Kansas in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and characters in the book are based on his experiences as a business owner and editor in South Dakota. But there is little doubt his inspiration for Dorothy Gale from Kansas came from the newspaper accounts of the Irving tornado in 1879." (excerpt from Backroads tourning in KS) See less
Comments

Red slippers or not Dorothy was picked up by the tornado and never came back from Oz

[Lambykins]

So glad I no longer live in "Tornado Alley". Every storm there stands your hair on end.
The worse thing is when there is a slight (but somehow weighty) breeze....if you've felt this, you know what I'm talking about, then everything goes still. Just still. You notice the sky has a strange greenish cast to it in the clouds...and then a big gust of wind hits. You know what's coming.
Such an eerie experience and one I don't care to repeat.

That's it. That's the color!

[flybynight]

So glad I no longer live in "Tornado Alley". Every storm there stands your hair on end.
The worse thing is when there is a slight (but somehow weighty) breeze....if you've felt this, you know what I'm talking about, then everything goes still. Just still. You notice the sky has a strange greenish cast to it in the clouds...and then a big gust of wind hits. You know what's coming.
Such an eerie experience and one I don't care to repeat.

That's it. That's the color!

Yep. I took that picture a few years back as a tornadic storm approached. Before it got to us it had weakened to just a strong thunderstorm.