Tornadoes through Time

Randall Stephens

I'm visiting family in the Kansas City area, on the edge of the infamous tornado alley. (I have many memories of sleeping in the basement while the dark clouds and funnels blew fiercely overhead.) The recent devastation in Alabama and Missouri reminds us of the brutal toll nature can take. My cousin's home in Joplin was obliterated by the twister. Fortunately, she was away from home. This is the worst tornado season here since the early 1950s.

The worst in American history was the "Tri-State" tornado, which ripped through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. It blasted a path of destruction across the region and took 695 lives.

On the day after it hit the Chicago Tribune announced "A tornado tore through southern Illinois late yesterday after lashing Missouri, and then caused considerable damage in Indiana before it died out." Radio and newspapers broadcast the details shortly after the winds died down. "In some places, where the wind struck hardest, whole buildings were moved from their foundation, a grain elevator in De Soto having been carried intact some forty feet." A schoolhouse in the same city collapsed. Only a few pupils in the packed building escaped unharmed.

Midwesterners and Americans across the country were shaken. A swift death by a storm could happen anywhere in the region, and with little warning.

In the era before accurate forecasting and warning systems, Americans had good reason to worry. The deadliest tornadoes in the nation's history could wipe out a community and leave a trail of casualties in its wake. Here's a list of those deadliest, compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) (see the full 25 here):

Rank, Date, Region, death toll

1) 18 Mar 1925, Tri-State (MO/IL/IN), 695

2) 06 May 1840, Natchez MS, 317

3) 27 May 1896, St. Louis MO, 255

4) 05 Apr 1936, Tupelo MS, 216

5) 06 Apr 1936, Gainesville GA, 203

6) 09 Apr 1947, Woodward OK, 181

7) 24 Apr 1908, Amite LA, Purvis MS, 143

8) 22 May 2011, Joplin MO, 118 (est.)

9) 12 Jun 1899, New Richmond WI, 117

10) 8 Jun 1953, Flint MI, 116

Most of these violent twisters touched down in the heart of tornado country. But, historians might ask what factors have made certain storms at certain times and places more deadly than others. What factors have combined to cause the greatest destruction and loss of life? How have poverty and rural isolation factored in?

Technological innovation has lessened the damage and helped prepare civilians for the worst. Over at NOAA Roger Edwards provides some background to that relatively recent scientific research:

The National Severe Storms Laboratory has been the major force in tornado-related research for several decades. NSSL has been a leader in Doppler radar development, research and testing, and has run numerous field programs to study tornadoes and other severe weather since the early 1970s. Others heavily involved with tornado research include UCAR/NCAR, the University of Oklahoma, the Tornado Project, Tornado History Project, and overseas, the European Severe Storms Lab (Germany) and TORRO (UK). Members of the SELS/SPC staff have done research related to forecasting tornadoes for many years. Almost every university with an atmospheric science program, as well as many local National Weather Service offices, have also published some tornado-related studies.

One of the major advances for storm detection and tracking, of course, was Doppler radar, described by NOAA as follows:

Doppler radar can see not only the precipitation in a thunderstorm (through its ability to reflect microwave energy, or reflectivity), but motion of the precipitation along the radar beam. In other words, it can measure how fast rain or hail is moving toward or away from the radar. . . . Doppler radar and severe storms research were joined in the early 1960s when the National Severe Storms Project began in Kansas City, and continue to this day at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma. The Union City tornado in 1973 began a treasure trove of NSSL research Doppler measurements of supercells and other hazardous storms. In the 1980s, the push to get Doppler radars into warning operations became well-organized as the NEXRAD (NEXt generation weather RADar) program.

We're roughly half way through tornado season. Let's hope we've seen the worst of it. If not, let's hope early warning systems do their work.

Had Enough Snow? You're not Alone . . .

Randall Stephens

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. . . Arghhh!!

Does it give us any comfort to know that Americans have been trudging through snow drifts, swearing at Jack Frost, and sinking into a dark cold night of the soul/seasonal depression for decades, even centuries? Probably not. But, if you think that blizzards have a way of shutting things down today . . . imagine what it would have been like before the second industrial revolution and before some clever person attached a shovel to the front of a car. By the 19th century, telegraph lines could report storms in the West before folks felt those in the east. (In 1861 Western Union completed the first transcontinental line, from San Francisco to the East Coast.) But, things were much more messy. What was the world like before Doppler Radar?

The Long Storm of 1798, which stretched from Maryland to Maine, dumped about 18 inches on New York City. In Historic Storms of New England (1891), Sidney Perley wrote of that memorable November wintry blast:

The great quantity of snow that fell was unprecedented so early in the winter, and in but few instances had the settlers experienced such a snow storm during any part of the year. The mail carriers, or postboys, as they were called, were obliged to ride through fields for miles at a time, the roads being impassable in all parts of the country. The snow was so deep that in some places where the highways had been shoveled out the banks of snow on both sides of the road were so high that men on horseback could not look over them. Many houses were so deeply buried in the snow that the families which lived in them found it very difficult to make an egress without tunneling through the drifts.

Ninety years later Americans looked out their windows, wide-eyed and anxious about the whiteout that the Blizzard of '88 produced. Temperatures fell well below zero, winds gusted, and cities across the country were brought to a standstill. A reporter at the New Hampshire Sentinel could hardly believe it. "The oldest inhabitants can recollect no such storm as the present," he observed. "It probably never snowed faster in this part of the country than it did from Monday morning until Tuesday morning, almost without interruption. In addition to this the wind blew a gale continuously, and the snow was packed into deep, solid drifts on all sides. . . . Telegraphic communication with Boston was cut off during the afternoon. All wires between Washington and New York were down in the morning, and by noon the wires between New York and Boston were all down."

Then there was the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940. From November 11 to 12 temperatures dove in some parts of the country from the 60s to single digits. The storm stretched from Kansas to Michigan and caused nearly 150 deaths. "In Texas sub-freezing temperature nipped fruit crops," reported Life magazine. The thermometer dipped to 20 degrees below in Belgrade, Montana. "The storms did not spare the great cities of the Midwest. More than 16 inches of snow fell in Minneapolis and piled up in great wind drifts which halted transportation and buried stranded cars. Buildings were unroofed, chimneys toppled and trees uprooted be winds of tornadic force."

The Blizzard of 1978? Some folks have still not warmed up from that one.

So, as you sit through hours of snow snarled traffic jams, put those chains back onto your tires again, and bundle up your kids like Randy in Christmas Story . . . remember that others have gone before you, a great snow-filled cloud of frostbitten witnesses.