Severe weahter stories

I lived in Wichita...

In all honesty we got really lucky when we lived in Wichita as other than right when we moved there in 2013 it was fairly quiet for a few years. 2013 was when Moore and the OKC area was hit hard with large, violent tornadoes. A few days before hand on a Sunday afternoon that was absolutely perfect for super cells the Wichita area was somehow spared. There was a tornado on the ground moving directly for the city and it lifted just as it got to the airport on the SW side of town. I never have had as much of a "oh **** moment" as I did watching it on radar move across the city and seeing a perfect hook echo right on top of us.

A few weeks or months later listening to a weather podcast (WeatherBrains if you are interested) they had on one of the TV mets from Wichita to talk about it and it was his opinion that Wichita got VERY lucky as every radar indication was that there was a large violent funnel no more than a couple hundred feet up that would have had similar results at the 1991 Andover tornado (and would have hit Andover again since that is where we were) with a very similar track.

Other than that a couple of storms growing up where the funnel moved very close to us and one very cool rotating wall cloud.

The first tornado I saw was in high school the same night as the Iowa City tornado in 2006. This one was just north of Marion at County Home and 10th street. We were coming back from a soccer game in Cedar Falls and as we were driving east on County Home road I saw power flashes south of us in town and kind of said oh ****. As we came up to 10th street the tornado crossed about a quarter to half mile in front of us and I called it in to the NWS. The survey team claimed it was only on the ground for about a mile but my opinion after seeing damage several miles south in the vacinity of LM HS and Excelsior MS that I doubt just straight line wind could do I am fairly confident it had been bouncing up and down since at least that point.

That was actually a very active night. Here is the storm event report.

https://www.weather.gov/dvn/ev20060413tor
 
Baling hay one summer, clouds started to roll in, looked off to the southwest and all of the sudden this huge cloud of dust appears out of nowhere, probably was the gust front, but at the age of 13 back then had no clue about that.

Hay windrows got scattered and blown all over the place. In the middle of a field with nowhere to go so I just kinda stayed there. Looked over to the southeast and saw a tornado down by a river about a mile way, slowly just heading to the northwest. Eerily just watching it as we got pounded by huge drops of rain, but just like that within 20 minutes,everything was past and the sun came back out.
 
I remember that football game vs Colorado when there was a tornado before the game. I was only 7 at the time but I still remember it vividly
 
The first thing I thought of is what many have already mentioned, the Colorado tornado game. I just drank in the lots down by vet med. Still maybe the coolest game experience and atmospheres I've ever been in. That gave the whole game a real wierd and unique energy. Maybe everyone was just happy to be alive.
 
My sister lives in Stoughton (sp?) WI, and had a tornado (possibly two) rip through their neighborhood in the early 2000s. We went to help them with the clean-up. Their house and maybe two others were the only ones still intact. Her next door neighbor's house had all the exterior walls and roof gone, and there in the living room was a couch with a picture on the wall behind it. There was a car in a tree. It looked like the tornado tore down the street tearing up homes on both sides, jumped over their house, and then wiped out the house across the street down to the concrete floor. Incredible.
 
Another one that I just remembered although I was not in the path of it was the derecho in July 2011. My grandparents and cousins farm were directly in the path of it north of Garwin. The damage was breath taking over such a large area. Pretty much every field was flattened from Marshalltown to 380. We went over to help clean up and here are some pictures I took. I remember seeing sheet metal from I am assuming grain bins stuck in trees in the middle of nowhere with no sight of a farm or anything else that it could have come from. An absolute miracle that it did not end up worse than it was.

https://www.weather.gov/dvn/ev20110711derecho
 

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Tornado game is probably the best I got, but at least it led to the best ever quote about mascots from Gary Barnett.

"I thought we had a pretty good mascot. But when we showed up at Iowa State and they had a real tornado, that’s the real deal."
 
I lived in Wichita...

In all honesty we got really lucky when we lived in Wichita as other than right when we moved there in 2013 it was fairly quiet for a few years. 2013 was when Moore and the OKC area was hit hard with large, violent tornadoes. A few days before hand on a Sunday afternoon that was absolutely perfect for super cells the Wichita area was somehow spared. There was a tornado on the ground moving directly for the city and it lifted just as it got to the airport on the SW side of town. I never have had as much of a "oh **** moment" as I did watching it on radar move across the city and seeing a perfect hook echo right on top of us.

A few weeks or months later listening to a weather podcast (WeatherBrains if you are interested) they had on one of the TV mets from Wichita to talk about it and it was his opinion that Wichita got VERY lucky as every radar indication was that there was a large violent funnel no more than a couple hundred feet up that would have had similar results at the 1991 Andover tornado (and would have hit Andover again since that is where we were) with a very similar track.

Other than that a couple of storms growing up where the funnel moved very close to us and one very cool rotating wall cloud.

The first tornado I saw was in high school the same night as the Iowa City tornado in 2006. This one was just north of Marion at County Home and 10th street. We were coming back from a soccer game in Cedar Falls and as we were driving east on County Home road I saw power flashes south of us in town and kind of said oh ****. As we came up to 10th street the tornado crossed about a quarter to half mile in front of us and I called it in to the NWS. The survey team claimed it was only on the ground for about a mile but my opinion after seeing damage several miles south in the vacinity of LM HS and Excelsior MS that I doubt just straight line wind could do I am fairly confident it had been bouncing up and down since at least that point.

That was actually a very active night. Here is the storm event report.

https://www.weather.gov/dvn/ev20060413tor

Spann is the man, and my local meteorologist.
 
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The first thing I thought of is what many have already mentioned, the Colorado tornado game. I just drank in the lots down by vet med. Still maybe the coolest game experience and atmospheres I've ever been in. That gave the whole game a real wierd and unique energy. Maybe everyone was just happy to be alive.

Same here. I tried to find higher ground to see if I could see it.

Earlier that year (week of the Iowa game, IIRC), there was a small tornado that impacted campus. I remember that one because I had just gotten to my apartment from class and the sky got all funny. Suddenly, the rain came down hard and the wind was so strong, it was pushing water in through the closed windows. Looked at the track later, and yep, it touched down just on the other side of my building moving away from it.

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_aa5903ba-df5f-5f50-8463-2dc80ef10d83.html
 
I was at my parents house alone and there were tornado warnings for our county. I didn’t go to the basement and watched out the window. Everything was very calm at our house. Less than 2 miles straight south, several houses were flattened. It was a large EF3 or 4.

8 years later, when the Parkersburg tornado hit, another line of tornados formed near my parents again. Not quite as strong as the prior ones, but family friends whose house was destroyed 8 years earlier was also esstentisslly destroyed that time.

Last year or the year before I was driving on 50th in WDM when that crazy straight line wind came through for s couple of minutes. For maybe half a mile I could barely steer the car and saw trees falling right in front of me.
 
In the last couple years we've had small tornadoes hit <1 mile south and the other <1 mile north. No warnings issued for either event. We didn't even hear any wind on the first one south of us as it was really still (near the top of a hill but down somewhat and surrounded by trees) but my wife thought she heard something. We then lost power for like 8 hrs and had no idea why. Well come Monday morning I drove by the neighbors and a barn was gone and strewn across the street.

We also didn't see or hear anything on the next tornado and it pretty much took off the front half of a two-story dwelling maybe 1.5 miles from us. In fact we had just gotten home and the sky had a little bit of that green color but had no clue until seeing some internet posts.
 
Same here. I tried to find higher ground to see if I could see it.

Earlier that year (week of the Iowa game, IIRC), there was a small tornado that impacted campus. I remember that one because I had just gotten to my apartment from class and the sky got all funny. Suddenly, the rain came down hard and the wind was so strong, it was pushing water in through the closed windows. Looked at the track later, and yep, it touched down just on the other side of my building moving away from it.

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_aa5903ba-df5f-5f50-8463-2dc80ef10d83.html

I remember that. I was in agronomy studying for a quiz. I could hear the wind but had no idea a tornado had hit. I stepped outside after and saw branches all over in the agronomy courtyard.
 
Flooding at the ledges state park back in the 1970's. Water came up so fast that roads were washing out. We got to a road block..... We had to roll down the windows in the family truckster station wagon and the sheriff had two canoes, one on each side float us across a road. No way they would even try that now
 

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