1978 Piedmont, OK tornado first on video?

[Roy Britt]

I am posting this here because of it's historical importance in the early days of storm chasing. A chase team from NSSL recorded this tornado on a video tape recorder and were the first to do so. The tornado it's self is is not very impressive but the storm's updraft has great structure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWDPXiNnNo

 

[Mike Johnston]

Good stuff, but the Xenia, OH tornado in 1974 was recorded on video tape. It may have been on an old 8mm video recorder, but that was still "video tape." There may have been others recorded earlier as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyUEv0J4nVw

EDIT: Mods, you may wish to move this thread over to Advanced Weather and Chasing with the header "First Tornado recorded on video tape?" as it's an interesting historical question in its own right. I don't know if the Xenia tape was the very first...probably not. I know 8mm existed at least back into the 1960s, so there was probably something earlier that some of our more senior members might know of.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I'm pretty sure one of those 1990s Tornado Video Classics etc. videos has a recording of a tornado in Oklahoma from 1960 or 1961, perhaps from the Geary storm in 1961.

ADD: In fact, I found a clip from that tape on youtube (Geary, OK, 5/4/1961): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdFPZxbDDlc

 

[Mike Smith]

If Xenia was "8mm" is was film, not video. Eight millimeter video was not introduced until 1985. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_mm_video_format

 

[Roy Britt]

I remember when the 8mm format first came out in 1985. I had been checking out 8mm cameras with sound but decided to wait for information about camcorders before i purchased one I purchase
a Sony 8mm camcorder in early 1987.

 

[joel ewing]

I'm 99% certain that the Xenia '74 tornado was movie film and not tape. As I recall....the footage was shot by a 12-ish year old young man who was either in his home's attic or upper story. Also, if anyone is interested, I have bookmarked a site that has incredible audio of that same event which was captured by a man who left his reel-to-reel tape player on prior to escaping to his shelter. He did so with the sole intent of capturing the noise of the tornado for posterity. It is a haunting five or six minutes, with no vocals once the gentleman left for safety. It begins with virtually no noise of the tornado, then gradually becomes louder and louder until the killer F-5 is virtually next door. To me, it sounded like the humming of a million angry bees. Very sobering when you realize how many people were being killed at the time.

 

[guy1966]

When the 64 Tornado came thru Wichita Falls Texas the local CBS affiliate KAUZ-4 took one of their studio cameras outside and recorded it from afar. The video is on U-Tube I believe.

 

[Shane Adams]

I think perhaps what Roy was getting at (since he mentioned its significance to STORM CHASING), was NSSL was the first to videotape a tornado on a CHASE, at a REMOTE LOCATION. Lots of old stuff has been presented in/near TV studios via studio cameras (because they were AT THE STUDIO)