Norman, OKNational Weather Center120 David L. Boren Blvd. 4. 1 A tornado struck Waco and McLennan County on May 11, 1953, inflicting 114 deaths, 597 injuries, and damages of $4i.2 million. Thanks to Bob Davies-Jones from NSSL we saw another tornado as the storm moved into Wichita Falls. We received the following letter from Joel Manes, who was living in Wichita Falls, Texas on April 10, 1979. This was especially true of the Wichita Falls tornado, whose more than 1-mile-wide path of damage is one of the biggest on record. Inevitably each year some sector of Texas suffers from the effects of a tornado strike, a blinding snowstorm, a violent hail-bearing thunderstorm, or a raging sand- or dust storm. It seems that almost every major Texas city has had to deal with a tornado at least once. The Vernon tornado destroyed a restaurant, motel, a farm implement store, and more than a dozen homes; damage totaled $27 million. ", "The three main storms in the Red River Valley outbreak were giant tornadoes. Flash Flood Warnings We decided to make a break for it to the east which was not a smart move. During this interval, the tornado was photographed by Professor Joe Henderson of Midwestern State University from the Ligon Coliseum (Tornado Track Figure; Location #7) and by Troy Glover from the roof of the Bethania Hospital (Tornado Track Figure; Location #8). The killer tornadoes that ravaged parts of three Texas communities near the Red River late in the afternoon stemmed from a wave of very intense thunderstorms that developed shortly after noon when a dry line advanced rapidly eastward out of the High Plains ahead of an approaching Pacific cold front. About Our Office Meanwhile, strong gusty winds associated with the eastward progression of an intensifying upper atmospheric storm out of New Mexico made travel hazardous in. Hail the size of golf balls preceded the touchdown and continued for approximately 15 minutes. No one was killed and only several major injuries occurred among the approximately one thousand shoppers who were in the mall. By 1800 CST (6:00 PM), the storm had taken on a very classic supercell look with the tornado-associated mesocyclone and hook echo in the right rear portion of the echo. This image was taken as the tornado widened and approached our position. Interview She and her family couldn't find their dog. Despite passing north of the Sikes Senter Shopping Mall, intense winds from the outer circulation of the tornado heavily damaged a few stores and blew many cars in the mall's parking lot some distance away from where they originated and stacked on top of each other. We continued south passing a damage path across the highway from the Harrold tornado. Deaths An Estimated 42 people died Miss Mahon's parents and five brothers and sisters wept as the Rev. However, widespread high winds from the parent supercell thunderstorm also produced extensive damage in the Wichita Falls, Iowa Park and Burkburnett areas. On September 25th, 2000, 11 year old Christopher Morris was found in the dishwasher of his family home which was in Sheppard Air Force Base base housing. Two trailers were destroyed, and three homes were damaged. 15:25 F4. With an east-northeast movement, it entered Wichita County and damaged a few rural homes and a string of metal high-voltage towers. This followed an earlier warning at 5:08 pm, due to the Rocky Point tornado. The tornado blew many of those vehicles off those roadways, inflicting numerous fatalities. The siren system for the city was sounded three times, the last around 5:50 p.m., just as the storm spotters reported the tornado approaching Memorial Stadium in the southwestern suburbs of Wichita Falls. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Wayne Collamore, Approaching Harrold, Texas from the southeast on Highway 287 - view is looking west at about 4:05 pm CST. Weather Radio, About Us It looked killer from the beginning. Hail to 1.75 inches was also reported south of the city. Approximately 30 houses in the addition were damage with some houses suffering extensive damage. The storm's second tornado, the terrible Wichita Falls tornado, formed at 1755 CST (5:55 PM) to the southwest of the city and moved through the southern and eastern sides of Wichita Falls shortly after 1800 CST (6:00 PM). As we drove south on the H.E. Tornado was well documented on film and by NSSL storm researchers. It is estimated that 5,000 families, containing 20,000 residents, were left homeless in Wichita Falls. ), June 6, 1936 - A tornado touched down at 5:20 pm CST and moved southeastward over a path of 440 yards wide by four miles long caused damage of $50,000 in Wichita Falls and injured two people, although one person may have been hurt due to a lightning strike. A Doppler radar view of the three supercells is available. The first tornado formed near Seymour at around 4:53 pm. Surface Maps Wayne Collamore, View looking west just east of Harrold on Highway 320 at about 4:15 pm CST. Forecasters at the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City1 had to decide only how soon tornadoes would develop and how large an area would be threatened. We left NSSL in Norman, Oklahoma at 10:30 AM to our target of Vernon, TX. The most notable tornado was another F4 tornado that destroyed most of the southern part of Wichita Falls, Texas, and is commonly referred to as "Terrible Tuesday" by many meteorologists. Aloft, the strong wind maximum was over the Red River area, producing significant vertical wind shear. Severe Thunderstorm Warnings The tornado then destroyed several industrial plants before moving into Clay County just south of TX State Highway 79. 10. A woman was injured when her truck rolled into the ditch in which she was taking cover. Wolfgang Lange. Skywarn Storm Spotters Why the Red River Valley between Childress and Bowie received the most severe outbreak of thunderstorms is explained by Figures 19-26. Continuing at F4 intensity, the now massive wedge tornado, which was at its maximum 1.5 miles (2.4km) wide, cut a 2.5-mile (4.0km) swath of destruction through the south side of town. A dry line had formed from the Childress low southward, and temperatures had become very warm in west Texas. Graphical Forecasts Around 3:05 in the afternoon, the first tornado formed near Crowell, Texas. 1964, and another in 1979. Current Hazards Note that the 50 dBZ core was no longer evident. Radar warnings and alerts from the Weather Bureau office were credited with saving many lives. Flood/Flash Flood Safety Click on the numbers on the map below or on each individual photo to see a larger image of that photo. The tornado's first fatalities were recorded in the apartment complex and adjoining housing area. auto-related; 16 of that total died while in their autos trying to flee the storm, and 11 of that number abandoned homes not touched by the tornado. Continuing east-northeast, the tornado severely damaged commercial building along Southwest Parkway, including total destruction of the Southwest National Bank Building except for its vault (location #4). Within 30 minutes the tornado, with a track that varied between 1/2 and 1 1/2 miles wide and 8 miles long, had sped across the southern portion of Wichita Falls. Numerous other disruptive weather events, including torrential, flash-flooding rains, scattered but frequent incidents of hail, and a widespread dust and sand storm, highlighted April, an unusually wet but seasonably mild month for most Texans. Those sources of meteorological data used in this report consist of: official rainfall, snowfall, temperature, wind, sunshine, and moisture data as provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the publications, "Climatological Data: Texas," "Local Climatological Data" (for selected cities), "Storm Data, and "Daily Weather Maps;" weather teletype reports (circuits "A" and "C") from the National Weather Service surface and upper-air observing network; surface and upper-air facsimile charts provided by the National Meteorological Center of NOAA; newspaper accounts; and photographic data obtained by the author. A 368-foot radio antenna and 2 others antennas were blown down, and multiple power lines were downed. Dr. Ted Fujita of the University of Chicago used these surveys to estimate the F-scale and probable wind speeds associated with the tornado. It is interesting to note that the Seymour and Wichita Falls tornadoes both formed during periods of relative decline in storm-top height and reflectivity values, a characteristic that has been noted for a number of supercell storms that have produced several cycles of tornadoes. Weather Bureau records. Tornado Pictures. The twister, which had a wide funnel, shrouded the community in darkness as it swept eastward south of Vernon and along the east side of the city, resulting in millions of dollars in damage and 11 directly killed by the tornado (10 in Vernon and 1 in Lockett, TX). ", "To the people of the Red River Valley in Texas and Oklahoma, nothing about the weather appeared unusual during the early hours of April 10, 1979: it was business as usual. In Wichita Falls, an emergency hotline to key local officials, TV, and radio stations assured rapid and complete local dissemination. This thunderstorm spawned a tornado with a continuous ground track of almost 60 miles. The tornado was photographed from the south during this period by Pat Blacklock, who was located on the southern shore of Lake Wichita (Tornado Track Figure; location #5). Wichita Falls Buries the First of 44 Tornado Victims, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/14/archives/wichita-falls-buries-the-first-of-44-tornado-victims.html. The Harrold tornado was in its formative stages at about the time the Vernon tornado was crossing the Red River. Living in Tornado Alley, I'm most familiar with tornados. Life Cycle of the Wichita Falls Tornadic Storm. Special Weather Statements We give still life with tornado and numerous ebook collections from fictions to scientific research in any way. We sat up to photograph to the east of the tornado and shot back west and north as it passed. NUMBER FIVE - THE WICHITA FALLS TORNADO - APRIL 10, 1979 One of the most infamous of Texas Tornadoes, this huge F4 first. No fatalities or injuries occurred. On April 3, 1964, a devastating F5 tornado hit the northern region of Wichita Falls and Sheppard Air Force Base. Minor wind damage and hail to 2 inches in diameter occurred north of the tornado track in Wichita Falls, in conjunction with its parent supercell. The tornado then moved east-northeast into the Western hills neighborhood, south of Southwest Parkway. They survived! A thunderstorm that pelted the Coleman area with golfball-size hail also generated a tornado that caused considerable damage to power lines and outbuildings north of the city. Watch on. These are 40 before/after pairings, as he shot dramatically injured locations . Forty-two peoples were killed and over 1700 injured. Apr 8, 2009 #1 NWS OUN has put up a nice page for the 30th anniversary of this monster: . Winter Weather Safety, Special Programs Questions? After taking his last picture of the approaching tornado, Mr. Lange retreated to the apartment complex laundry room and hid between heavy commercial washers and dryers, escaping with only minor injuries. A number of people were also killed or injured in the parking lot of Sikes Senter (sic) Mall, also on Kemp Boulevard. Forty-two people were killed outright by the storm and 3 others died as a result of heart attacks. More. Several vehicles, including a bus, were flipped and tossed. The tornado finally ended near Waurika, OK after traveling 47 miles. Ashley found that 69.2% of all tornado fatalities from 1985 to 2005 occurred in either mobile or permanent homes, illustrating the enhanced vulnerability of these particular housing structures. Fifty mph sustained inflow winds were occurring at this time. A total of 2 people were seriously injured along the tornado's path, but most of injuries people received were minor. The Wichita Falls tornado, with how black . Texas was extremely unstable early in the evening (Figure 25). Flash Flood Warnings Three people were injured in a mobile home near the beginning of the path. The huge thunderstorm that yielded the Seymour tornado also pounded Holliday with baseball-size hail and an area west of Iowa Park with golfball-size hail. David Ehrenfeld read the 23d Psalm over the pearl white coffin. Forty-two people were killed outright by the storm, while 3 others died of heart attacks. Overall, the outbreak produced nearly 30 tornadoes and a large number of damaging wind and severe hail reports. There were a total 42 tornado fatalities in Wichita Falls, of which 25 were vehicle related. During the morning, closely monitored air mass movements, temperatures, dew points, and winds had all been shifting towards critical values indicative of severe thunderstorms and potential tornadoes. By mid-afternoon the surface low had migrated northeastward toward the northern Low Rolling Plains, where steep pressure falls of up to 8mb or more in three hours were observed (Figure 16 insert). Also, tornado survivors said that some golf ball size hail fell prior to and immediately after the tornado. One of the tornadoes, having a width that varied from 1/2 to 1 1/2 miles, cut a swath of devastation across the southern sector of Wichita Falls in less than 30 minutes, killing 42 persons, injuring more than 1700, and burying dozens of city blocks under tons of debris. After extensive engineering analysis of the winds necessary to produce the observed structural failure to those buildings, it was concluded that all of the damage could have been produced by winds in the upper part of the F4 range (230 - 260 mph). Wind gusts to 100 mph were observed at the observation site. Some of these people attempted to run to their cars from the mall. The F5 storm tore through Wichita and Andover, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. Crossing into Oklahoma, the tornado inflicted additional damage near Waurika before dissipating. The width of the F4 damage in the Wichita Falls tornado approached 0.5 miles in the area of Faith Village and Ben Milam Elementary School (location #6). Beyond the shopping mall, the tornado crossed a greenbelt area, skirted Midwestern University on its south side, and severely damaged several more housing additions (Colonial Park, Hursh, Southmoor, Southwinds, and Southern Hills). All who have looked at and studied the event agree that the death toll would have been much larger had there not been not been such systems in place and functioning on April 10. I had a good full frame shot of the suction spots rotating about the base of the funnel. Huge pieces of debris thrown high in the air were clearly visible from miles away as the storm cut a swath of destruction through the city. During this period, large hail was occurring in the central and northern portions of Wichita Falls as the tornado devastated the southern portion of the city. Several homes were demolished, and a number of barns were partially destroyed. 25 of the 42 fatalities from the tornado were vehicle related, 16 of which were of people who left their homes to evade the massive tornado. Childress lay in the path of the advancing low pressure center, as surface pressure fell drastically and winds backed during the afternoon before the much drier continental air enveloped the region in the evening (Figure 17). A tool shed was blown away, trees uprooted, and utility poles damaged, and the Pontiac Company building was destroyed. Watch. The tornado killed 42 Wichita Falls residents and caused over $200 million in damages, leaving 20 percent of the city's population homeless. ), March 27, 1939 - This tornado touched down north-northwest of Wichita Falls and moved northeastward into Clay County. April 26, 1962 - This tornado initially touched down at 10:45 pmCST on the Sheppard Access Road near Sheppard AFB, damaging several cars, and destroying a a 100 x 30 foot metal building at a motor company. A sharp temperature gradient immediately preceded the movement of the drier air into the region at 850 mb (Figure 20), while at 700 mb the axis of maximum winds was positioned directly overhead the upper Red River valley (Figure 21) and appreciable vertical motion was evident (Figure 22). Damage also occurred to machinery, homes, and outbuildings. By the way, here's a USA Today article about the 1979 tornado with a photo of that monster. Fortunately, the tornado moved through rural areas and did not affect any housing at this stage. There is no doubt that hundreds of lives were saved by the news media and siren warnings. The tornado then weakened slightly, but remained at F3 intensity, destroying the Sun Valley housing area, the Sunnyside Heights Mobile Home Park, and several large commercial businesses, including the Levi Strauss Plant, before exiting the east side of town. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The following text comes from Chapter I of the NOAA Natural Disaster Report 80-1, "The Red River Valley Tornadoes of April 10, 1979. To by Glasstire May 2, 2017. Local About 65 people attended the funeral. At about the time the tornado was developing at Harrold, 1.5 to 3 inch diameter hailstones were reported 7 miles west of Harrold. One man was killed at a dairy farm in Dean. A powerful tornado tore through the Wichita, Kansas, area Friday night, leveling dozens of structures in the city of Andover, according to officials. 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