TEXAS TORNADO WEIRDNESS

From June, 2001 WEIRD TEXAS magazine.

Something about the weather has always fascinated me. Perhaps it is intriguing because so much of what makes different parts of the world, well, different, has to do with weather and climate. But when it comes to the study of weather and climate weather seems to be the one that is most dramatic.

So what is the difference between the two? Someone in a geography class of mine said it best “climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.” In Texas some of the weather we have experienced has been ... 13 1/2 inches of snow one day in San Antonio (Jan 1985). On a clear August day, in the 1880’s , ice cold water rushed down the Concho River killing numerous people. It was later discovered that a distant hailstorm was to blame. Lake Whitney experienced a heat storm with 80 to 100 mph winds that reached 140 degrees scorching cotton fields on June 15, 1960.

I have lived in Texas eleven years and I will never forget one day in the Spring of 1991 watching constant flashing of a Gulf Coast thunderstorm passing just south of Houston. Another time marble sized hail pounded down and bounced off ground in a storm that left Central Texas looking like it was hit with a snowstorm. I’ve seen unusually wet springs ended with an even more unusually dry summer. But one thing I have not seen is a tornado. Few weather events inspire more fear awe and curiosity than the powerful tornado -- especially by those who experience the storms. This state is no stranger to tornadoes and the curious events that have taken place in and around them.

“All tornado phenomena can be explained -- there is nothing that is mystical about them,” according to Al Moller at the National Weather Service office in Fort Worth. Explained maybe, but strange nonetheless. Here is a short list of what Texans have experienced... a 30,000 pound piece of machinery was moved during a Pampa tornado. Twin tornadoes hit Austin in 1922 and witnesses reported seeing the stream bed of the Colorado River as the tornado passed over near Deep Eddy Pool. A graduation invitation was imbedded in a 2 x 4 during the Hale Center twister of 1965. Scientists believe the force of the wind was so strong it pulled the wood grains apart allowing the paper to penetrate the wood.

In Ballinger in April 1967, a barbecue grill was lifted into the air moved two blocks away, and set down with the meat still cooking. In the “I would believe it if I saw” it department .. a rare October tornado in Farmersville was reported to have shucked 10 acres of corn without damaging any kernels. A man at Lake Texoma was thrown into the water, then the same tornado threw him a barrel which kept him from drowning.

A 1942 tornado stopped a clock on the tower at Crowell at 8:40 PM. A call to the Foard County Courthouse in 2001 confirmed the clock is in a crate in the basement and reads 8:40 PM.

Here’s one for strange coincidences in the little town of Lazbuddie in the Panhandle. In May 1991 five funnels touched down at once. Even more dramatic was four years later where six twisters touched down in Lazbuddie.

Down the road from Lazbuddie in Amarillo, KVII TV Channel 7 and the big Texan Restaurant have teamed up to bring interested Texans “The Texas Tornado Museum.” Newspaper headlines, photographs, twisted barbed wire and a six pack of Cokes with tops popped off by the low air pressure of a 1995 storm in Pampa are some of the exhibits.

Tornado legends have been a part of Texas lore for as long as there have been Texans. To encourage growth the Waco Chamber of Commerce wrote in 1951 about “an old Indian legend” that stated Waco was protected from tornadoes by hills to the west. Two years later the city was burying 114 of its residents from the last single American tornado to take more than 100 lives. The Dallas Daily Herald gave an account of the May 4, 1856 tornado in Cedar Hill which read .. “The strife of the fiends is on the battling clouds. The glare of hell is in the sulfurous lighting. This is no earthly storm.” A little more descriptive than you would hear on THE WEATHER CHANNEL, don’t you think?

Speaking like a true Texan, German immigrant Mr. Markowitz was quoted by THE DALLAS NEWS after a 1894 tornado. “I was coming from supper and ven I got to the sqvare I hear the doggondest roaring I ever see. I stopped and looked arund to see vat the matter was. I see that ting coming. It looked too me like a t’ousand steam engined was a’ puffing fire and smoke. I looked at that ting for a second an then I say ‘Markowitz your time ‘as come.”

As the West was settled, some suspected the laying of rails and plowing of fields somehow contributed to the likelihood of twisters. Change “plowing of fields and laying of rail” to “cutting down rain forests and driving cars” and you see the discussion of man’s influence on climate is nothing new.

Today much is known about the structure of storms through radar, physics and storm chasers like Martin Lisus. “I’ve seen a lot of strange people in and around Texas tornadoes,” he said. Once I drove past a group of people crowded on the Wilbarger County Courthouse steps pointing skyward at a tornadic storm as sirens blared. Police stood by too. Nobody was interested in taking cover.” He even saw people near Tahoka sitting in lawn chairs along the highway watching a June 13, 1992 storm -- as Lisus was rushing to escape.

A few people have even gotten closer than even the most devoted chaser would dare and joined the exclusive “we flew in a tornado and lived” club. The massive Rocksprings tornado of 1927 destroyed the home of a 6-year-old girl. She was sucked up, set down and found alive, standing on the side of a road, 3 miles away. Ironically, no major tornadoes have hit in or around Rocksprings before or since. Then in 1947, in the midst of a raging tornado a man in Glazier went to the front door of his home and was immediately pulled out of the house. His friend went to investigate and was likewise yanked from the laws of gravity by the raging wind. The two were let down away from the house, unhurt due to the strong air currents going into the tornado, which eased them down gently. The two crawled back to the house against the wind to find the home destroyed. Among the rubble was a couch, and on it sat the rest of the family unharmed. In the May 3, 1947 tornado in McKinney, Roy Hall actually looked up into the funnel His description sounded like a near death experience (which it kind of actually was, given the fact he was inside a tornado!) with a long tunnel and light at the end. Hall said the interior was lit by a bluish white light, which revealed a smooth tunnel about 200 yards high.

The serenity described by Mr. Hall is in stark contrast to the fierceness Samuel Barricklow discovered. A photo taken by Barricklow after the Jarrell tornado of 1997 shows an engine block in a field with piece of radiator hose and worm gear still attached. The F 5 monster that killed 27 appears to have picked up and completely obliterated the vehicle leaving no other sign of the car. Other pictures of the same tornado as it passed through Cedar Park are just as unforgettable. From less than a football field away a man photographed the Albertson’s Supermarket as the roof was being torn apart. A few minutes later a home video recorded a nearly invisible funnel tearing up roofs and blowing windows out of a home.

The Red River area is prime tornado country and if a wailing tornado siren is music to your ears then head out that wan in May, the month most likely to spawn twisters in Texas. Actually the Houston area records more tornadoes than anywhere else in Texas, partly because there are more people to record them. Not all of Texas is tornado country.

Love the state but phobic of tornadoes? A county by county listing in the Tornado Project Online shows that in Edwards, Kimble, Irion and Sutton and Menard counties between San Angelo and the Mexican border, only 5 tornadoes have touched down since 1950. Not many people live in the area, but a smart Realtor with that information could turn Sonora into the state’s next boomtown. As for major metropolitan areas, El Paso County has had just a handful of twisters in the last fifty years.

Can a tornado pluck the feathers off a chicken with no harm to the bird? This phenomenon is explainable but still weird. We all have mechanisms for dealing with danger. Birds, when attacked by a predator can release there feathers. It doesn’t do much for tornado attacks, but a barnyard carnivore gets a mouth full of feathers rather than poultry.

SOURCES: The Tornado Project Online, ISSAC'S STORM by Erik Larson and TORNADO: TEXAS DEMON IN THE WIND by Dudley Lynch

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