• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Fargo F5 Webpage

afischer

afischer

EF4
Joined
Jun 22, 2005
Messages
338
Location
Kansas City, MO
Thought I would share this interesting webpage from NWSFGF on the infamous Fargo F5 tornado of June 20, 1957. This event of course was one studied closely by Fujita. To my knowledge it is accepted as the farthest-north recorded F5, since sources seem to differ on whether the Ft. Rice ND tornado of May 29, 1953 was an F4 or an F5.

The page contains some meteorological background, including modified proximity soundings. Over the past year or two NWSFGF has also collected a lot of first hand accounts from that day, one of them being truly heartbreaking. My aunt survived this storm as well, being only 6 blocks from the path and seeing garages flung into the air before taking shelter.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fgf/?n=fargojune1957f5
 
Glad to see the Fargo F5 page was updated recently... I'll have to check it out again. I'm seriously considering ordering some reproductions of the two tornado pictures.... they'd go well with the house considering it was built in 1888.
 
I remember having seen pics of this tornado way back when I was a kid. In fact, this was one of the first times I've seen a tornadogenesis sequence in pictures and so was interested in tornadoes this early in life.

I notice that the death toll thankfully wasn't that high compared to other F4-5 tornadoes which have struck urban areas during the 1950s. I'd have suspected that they were able to see the tornado coming from a long way off because of the flat terrain and the fact that the tornado wasn't obscured by heavy rain and hail. According to some of the accounts in the NWS site, the warnings were broadcasted by TV and radio and police going through the streets. There are no mentions of sirens having been used to warn the people (Maybe too much of a risk of being mistaken for a nuclear attack warning or just simply none in the city at the time? Remember this was during the peak of the Cold War!).

20494110b.jpg


This image is from the NDSU photo collection, of course.

I've seen the tail cloud like this one below incorrectly labeled as a funnel or a tornado at least once in pics of the wall cloud associated with the Fargo tornado.

tornado2.GIF

From: http://www.in-forum.com/specials/century/jan3/week18.htm

Another image of the wall cloud and tail cloud.

Tornado4.jpg

From: http://www.in-forum.com/specials/125th/index.cfm?page=articles2&id=41079&subsection=People
 
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