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- Tornado Talk Weekly (September 11, 2023)
Tornado Talk Weekly (September 11, 2023)
Progress continues on writing and research!
Company Updates!
From Owner, Jen Narramore
It takes hundreds of hours to do what we do especially with some of the bigger events! Right now, we are diving through hundreds of articles and photos for the Frankfort, KY F4 tornado from the 1974 Super Outbreak. We have a massive spreadsheet to help us stay organized!
Meanwhile, we are also working on about three other tornado summaries that will be trickled out to Patreon members and the public through the rest of September.
Have you checked out our YouTube channel? I continue to create “This Week In Tornado History” videos and they are released each Monday. I am going to start including the links to those videos in the weekly newsletter!
This Week In Tornado History!
September 11: In 1885, an estimated F3 tornado moved NNW near Ord, NE. Many buildings were destroyed and two were killed in one home.
September 12: An EF1 tornado touched down briefly near Eudora, KS, on September 12, 2008. It traveled just over 1/2 mile, snapping trees and damaging or destroying barns and garages.
September 13: Several significant tornadoes moved through parts of the Plains on this day in 1928. Thomas Grazulis gave one that pushed through Yankton and Turner Counties in South Dakota an F4 rating. The path was 30 miles. Four were killed and 19 injured. It moved to the northeast from NE of Utica, passing nine miles West of Irene. In this area, an entire farm was swept away just as the family was heading to the storm cellar. A man and his daughter were killed, along with 100 hogs and 30 cattle. At another farm, a man was “carried a mile to his death after he hid in a granary which was swept up into the tornado.” Another woman died in Davis.
Damage photo from newspapers.com.
September 14: An estimated F4 tornado tracked a good 65 miles through parts of Central Oklahoma on September 14, 1957. Some of the worst damage was along a 7-mile stretch in SE Pottawatomie County and into SW Seminole County. Two people were killed and six injured along this stretch. Three homes were completely leveled. Read the full summary!
September 15: In 1912, an estimated F2 tornado moved 10 miles through parts of Onondaga County, NY on this day. It moved east from near the “Long Branch” resort at the outlet of Onondaga Lakes and passed 2 miles north of the Syracuse city limits. Grazulis notes that 15 homes and approximately 100 other buildings were damaged or destroyed. 3 were killed and 40+ were injured.
September 16: On this day in 2006, an F2 tornado tracked for seven miles through Rogers, MN. A 10-year-old girl was killed, and six other people were injured. Several homes were heavily damaged or destroyed.
September 17: In 2004, the largest tornado outbreak in Virginia history swept across the state. Per the SPC, 38 tornadoes formed across Virginia. This outbreak was spawned by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan, a former Category 5 storm that decimated portions of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast. Officially, the most powerful of the Virginia portion of the event was an F3 that struck Remington, VA. However, this summary shows the Stanardsville tornado was likely even stronger. In fact, as difficult as it was to find information on this tornado, it could be one of the more powerful ever documented in the region. Intrigued? Here is our premium summary!
An aerial view of the stationary vortex created by the tornado (NWS Baltimore/Washington).
Twister Tales!
Main writer Zach Reichle wrote about the tragic circumstances surrounding the Whippoorwill showboat. He details how this vessel on June 17, 1978 was destroyed on Pomona Lake in Eastern Kansas by a tornado rated F1. Tragically, 16 lives were lost. From the summary, “On the Whippoorwill, the unexpected funnel caught the eyes of the passengers and crew. What initially began as a fascination of seeing a deceptively harmless waterspout, quickly changed to a sense of danger. The owner of the showboat, Bruce Rogers, and his children were among those on the vessel. Rogers also noted the vicious spray of water and soon realized he and the rest of the 59 aboard were in its path.” Read the entire story of the Whippoorwill here.
The disabled Whippoorwill after it had been pulled to shore. Image from Warren Sunkel.
Article of the Week!
Estimating Kinetic Energy of U.S. Tornadoes
This week’s article is a 2015 thesis from Florida State. From the abstract: “Perhaps nothing on Earth is so uniquely majestic, yet destructive as the tornado. A violent tornado can level a town in minutes, causing death, injuries, monumental property losses and lasting emotional damage. To better understand the power behind tornadoes this research estimates the per-tornado total kinetic energy (TKE) for all tornadoes in the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) database over the period 2007-2013.”
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