The 1970 Lubbock Tornado

[T. Mosley]

As all informed chasers know, Lubbock, Texas, was hit by an F-5 on the night of May 11, 1970. The power went out at 9:46 PM, and the tornado touched down by Jones Stadium on the Texas Tech Campus, right off of 4th Street. This is one of the very few instances where a major storm actually touched down inside of city limits. Had it hit a few miles to the southwest, there would have been 1000's of fatalities instead of only 20 or so.

Although no images of this storm exist, a booklet on the storm was put out as part of the relief effort. I have this and will post some of the images if there is any interest in them. Although we have all seen the aftermath of F-5's, how many of us have seen the damage caused to a major city? Looking at the lights at Jones Stadium bent over to the ground is an eye-opener.

Please indicate your interest and I will scan accordingly.

TM

 

[Melissa Moon]

Do you know if NCDC has a copy of this book? This would be great metadata.

 

[T. Mosley]

Re: The book

Hello, Melissa:

I really doubt that they do, as distribution was quite limited. Copies were $5 at the time, all proceeds going to the relief effort.

There is some good data therein, and I will be sure to post that if I post anything. I went to college there myself and began chasing lightning at night.

 

[Melissa Moon]

T, I work at NCDC...You should send it to us for our archives (we're the government/NOAA facility that stores all of the nation's weather-related records) so that everyone can have access to the data/information within it. It might help someone with their research. I had to look at a bunch of information regarding Lubbock for my job and it would have helped to have it in our records.

In case anyone is interested here is a portion from the handwritten surface obs of this day (taken at Lubbock Regional AP):

I purposely didn't post the whole thing because I am not sure if NCDC charges for access to these forms or not and I don't want to break any rules.

 

[HAltschule]

Neat notes in the report, Melissa. It's always fun to see a tornado visible in the obs whether it is ASOS or handwritten SA's. As someone who works with the NCDC very frequently for my job, I am sure they charge for that record...unless you know people. Heh heh.

Anyway, Melissa, what do you do at NCDC? It seems that I am calling those folks every few days and have gotten to know them by first name. Nice bunch out there. Plus it was a beautiful area when I attended the users group conference 2 years ago.

 

[Melissa Moon]

I don't ever have to order data, so I am never sure what is free and what is not. So I left off the timestamps (save the ones the they wrote in the comments) .

I am a government contractor working with the Climate Database Modernization Program:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/cdmp/cdmp.html

I recommend watching the little video clip on the page.

 

[T. Mosley]

Melissa:

I will be pleased to scan the entire thing and send you a copy of it for your archives. It IS an important document, as that tornado caused Texas Tech University to form a federally-funded civil engineering branch dedicated to improving structures to better withstand tornado-force winds. Many members here have probably seen the air cannon they use to simulate tornadic impacts.

When the scanned document is available, I will check with the administration here to see if they have any interest in posting the complete booklet. If not, then I will make it available to whomever else might want it.

 

[David Drummond]

http://www.lubbockonline.com/tornado/

 

[T. Mosley]

Thanks for that, David; I had not known there was an archive of this storm on-line.

Later on I will compare the photos to see if they are the same ones in the booklet. Some I recognize, but I have not yet found others. Very likely they ARE the same, but the booklet contains other information that is probably not on that site. I'll just have to look.