1990-03-13: Hesston Kansas tornado outbreak

[Paul Swearingen]

For the record, the book that Lanny refers to is "Year of the Storms - The Dextructive Kansas Weather of 1990"; the editor is Howard Inglish, and it was published in Hillsboro, KS by Hearth Publishing.

 

[NickMoir]

This video was just posted on liveleak claiming to be new footage from the hesston f5

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac1_1271801843

 

[Jason Haller]

This video was just posted on liveleak claiming to be new footage from the hesston f5

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac1_1271801843

Never seen that footage before but it definitely looks like Hesston by the color of the tornado and the look of the video footage. The first part looks like a little different angle on the two tornadoes the produced the long damage path. Looks legit to me.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Not new - it's in the NSSL video library. Might even be on Tornado Video Classics.

 

[Roy Britt]

Here is a playlist of videos from the 3-13-1990 tornado outbreak.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4Ty3KuArQ631KyvGFxKYh5-V0Lwc8IM

 

[Casey Osburn]

I remember the NSSFC (what is now the SPC) categorized the day as a moderate risk that morning. The conditions might have supported this, but certainly the outcome warranted a high risk.

 

[Mike Johnston]

I remember there was a beautiful postcard made of this tornado. We had it posted on our refrigerator for a whole year, surmising it was surely the biggest and baddest tornado in Kansas history....until Andover came along a year later.

 

[Tyler Hudson]

If anyone has any information on the damage path of both of these tornadoes, I'd love to see it. Especially when it comes to Goessel. There isn't much information in the literature about it. After seeing Twister, watch the classic Hesston video solidified my love of tornadoes.

 

[John Paulson]

Warm front event for Iowa on this date. An F4 tornado hit Worthington in the Eastern part of the state. There was very good video from the Mississippi river area in which the home of the person taking the video was heavily damaged. At one point he shoots video looking almost straight up into the updraft itself. He takes cover as trees snap and debris begins to fall from the sky.

I rememberer the one that hit Ankeny. I was living in Southern MN but at night was able to pull in WHO radio out of Des Moines and as an avid HS BAsketball fan of any state I was listening top the coverage of the night session of the Iowa Boys Basketball Tournament and the Anken storm kit during the coverage of the night games so they interrupted that and went to storm coverage.

 

[Kyle C Williams]

Hi, been a few years since I posted here. I remember this day, I grew up in West Central Iowa was 14 years old went fishing with Dad, I remember it being very humid, we left mid afternoon and the NWS issued a PDS tornado watch.. that evening around 5pm the strorms started rolling through and my Dad came running in after being out in his truck checking on our farm.. on the way back he was blown halway across the road by a funnel cloud and I immediately went to the window and sure enough could see it... that was my 2nd tornado. I also remember the next day a nasty ice storm came through.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

One thing that stands out to me about videos of this outbreak is how massive the rain-free bases of the supercells were. It is noticeable in images of the Hesston storm but even more pronounced on the Nebraska storms, the tornadoes appeared to be out by themselves miles from the core.