Anyone witness a tornado tearing up a wind farm?

[Mark Sefried]

With wind farms poping up all over the place across the midwest and plains, has anyone here on Stormtrack seen a tornado hitting one yet? It may just be a matter of time before one does.

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

Had a close call on May 23 near Fort Supply, OK. Some other guys may have some better photos with the tornado and the wind farm as I was driving out of the wind farm as the tornado just stated to come down. If the tornado came down just a few miles sooner, it would have been right in the middle windfarm. Found some very large hail there at the wind farm (bigger than baseball). I am curious if they had any dents.

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Yeah, the May 23 Fort Supply, OK tornado came VERY close to a fairly large wind farm. That tornado was rated EF3, so it would have been very interesting to see what damage it could've done to those things.

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

I have wondered the same thing about this a few times.
I am only guessing, but I would think it would really reek havoc on them. Aren't they fairly lightweight in design compared to their size? The cost from the damage to them would be pretty high too I would think.

 

[Gary Stofer]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8be_1203819244

 

[Dann Cianca]

I heard on the radio this morning that they're building a wind farm off the coast of Delaware that is with supposedly withstand a hurricane ...

 

[Angie Norris]

I did a presentation on wind turbines at school last semester, and part of it was the durability of the turbines. The industrial turbines (1.5MW) are built to withstand winds >150mph. They are anchored in a concrete foundation to a depth of 2 meters and the tower is made of 2" thick steel. The total weight of the turbine is 205 tons. Some of the smaller home turbines have been involved in tornadoes with only minor damage occurring.
It would be cool to see a field test of a wind farm, but I think I'd want to be at a respectful distance just in case of a hub failure.

 

[Steve Bottkol]

Ft. Supply tornado and windfarm

We were on this storm and had a few good pics. It was amazing on how long it took for this one to rope out. Any closer to the windfarm, I think they would have been tested to their durability. We also noticed large hail.

Steve

 

[Chris Hayes]

I've never witnessed a tornado near a windfarm, but this is a pretty cool video of a windmill gone mad after it's breaks fail. http://youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ

 

[Bart_Comstock]

I haven't seen a tornado hit a wind farm, but once while Chasing in Minnesota in 2005 I cam across a wind farm that had a storm pass over it the day before and I found several destroyed wind mills where one of the blades had collided with the tower destroying them. If I can find the pics I will post them.

 

[Terry Tyler]

i have never seen a tornado hit a wind-generator, but i do know one thing...

that windmill would generate a whole lot of power!

 

[Darin Brunin]

i have never seen a tornado hit a wind-generator, but i do know one thing...

that windmill would generate a whole lot of power!

Turbines automatically shut off once the wind reaches 55mph so they wouldn't be moving during a tornado unless the winds were strong enough to override the control mechanism in the turbine.

 

[Andrew Stoller]

Yea, I noticed on May 23rd west of Salina KS, when the winds were howling into the surface low at 50 + mph, all the turbines at that wind farm were not moving. You could see the blades moving back and forth ever so slightly like a pin type mechanism locked into the gears to prevent movement.

Actually, there were a few turbines that were moving and they were whipping around pretty darn fast!

 

[Dann Cianca]

I wonder if the maximum wind speed (governor) is there to protect the generator from overloading ...