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- The F5 at Vicksburg, MS in 1953!
The F5 at Vicksburg, MS in 1953!
The 2018 Outbreak in Illinois....
🌪️The Latest from Tornado Talk…..
Can’t believe it is December! Our focus this month will be on the enhancement of the Guin story. This will be a premium narrative available to paid Patreon members.
Are you looking for a Christmas gift for the tornado history fan in your life?! The latest version of Significant Tornadoes by Thomas Grazulis is available for order! Significant Tornadoes 1974-2022 chronicles every "significant" tornado (F2 or EF2 and above) that has struck in the United States during those years. It lists the state where each tornado has hit, date, time, death and injury total, path length, and the F/EF scale rating. This is followed by a description of the event. We are talking up to 6599 tornadoes, 702 pages, and 647 figures all in this book. Place your order on Tom’s website: https://www.tornadoproject.com/
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🌪️ This Week In Tornado History
December 2, 2018 - Georgia: An EF3 tornado struck the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay near St. Marys, GA. A docked coast guard vessel recorded a 144 mph wind gust as the twister passed over. Four injuries were reported.
December 3, 1978 - Louisiana: Thirteen tornadoes were recorded during the early morning hours of December 3, 1978. The strongest was an F4 tornado that developed at 1:50am CT in the Central Park area of Bossier City, LA. In a summary from the NWS Shreveport, “The Bossier City tornado was spawned from a supercell thunderstorm which developed in Deep East Texas ahead of a squall line.” Per Thomas Grazulis in Significant Tornadoes, the tornado developed near the point where an F2 tornado on April 17, 1978 ended. Tragically, on La Don Drive, there were two fatalities. An automobile was tossed into a home killing sisters Jana Lynn and Lisa Renee Currington, ages 8 and 13 who were sleeping.
Two girls sleeping in beds in the upper left house were killed by a car which fell onto them. Image from NWS Shreveport.
December 4, 1925 - Mississippi: A possible F2 tornado moved through the eastern parts of Yazoo City, MS. About 100 homes had damage. Two women were killed.
December 5, 1953 - Mississippi: ‘They had always said Vicksburg would never have a tornado because of the river’ – Marie Renaud, survivor of the 1953 Vicksburg Tornado. Marie was interviewed by the NWS Jackson for the 60th anniversary of the tornado. She was 11 years old when the tornado hit. She, like many Vicksburg, MS residents believed that the river would protect them from a tornado. Unfortunately, on December 5, 1953, a destructive twister crossed over the Mighty Mississippi and directly hit the town of Vicksburg. Below is our archived podcast about this event.
December 6, 2004 - Texas: An F1 tornado tracked for six miles across northeastern Brown County, Texas. Along the path, numerous trees were downed, and some trailers and metal farm buildings were damaged.
December 7, 1996 - Florida: This quick-hitting F2 tornado developed just east of Interstate 75 near Riverview, 12 miles SE of Tampa. It took four minutes for this tornado to travel two miles. Most of the damage was to the Cowley Cove mobile home complex. A total of nine mobile homes had some degree of damage. Three of the mobile homes were completely leveled and two others were severely damaged. There was one fatality.
Image from the December 1996 Storm Data Publication.
December 8, 1890 - Georgia: An F3 tornado destroyed a home and all barns on a farm three miles SW of Jersey, GA. Debris was carried into Jersey. “A father and child were blown 300 yards to their death.”
🌪️Check This Out!
On December 1, 2018, the largest December tornado outbreak in Illinois history would spawn 29 twisters across the region. The most significant was an EF3 that struck Taylorville, which destroyed numerous homes and injured 24. We have a summary about that event on our website.
The video below from Skip Talbot captures his storm chase that day. From his description, “A storm chase, start to finish, with five tornadoes in between. This video documents the tornado outbreak of December 1, 2018 across west central Illinois including the Bluffs, IL EF0; Beardstown, IL EF1; Bath, IL EF0; Havana/Lewistown EF1; and Easton EF1.”
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