1966-06-08 Topeka KS Tornado

[Mike Johnston]

There is a documentary of the Topeka tornado that I never knew existed before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib8yX2ZstME

Some items about the tornado that I never knew about:

1. Topekans knew about the aforementioned Manhattan, KS tornado the same day, which served to keep them on the alert.

2. The Topeka area had a robust storm spotter network.

3. The Topeka NWS had implemented a storm safety/education campaign in the years leading up to the tornado.

4. Washburn College had recently increased the insurance coverage on its campus buildings - good thing because the campus was decimated.

5. The Topeka TV and radio stations physically sent reporters over the the National Weather Bureau office for real-time coverage.

 

[Rick Schmidt]

Mike---your fifth item would also include the Capital-Journal photo staff covering not only the tornado going through town, but covering the injured arriving at the hospital. (My father).

 

[Mike Pearis]

I found this book very interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Followed...qid=1428071466&sr=8-1&keywords=TOPEKA+TORNADO
By Bonar Menninger called "And Hell Followed With It"

 

[GPhillips]

It's the 50th anniversary of this event today. NWS Topeka updated its webpage, and added another webpage with additional information including environmental data (plots, analyses and soundings)..

Main page

http://www.weather.gov/top/1966TopekaTornado

Page with additional information in tabs including environmental data, watch text and graphic, etc.

http://www.weather.gov/top/1966TopekaTornadoReview


Additionally, the Capitol Journal as a great website on the tornado, special to this 50th anniversary, here:

http://tornado.cjonline.com/

 

[Rick Schmidt]

Glad you mentioned this, George. There were 2 good tv shows on tonight commemorating the event.

 

[John Moore]

I witnessed that tornado from the transmitter site of KANU-FM on the KU campus in Lawrence. We had a transmitter engineer's meeting scheduled for that time, and we were all out in the parking lot watching the storm. When we saw the funnel form, one of us, who had a 2 meter ham radio on Topeka Civil Defense net, called it in. We watched the tornado until it became invisible - either rain wrapped or bad contrast. The same cell produced another tornado that hit in the vicinity of Tonganoxie, KS, and another that hit near or in Atchison, KS. I also had a part time job for Alf Landon's WREN-AM in Topeka, and later talked to one of our announcers who had been in a car on top of Burnett's Mound - until the tornado tossed it and him down the hill. He had only a few bruises - a *very* lucky guy.

A day or two later, a friend took my brother and i up over the site in a Cessna 172 and my brother took photos of the damage - these may be the only aerial photos of it - certainly the only ones I have seen. My brother later got a job as a photographer for Professor Eagleman at KU doing tornado damage surveys around the country. Dr. Eagleman had a research radar at Lawrence airport, and I got to see some supercells on it. We had a ham station at the radar to communicate with spotters in the area.

Here's a link to scans of the old photos my brother took.

http://www.tinyvital.com/Weather/StormChase/topeka66.htm


We did have a 6 meter AM ham radio at KANU, and I was a spotter for Olathe Civil Defense using it. This was a couple of years after I started storm chasing.

BTW, the KANU transmitter has moved. In 1966, we had a 600' tower about 100 yards N of the current Space Sciences building at KU.

 

[Rick Schmidt]

John---Photographers from the Capital-Journal took hundreds of aerial photos of the damage the next day, and I have an 11x14 photo album filled with those damage photos. My dad had access to them because he was one of the photographers there, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, he was sent to the hospital to photograph the injured. Do you have photographs of the funnel? I would love to see what a tornado looks like from over 20 miles away from ground level!

 

[John Moore]

John---Photographers from the Capital-Journal took hundreds of aerial photos of the damage the next day, and I have an 11x14 photo album filled with those damage photos. My dad had access to them because he was one of the photographers there, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, he was sent to the hospital to photograph the injured. Do you have photographs of the funnel? I would love to see what a tornado looks like from over 20 miles away from ground level!

Rick, thanks for the info. I never saw those pics, although when I followed some links today I saw at least one aerial photo that we hadn't taken, and frankly it would be surprising if we were the only ones up there taking pics.

We don't have photos of the tornado - we were just out in the parking lot of KANU before our meeting, not armed with cameras. But, we could see it very clearly at first - it came out of a rain free base with clear sky behind it. We saw it come down a ways, go up, then come down all the way eventually (as far as we could tell from that distance).

Later, as I mentioned, it became obscured - either behind rain, or simply not visible due to low contrast.

I have seen tornadoes from as far as 35 miles. All it takes is a decent sized funnel, and good contrast behind it.

BTW, while we were standing there, our tower was hit by lightning. I was about 10 feet from it and felt a little jolt. We had really, really good grounding on it - 6" wide copper straps radiating out from the tower for quite a distance.

 

[John Moore]

BTW, we saw a tornado south of Texline, TX a few weeks ago, from 25 miles away. The tornado was also observed by people a lot closer to it.

 

[John Paulson]

It's the 50th anniversary of this event today. NWS Topeka updated its webpage, and added another webpage with additional information including environmental data (plots, analyses and soundings)..

Main page

http://www.weather.gov/top/1966TopekaTornado

Page with additional information in tabs including environmental data, watch text and graphic, etc.

http://www.weather.gov/top/1966TopekaTornadoReview


Additionally, the Capitol Journal as a great website on the tornado, special to this 50th anniversary, here:

http://tornado.cjonline.com/

The thing I find amazing is they issued the Tornado Watch at 11:00 AM to take effect at 2 PM. Now a watch isn't issued until it is ready to go into effect right then. But I do remember the days(in the mid to late 80's) of there being about 30 minutes lead time between the issuance of a watch and the time it took effect.