This afternoon, about two or three hours ago two large slow moving tornadoes ripped through the Dallas Fort Worth area in Texas. The damage reports are still coming in but it appears no one was injured at this point. If you search the internet news information you can find pictures and details.
My goal here is to simply discuss why we have tornadoes and why we have so many. The eastern United States has many tornadoes every year. We lead the world in the number and intensity of this type of storm. Do not confuse tornadoes with hurricanes. Tornadoes are much smaller and can occur at any time of year. Most occur in spring when called in hot air masses meet across the southeast United States.
The storms can be as small as a few feet wide and hundreds of feet tall (three feet is about one m). Sometimes they are more than one or two km wide (one mile). In Dallas, two very large storms creative hail damage to more than 80 planes at this large citys airport. Video shows tractor trailer rigs, which we call 18 wheelers and also calls large trucks, into the air tossing them hundreds of feet up as if they were toys. You would not want to be in the place where one of these landed.
When I lived in Louisiana I read that any one spot on the ground gets hit by a tornado about every 4,000 years on average. Of course, for every one that might take you directly many come close to you. When I was a boy, I rode a bus to school one morning. It was raining and I didnt want to go to school. I wish the bus would have a flat tire or something would happen so I did not have to go to school. But the bus made it safely to school. After the bus left as school started strong storms blew through the area. A few miles away the school bus I have been on was picked up by a tornado thrown into the air, flipped the bus three times in the air, and carried it across the street into a parking lot. Thirteen people on the bus escaped with minor injuries. The worst one, a broken arm, happened to the bus driver.
I had one fly over my house without touching the ground in 1975 in Arkansas. Another one blew down a neighbors farm when I lived in Kentucky a few years later. In 1985, soon after I returned Arkansas, a tornado came within a mile of where I sit as I write this blog (about 1 km). Sheila was nearby and heard a storm but was not injured. Another tornado kept Sheila from driving home in February of 2008. She heard the warning siren and instead of going home sought shelter at her parents house. Had she tried to go home she would not have made it because the storm had blown houses off their foundations and into the road. This blocked the road completely.
I dont worry about tornadoes. They happen, but in most cases they do not damage to my exact location. Nevertheless, I find them very interesting storms and would love to watch one from a distance sometime. In the 1980s, video cameras became very popular. Prior to that making the movie was very difficult. Very few tornadoes had been photographed. But today, with cell phones and other video devices many tornadoes are caught on camera.
