This essay by Mike Smith hits home for me, because it parallels my experience in the midwest in 1974. That was a banner year for tornado outbreaks. The April 3rd and 4th super outbreak was a big influence on me.
The Super Outbreak is the largest tornado outbreak on record for a single 24-hour period. From April 3 to April 4, 1974, there were 148 tornadoes confirmed in 13 US states, along a total combined path length of 2,600 miles (4,160 km).
The Super Outbreak of tornadoes of 3–4 April 1974 remains the most outstanding severe convective weather episode of record in the continental United States. The outbreak far surpassed previous and succeeding events in severity, longevity and extent.
Just 4 years later, I was doing television weather. The lessons of 1974 still influence me today, as with Mike, I wanted to make radar a lifesaving tool. My contribution is this personal doppler radar program.
June 8th – The Day Television Weather Grew Up
By Mike Smith, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Today is the anniversary of a day I will never forget. In Warnings I call it “The Day Television Weather Grew Up.” I was working at WKY TV (now KFOR TV, NBC) in Oklahoma City. There was a massive tornado outbreak in central Oklahoma. For the first time in history, we broadcast a tornado live.
The photo above shows the televised tornado as it was developing over eastern Oklahoma county. But, while dramatic, that wasn’t the most important thing that occurred that day.
Even though we had only primitive black and white radar (photo below shows the tornado as it approached Oklahoma City), we were able to track the storms in real time and get a warning out in advance of every single tornado (13) in our viewing area. At times, four tornadoes were simultaneously on the ground. We focused exclusively on the tornadoes (rather than the additional storms — occurring near the tornadoes — that were only causing large hail), told viewers exactly where they were and exactly where they were headed. That may not seem surprising now, but it had never been done before. Just two months before (April 3), tornadoes swarmed across the Ohio Valley. There are several web sites with radio and TV recordings of that day and it is obvious that, most of the time, the broadcasters didn’t know where the tornadoes were.
As evidence of how revolutionary this was, the TV station received 75 cards and letters telling us, over and over, “You told us a tornado was coming, we took shelter, and our home blew away moments later. Thank you, you saved our lives!” It was overwhelming reading them.
The editorial cartoon was published three days later.The story might have ended there but for two TV news consultants that visited us a week or so later. TV news consultants then, and now, take the “best practices” of TV stations and adapt them to their specific clients. (Ever wonder why there is an “Eyewitness News” in just about every city? Consultants is the answer. They found, years ago, that people liked that name for newscasts.)
They interviewed me about what we did on June 8. They spoke with our news director and news staff. I own a book about TV news, written in 1970, that devotes exactly two paragraphs to TV weather. The consultants’ audience research determined that viewers wanted more and better weather coverage.
From about 1975 to 1980, meteorologists took over from weather “personalities” in most cities. Color radar became a staple of television. Satellite images and time lapse cloud photography made their debuts.
Of course, all of this would have eventually occurred. But, June 8, 1974, was the day TV weather grew up.
The Super Outbreak is the largest tornado outbreak on record for a single 24-hour period. From April 3 to April 4, 1974, there were 148 tornadoes confirmed in 13 US states, including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and New York; and the Canadian province of Ontario. It extensively damaged approximately 900 square miles (1,440 square kilometers) along a total combined path length of 2,600 miles (4,160 km).[1]
The Super Outbreak of tornadoes of 3–4 April 1974 remains the most outstanding severe convective weather episode of record in the continental United States. The outbreak far surpassed previous and succeeding events in severity, longevity and extent.
Mac the Knife says:
June 8, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Enneagram – which way should I point my aerodynamically shaped concrete house, to effectively align it with the tightly rotational vortex of +200 mph winds in an average tornado?
Have it as a dome or pyramid. All winds do come from the same direction – the sky.
Though on a slightly more serious note, probably the best thing to do is have a well secured roof. Once that goes, the house usually follows pretty quickly, so make it put up a good fight.
“Nuke says:
[…]
If you live in a flood plain, you can only get flood insurance from the government. Why? Because no private insurance company is stupid enough to insure your property.”
One could use that to find out how insurance companies really think about sea level rise. (Publically they’ll always say it’ll be terrible to justify rate hikes)
A reinforced concrete safe room is a lot cheaper than building an entire house of it, and a lot more secure than a bathtub with a mattress on top.
Pity us folk here over the pond with only the MetOffice between us and ‘weather’.
‘Barbecue summers’ and ‘mild winters’ that don’t materialise and, of course, the famous Mr Fish and his ‘there’s no hurricane’ warning. He headed the parade in a recent ‘Stop man-made global’ protest march. It figures.
From: L Nettles on June 8, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Looks something like a giant concrete igloo. Which when you think about, was an original housing design to minimize the effects of wind. Natural buildup against the outside wall along the ground provides a curve, with the final cross-section (profile) basically a bell curve. So I guess that would be the shape of a (theoretically) tornado-resistant reinforced building, a bell curve, flatten out as needed. I can see that making sense aerodynamically, does not provide any edges the wind can grab on to.
Enneagram says:
June 8, 2010 at 11:29 am
“I have always wondered why in the world do those people affected every year by tornadoes do not build their homes out of concrete and aerodynamically shaped so as to withstand those wind forces. Why? Or is it part of the game to pay insurances to rebuild houses every time?”
K, I’ll throw my 2 cents. I live in SE Kansas and have seen and been through my share……more than my share. Unless anyone has seen a tornado up close and personal, it is impossible to imagine. It really is quite terrifying. As far as an aerodynamically shaped house, unless it’s underground, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a tornado-proof house. Tornadoes do very unpredictable things. So, why do we live here? The same reason people live with earthquakes or hurricanes or volcanoes. This is home. I’ve been half way around the world and back twice, and I don’t mind living other places, but no matter where I go, it is never home. Home is here. God’s country!
My little home town in central Michigan was hit by 3 F2 tornadoes during the 1965 Palm Sunday. It had already gotten dark outside; I can still vividly remember watching television that night (Ed Sullivan, I think) and suddenly hearing the sound of the tornado as my dad yelled for us to get to the basement. It was all over before we got halfway down the stairs — based on the damage on either side of our house (roughly a block SW and NE), we think that the twister lifted briefly as it went past, knocking down our TV mast antenna in the process.
No warnings to speak of… just that sudden sound of a train fast approaching.
In April 1974 I was 19 years old, and driving a ’66 Mustang convertible in Noble Co., IN. (at the time I lived in DeKalb Co) Driving on a rural gravel road, I encountered a ferocious storm. There was minimal visibility, debris was flying everywhere, and I saw a field fence lift clear of the ground and dance across the road in front of me. By this time, it was apparent that a tornado was nearby. Wind velocity was tremendous and debris was punching through the convertible roof of my car. I blasted through the fence (I was young and stupid, and thought I could outrun the tornado), which ripped the muffler from my car. I quickly encountered downed electrical lines, and decided to turn around. I raced back the other way, and almost crashed into a large tree laying across the road. I was stuck. I waited in the ditch for the storm to pass, and helped some local farmers cut up the tree. As I drove away, I came on a ridge where I could see the path of the tornado, including a farm that was totally destroyed. The family (thankfully survived) was standing with dazed expressions looking out over the debris that used to be their home, strewn in pieces across a wide field.
One of the experiences of my youth that is burned in my brain. Of course now, I’d be checking my blackberry for weather conditions, and would steer clear of the tornado. Technology is great. Thanks to the great efforts of meteorologists over the past 40 years… Ironically, my son is close to graduating with a degree in meteorology — he is fascinated by mesoscale weather systems!
What TV weather used to be like: Barry ZeVan in 1971 on Minnesota’s WTCN-11. He was silly when merely drawing attention to routine weather, but all business during severe weather. You can see his skill on the weather map, and he’d use that to quickly show the warning areas. At the time he was hampered by lack of weather radar, and the real storm competitor was WCCO-AM, whose huge audience would phone in descriptions.
http://www.startribune.com/video/95465244.html?elr=KArks7PYDiaK7DUoaK7D_V_eDc87DUiacyKUUr
Agh. KSTP-5, not WTCN-11.
There is a good book on the Apr. 1974 Tornado outbreak. Title: F-5, Author: Mark Levine, Publisher: Miramax Books/ Hyperion. What happens to human beings in F-5 tornadoes makes grim reading.
Underground homes. Flood and ground water are the problems. I have all issues of Fine Homebuilding. I don’t think I have seen an article on an underground house in 20 years. Ground water pressure can crack concrete foundation walls on above ground houses. The solutions that allow walls tall enough to stand upright next to and capable of withstanding the pressure are very expensive.
It’s often not easy. In Oklahoma they often either have a shallow water table or bedrock near the surface. It’s often much easier to build a small storm cellar/shelter near the house than a basement under a house, much less the entire house underground.
On April 4th, I was stationed at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Al. If you look at the map above, you can see a black line extending right through Huntsville in Northern Alabama. I lived in an apartment that was approx. 1/2 from the main gate at Redstone. We had warnings/watches. The local tv station had moved to “live” coverage from the airport, with an excited weatherman standing in front of a microphone, a sheet or something behind him, and he was reading pieces of paper he had in his hand, each one was a report of a tornado “on the ground”. Suddenly, a hand was thrust in from the right side of the screen, urgently shaking yet another paper. The weatherman took it and began reading: “…and this just in…there’s another tornado on the…ground…AT…THE…AIRPORT….” and he dropped all the papers, and dashed off the screen. A few moments later, the screen went to snow. We saw the tornado that hit Huntsville come down over the mountain and hit Redstone first. There were German students outside behind my apartment, laughing in the rain, with no idea what a tornado was. I went to the sliding door and yelled at them, in german, to get into my house, mach schnell!…and as the last one came inside, the screen door left my hand for points unknown.
The tornado skipped OFF the ground just before hitting our apartment building, and then came back down about 1/2 mile on the southern side of us and continued on in to downtown Huntsville. The next morning, I drove on base to see what had happened. There were 3 very large “highway-style” signs as you approached the gate, talked of things like visitors, parking, etc. All 3 signs were mounted on 3 phone polls. The 2 outer poles on each sign had been snapped clean off, and the signs were wrapped around the center post. The brick guardhouse at the main gate?…it was gone…just a cement pad left where it used to stand. The damage done was incredible. I was at Redstone for a school on radar and computer repair for Nike missle systems. Each training system had 5 radars, whose antennas and transmitters were mounted on trailers. Each trailer weighed upwards of 10 tons, if I remember correctly. These were substantial antennas, and though the claim was that they were mobil, they really were WAY too large to be moved. The massive parking lots that had held all of the radar trailers for 5 different systems, so 25 radars, were almost clean, with massive piles of debris all pushed over into a pile in one corner of the parking lot.
The mind simply could not begin to comprehend the power that had caused what the eyes saw.
An experience I’ve never forgotten.
Remind me to tell you about earthquakes in Alaska someday 🙂
JimB
Enneagram says:
June 8, 2010 at 11:29 am
I have always wondered why in the world do those people affected every year by tornadoes do not build their homes out of concrete and aerodynamically shaped so as to withstand those wind forces. Why? Or is it part of the game to pay insurances to rebuild houses every time?
_____________________________________________________________________
Enneagram, my in-laws came up with another solution. Their house was intentionally built below a hill. The Palm Sunday tornado literally jumped over the house. They found straw driven through phone poles from that tornado.
During the April 1974 tornadoes, I was ridge walking looking for caves and my buddy and I got knocked off our feet by the lightening striking between us. The tornado took out the trailer park at the foot of the ridge. That was too close.
I was 13 and living in central Ohio on that day and remember getting a call from my Aunt in Dayton that afternoon saying that they were OK. We had no idea what was happening in SW Ohio.
About an hour or so later pieces of paper and other debris started drifting down from the sky.
That night we finally heard about the tornado the had destroyed most of Xenia, Ohio.
The next day my Boy Scout Leader (Mr. McAfee Troop 32) called my parents and said that he was organizing a clean-up crew to go to Xenia that weekend and help. My Dad also volunteered.
We cleaned up an area in a park just West of the destroyed High School. I’ll never forget that experience, there were pieces of homes buried into the banks of the creek, toys from other kids’ bedrooms scattered, pieces of clothing.
My Dad took several rolls of Ektachrome slides that day, to document what we were doing.
We worked all day (~20 -30 Boy Scouts plus ~10 adults) and we might have cleaned up only 10-15K ft² and filled several dump trucks.
To this day, anytime I hear the warnings I move to cover.
The one thing that still think about is that we lived ~90 miles from Xenia, but the debris from Xenia only took 45 minutes or so to cover that distance.
You say that’s the day TV weather grew up, but there’s something more profound in that title. Or at least for me it is.
I feel like I “grew up” with my local weatherman; maybe Anthony knows who I’m talking about down here in Memphis. He’s the only guy I watch.
How different things are now from the 1970’s. And how different he is. He used to be known as the Saturday morning wrestling broadcaster who also did the weather. These days, he’s the most trusted meteorologist around these parts.
I’ve always like the fact that he never succumbs to the desire to embellish the seriousness of any situation for the sake of ratings. When he says it’s serious, we clean out the closet, grab the mattress & take cover.
If this was the day TV weather grew up, maybe it was also the time local TV stations recognized they needed someone knowledgeable enough about weather that viewers could literally grow up with. It’s certainly been true for me. When he retires, the void will be tough to fill.
To answer the question about wind turbines and radar, there is some additional ground clutter but it is manageable.
I appreciate Anthony reposting my June 8 story. There is an amusing addition at my blog: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2010/06/june-8-rest-of-story.html .
This story came from my new book, “Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather” published by Greenleaf. It is getting superb reviews. Hope you’ll check it out by clicking on the cover above.
Mike
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 8, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Why not just cut to the chase and build underground homes? Saves the hassle of running to an underground tornado shelter. Better have at least three major entryways to allow for the possibility of blockage by some windswept lightweight wreckage like a Honda Civic.
Unfortunately, soil is not uniform throughout the world. Expansive soils in Texas would wreak havoc on underground homes. Also in places where Bedrock is near the surface it would be very expensive to build. Plus, no sunlight, I’ve lived in a country where there is a lot of rain, they have sunlight therapy to account for the lack of sun. In all, there is a reason that we do not build houses underground. Actually there are several, very good reasons.
I only remember that Time magazine cover of Xenia, OH. I didn’t live anywhere near there and have never been affected by a tornado. But that image is still seared into my brain.
I guess it wasn’t Time, but here is there write up of the disasters:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911152,00.html
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 8, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Why not just cut to the chase and build underground homes? Saves the hassle of running to an underground tornado shelter. Better have at least three major entryways to allow for the possibility of blockage by some windswept lightweight wreckage like a Honda Civic.
Has been done. In Tunisia to avoid the high heat.
http://blog.hotelclub.com/the-underground-village-of-matmata/
My parents roots were from Anatolia, Cappadocia where the art of making underground houses was carried to the extreme. Cappadocia is on a 2000m plateau that in the winter gets very cold.
http://www.cappadociaturkey.net/undergroundcities.htm
These were deserted by the time my father was born, 1909. Their house though had two basements, the lower one connecting to other village houses and altogether to the church and from the church an underground tunnel led to a mountain refuge village, for the times the Arabs came raiding.(900 to 1200ad). He was an adventurous boy and before he left with the exchange of populations in 1922 he had tried to explore the old tunnel. It was caved in.
I know there is a city in Japan where all the shopping center is underground, and I visited a conference center cum museum in Finland, all underground.
Potential wind loads are extremely difficult to calculate, and the strongest wind loads are not caused by the wind blowing against a surface, but are caused by winds of high velocity blowing across a relatively smooth surface (with laminar flow). Bernoulli’s Principle at work, but highly complex with compressible fluids. Basically these wind loads are proportional to the square of the velocity of the wind. I write as a professional engineer with a bit of experience with wind loads, and with a good deal of experience with fluid dynamics (design of culverts and open channels, and large and small storm drain systems).
Designs which might defeat this sort of wind load probably wouldn’t be considered attractive, and would be quite expensive.
It certainly would be possible to construct an electronic tornado detection device which would indicate both what direction and approximate distance a tornado was from the location of the device, as well as the immediate direction and velocity of movement of the tornado, and the approximate magnitude of the tornado . . . after the tornado touches ground . . . but the liability factor would be great. Too, tornadoes can form quickly indeed.
Mostly, you pay your money within your means and take your chances, There is no location on the planet which is “safe” from any sort of natural disaster.
Of note, the great cooling of 1940 – 1979 seems to have reached it’s ultimate low point in early 1974. It was sort of an undershoot after the 1973 El Nino. The system that ultimately resulted in this started life as a late season inside slider cold low that came down the West Coast, then made a hard left turn down by Baja, then slid ENE from there. That’s a classic set up for an outbreak. This type of system, in my experience is more likely during a La Nina and seemingly more likely during a negative phase PDO.
I was 2 years old and living in Delhi township near Cincinnati and I still have memories of that day, hiding in the basement from tornados. Apparently, we barely missed the F5 labeled “43” on my brother’s birthday. Anyone who experienced that will never forget that day.