Your First Tornado

[Chris Dickerson]

My first tornado was #44 on Fujita's famous map of the April 3, 1974 Super Outbreak. This F-4 tornado struck the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, OH when I was eight years old. It was preceded immediately by the more famous Saylor Park F-5 that tore through the western part of the city. My family and I were scared out of our wits that warm, balmy afternoon, and we had already heard about the deadly Xenia, OH F-5. For some reason my mom thought it would be a good idea to go out to a nearby restaurant in the northeastern suburb of Montgomery, and when the restaurant's manager opened the blinds we saw the Mason tornado about four miles off to our northwest (I was already a stickler for proper positioning). The power went out, the manager herded us into the restaurant's basement, and the rest is history. I was hooked.

My first "chase" tornado was also historic: the mile-wide F-4 beast that destroyed Hallam, NE on 5/22/04.

Wow... I grew up in Mason, Ohio (though I didn't live there until 1988). I was there for the June 2nd, 1990 outbreak that produced a tornado roughly a mile from my house. A few years back, I found some old photos from the 1974 Super Outbreak tornado that appeared in the local paper. Even though my neighborhood wasn't built in 1974, there was severe devastation right across the street as the street sign was still standing in front of some demolished homes. Even though it's logistically impossible, if I had lived in the same place when the 74 tornado struck, it would have hit my house dead-on.

 

[ScottCurry]

My first tornado was July 18th, 1986 - Brooklyn Park / Fridley, MN. It was 4 miles from the house I lived in at the time, and was standing out in the front yard watching it for 30+ minutes, beginning to end. The entire lifecycle of this tornado was filmed and broadcast live from a news helicopter. This is the tornado that took me from deathly afraid of severe weather, to completely obsessed with it.

http://www.minnpost.com/politics-po...tornado-made-broadcasting-history-twin-cities

Maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine, but this kind of reporting bothers me. Why does every tornado have to be described as "deadly", "extremely large", or "incredibly dangerous"? I undertand TV stations reporting that during a live event to get people to take the situation seriously or perhaps just to get more TV ratings, but 25 years later!? REALLY!?

"What followed was 25 minutes of a live chase of a deadly tornado."

and then later in the article...

"Remarkably, there were no injuries or deaths and damage was limited."

I know this is not the right thread to rant, and I know this has been discussed 100 times before, but I just had to get that off my chest.