Bryce Stone
EF4
I'm curious if any of you have come home from chasing storms to find that a tornado has damaged your property while you were gone. Such a thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and I am wondering who else has experienced this.
Has a tornado ever hit your house?
- Thread starter Bryce Stone
- Start date
Melissa Moon
EF5
Not while I was chasing, but my house was hit by an F0 or F1 back when I was a kid...or it could have been straight line winds. We're not 100% sure
Paul Townsend
Chasing...no. But a strong F4 (F1 damage at my house) hit my house when I was not quite 3 years old.
Justin E. Reed
EF3
Not while chasing, but twice. Once by an F-0 then in 2003, by an F-2. We've had straight-line wind damage many many times, from downbursts, to derechos, to full fleged lines with imbeded supercells. May 2003, on the 4th was 90mph winds for a good 10 minutes, then on the 10th, came the tornado. All part of the infamous May 2003 Outbreak. Also hit by lightning twice, I swear my parents house is on an Indian burial ground, or Mother Nature hates my parents oober-rich subdivision.
joel ewing
EF5
I'm embarassed to say that while eating dinner with my aunt/uncle on their Boone Co. Nebraska farm a few short years ago, a small tornado hit us. We knew that there were some severe storms heading our way in Custer Co. Nebraska....but they were still a long ways off. So anyway..we're eating and all of a sudden my aunt goes "what's that noise?". My cousin Craig and I don't hear anything at all. I decided to walk outside just to placate her, and it was unbelieveable and surreal. Leaves, branches, etc. were floating upwards, while this huge 80 yr. old Cottonwood, with at least a 6ft. diameter...was completely bent over in half...and we're not talking uprooted or broken...just held down by ferocious winds. It blew my mind. It was so incredible that we could not hear any of this inside the 100yr. old farmhouse. Beyond belief.
The next morning, in the grove of cottonwoods next to the house, there was a clearing in the tops of the trees just like a buzzsaw went thru there. And...this same effect happened to miles and miles of groves in an easterly path...the tops were buzzed off. Not too far away..near Tarnov...and sheriffs and spotters saw a tornado on the ground.
Looking back, we figure that a low meso went over the house....with intermittant spinups almost touching the ground...but definitely carving out the tops of groves in the area. The huge cottonwood was bent by insane RFD winds right behind the meso. It survived.
I've always wondered how people could "be so stupid as to not hear or see a tornado coming right upon them". Well, I guess I'm a lot dumber than I look.
If nothing else...that was a testiment to the way "they" built the farm houses back in the day. And to think...without any power tools. Wow.
The next morning, in the grove of cottonwoods next to the house, there was a clearing in the tops of the trees just like a buzzsaw went thru there. And...this same effect happened to miles and miles of groves in an easterly path...the tops were buzzed off. Not too far away..near Tarnov...and sheriffs and spotters saw a tornado on the ground.
Looking back, we figure that a low meso went over the house....with intermittant spinups almost touching the ground...but definitely carving out the tops of groves in the area. The huge cottonwood was bent by insane RFD winds right behind the meso. It survived.
I've always wondered how people could "be so stupid as to not hear or see a tornado coming right upon them". Well, I guess I'm a lot dumber than I look.
If nothing else...that was a testiment to the way "they" built the farm houses back in the day. And to think...without any power tools. Wow.
Danny Neal
EF5
Not while chasing but in 1967 my dad and grandparents huddled away as an F4, that passed 100 yards to the north, caused high end F1 damage to our house.
David Mikulec
EF2
Not while out, but two structures on our property still show strong evidence of being hit by the strong F1 that went through northern Boyle Co. Kentucky during the April 1974 outbreak.
Shawn Scovel
I've sort of been through 2, and 1 a few months before I was born.. None while chasing though... The 1st was in Edmond OK in about 1988, our house got struck pretty bad (picked it up all the way and moved it 6 inces and set it back on the foundation.) 2nd one was in 1995 when the jarrell tornado came through Cedar Park.. I was about 200-300 yards from that one. I stood at the back sliding glass door completely amazed. I think i was about 6ish and that's also when I became overy obsessed with severe weather. I remember my friend's brother riding his bike home through the golfball size hail and bursting through the front door screaming. The 3rd one was an F0-F1 that hit Mason Creek in Leander, TX in 1999. That thing shreaded my basketball goal, trampoline, and took the top vent off of my motorhome that was parked down the street.
-Shawn
-Shawn
Tony Lyza
EF3
My mom's cousin lived on 83rd and Knox on 4/21/67. Watched it as she stood in her front yard.
Doug Raflik
EF3
June 23rd, 2004. I was working in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. A suburb of Madison.
I saw, on my cell phones radar, a storm with a hook echo heading right towards Waupun, which is where I lived. I bolted out the door and raced towards home. While leaving the Madison area, I saw a big supercell bearing down from the west. I had no intentions of chasing around the Madison metro, so I continued northeast towards home. It ends up the storm was moving too fast for me to catch it, and while I was under clear blue skies, in between Waupun and Fitchburg, I was hearing reports of a tornado going through Waupun, AND one just under 2 miles from where I just left work. UGH! On the following map, the red is my house, the yellow is my work, and the blue is me at the time of the tornadoes...
A phone call to my brother told me our house was ok, but trees were down all over. I chased other smaller storms until around 10 pm, and then decided to make it home. Listening to the scanner, I heard one cop saying he wasnt letting anyone into town, but heard another saying he would let people in if they could prove they lived in Waupun. I went to his location, and he wished me luck as I ventured home. It was a VERY heart wrenching experience. To see my town, black as night, and with trees, powerlines and buildings down everywhere. I was able to find a path home, with 3 of 4 streets near my house still impassable. When I got home, my brother and I went out with a flashlight and looked at damage. We had heard of one death from this tornado, about 6 miles west of town. I finally was able to go to sleep at around 2 am, only to be woken up at 3 by my boss. He told me that the death by the tornado was a coworkers father and that she wouldnt be in. UGH! I got back to sleep, only to be woken up again at 6 am to the sound of chainsaws. I wasnt going to get back to sleep so I went out and took pictures of town.
http://www.wxnut.net/waupunstorm.htm
It seems the storm was cycling as it went over my house. Damage to the west, and damage to the east, but just trees down in my yard. As luck would have it, I had a Davis weather monitor system on my house with an anemometer on the roof, but the computer part of it was in my van.
Doug Raflik
I saw, on my cell phones radar, a storm with a hook echo heading right towards Waupun, which is where I lived. I bolted out the door and raced towards home. While leaving the Madison area, I saw a big supercell bearing down from the west. I had no intentions of chasing around the Madison metro, so I continued northeast towards home. It ends up the storm was moving too fast for me to catch it, and while I was under clear blue skies, in between Waupun and Fitchburg, I was hearing reports of a tornado going through Waupun, AND one just under 2 miles from where I just left work. UGH! On the following map, the red is my house, the yellow is my work, and the blue is me at the time of the tornadoes...
A phone call to my brother told me our house was ok, but trees were down all over. I chased other smaller storms until around 10 pm, and then decided to make it home. Listening to the scanner, I heard one cop saying he wasnt letting anyone into town, but heard another saying he would let people in if they could prove they lived in Waupun. I went to his location, and he wished me luck as I ventured home. It was a VERY heart wrenching experience. To see my town, black as night, and with trees, powerlines and buildings down everywhere. I was able to find a path home, with 3 of 4 streets near my house still impassable. When I got home, my brother and I went out with a flashlight and looked at damage. We had heard of one death from this tornado, about 6 miles west of town. I finally was able to go to sleep at around 2 am, only to be woken up at 3 by my boss. He told me that the death by the tornado was a coworkers father and that she wouldnt be in. UGH! I got back to sleep, only to be woken up again at 6 am to the sound of chainsaws. I wasnt going to get back to sleep so I went out and took pictures of town.
http://www.wxnut.net/waupunstorm.htm
It seems the storm was cycling as it went over my house. Damage to the west, and damage to the east, but just trees down in my yard. As luck would have it, I had a Davis weather monitor system on my house with an anemometer on the roof, but the computer part of it was in my van.
Doug Raflik
Danny Neal
EF5
Must have been quite a sight! I am at 91st and the railroad tracks if you look at a map the edge of the tornado hit 90th street to 88th street across the cemetary....needless to say if that happened today, I would have some pretty amazing footage!
Andy Rice
EF1
June 23rd, 2004. I was working in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. A suburb of Madison.
I saw, on my cell phones radar, a storm with a hook echo heading right towards Waupun, which is where I lived. I bolted out the door and raced towards home. While leaving the Madison area, I saw a big supercell bearing down from the west. I had no intentions of chasing around the Madison metro, so I continued northeast towards home. It ends up the storm was moving too fast for me to catch it, and while I was under clear blue skies, in between Waupun and Fitchburg, I was hearing reports of a tornado going through Waupun, AND one just under 2 miles from where I just left work. UGH! On the following map, the red is my house, the yellow is my work, and the blue is me at the time of the tornadoes...
A phone call to my brother told me our house was ok, but trees were down all over. I chased other smaller storms until around 10 pm, and then decided to make it home. Listening to the scanner, I heard one cop saying he wasnt letting anyone into town, but heard another saying he would let people in if they could prove they lived in Waupun. I went to his location, and he wished me luck as I ventured home. It was a VERY heart wrenching experience. To see my town, black as night, and with trees, powerlines and buildings down everywhere. I was able to find a path home, with 3 of 4 streets near my house still impassable. When I got home, my brother and I went out with a flashlight and looked at damage. We had heard of one death from this tornado, about 6 miles west of town. I finally was able to go to sleep at around 2 am, only to be woken up at 3 by my boss. He told me that the death by the tornado was a coworkers father and that she wouldnt be in. UGH! I got back to sleep, only to be woken up again at 6 am to the sound of chainsaws. I wasnt going to get back to sleep so I went out and took pictures of town.
http://www.wxnut.net/waupunstorm.htm
It seems the storm was cycling as it went over my house. Damage to the west, and damage to the east, but just trees down in my yard. As luck would have it, I had a Davis weather monitor system on my house with an anemometer on the roof, but the computer part of it was in my van.
Doug Raflik
That one on the south end of your map hit my office building that day....
http://www.myweather.net/company/pressreleases/163_tornado.htm
aaron.burkham
EF0
i had an F0 come through my front yard when i lived in central illinois , it must have been very very small in diameter seeing how narrow the path was, about a little over a yard
Bryce Stone
EF4
Wow, I didn't know there were that many members who have had tornadoes impact their lives. My experience was this: I was chasing and was some 100+ miles away from home when an EF0 tornado caused damage to trees in front of and behind the mobile home where I was living. One tree landed on the mobile home, destroying one car and damaging another in the process. The mobile home is not livable and will have to be destroyed - it is too damaged to try to move it (the wall is three feet away from the floor). The tornado also shredded a fairly large storage building.
What is disappointing about this experience is that no one will help us clean up the mess. FEMA and our local emergancy management say there is nothing they can do. I'm having to clean everything up and it's taking forever. At least the Red Cross was nice enough to put my family up in a hotel room for three days while we looked for another place to live.
Another thing that kinda sucks is that the tornado knocked me out of this season for the most part. Ah, well . . . I've seen about eight this year; and I should have things settled down and be ready to chase again in time for the mythical fall season. We didn't lose any personal property and no one got hurt, so I can't complain. Anyway, it certainly changes the perspective a bit when a tornado impacts you personally.
What is disappointing about this experience is that no one will help us clean up the mess. FEMA and our local emergancy management say there is nothing they can do. I'm having to clean everything up and it's taking forever. At least the Red Cross was nice enough to put my family up in a hotel room for three days while we looked for another place to live.
Another thing that kinda sucks is that the tornado knocked me out of this season for the most part. Ah, well . . . I've seen about eight this year; and I should have things settled down and be ready to chase again in time for the mythical fall season. We didn't lose any personal property and no one got hurt, so I can't complain. Anyway, it certainly changes the perspective a bit when a tornado impacts you personally.
Justin Turcotte
EF5
Unfortunately I didn't get to see the tornado but when I was 5 or 6 years old I was getting out of Sunday mass and the sky was as green as it gets. My family waited for the torrents of rain to end before heading home. When we did arrive home we found a portion of the neighbors garage deposited in my yard. There was a three to four foot wide drill bit swath through the prairie grass which led to the dog house. The dog house was spit in four pieces. There was no trace of the tornado beyond the dog house damage. The house was ok minus a warped front door. Perhaps some waterlogging combined with the pressure differential caused it to bow. Windows had water on the interior sills. I don't know if the tornado is actually in the record or not but based on damage to the garage I would estimate an F1. Based on the look of the prarie grass getting drill bitted I would say there was potential for F2 damage had it hit directly.
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