Remember When . . . ?

Remember when tornado photos were all black-and-white, and you only saw them in the newspapers?

Remember how rare it was  to see them?

Remember newspapers?

Remember watching The Wizard of Oz every time it played on TV, and never missing a showing, just so you could watch the tornado scene? (“It’s a twister! It’s a twister!”)

Remember how fascinated and delighted you were when they showed those grainy old movies of tornadoes in school, or sometimes on TV, and how you wished they’d replay them and then replay them again so you could watch them over and over and over?

Remember when you first saw that incredible photo of twin funnels south of Elkhart, Indiana, taken by photographer Paul Huffman during the 1965 Palm Sunday Outbreak? And that dramatic image of the Xenia, Ohio, tornado shot at just a quarter-mile away from Greene Memorial Hospital during the 1974 Super Outbreak?

Remember your first successful chase? (As if you could ever forget.)

I remember mine. It was in August 1996 across central Michigan, roughly along the M-21 corridor. North of Saint Johns, Michigan, I watched as a beautiful tube dropped from a classic supercell that was as sweetly structured as anything I’ve seen on the Plains. Both the tornado and its parent storm were gorgeous–and I was elated.

Remember when there were no laptops, no Android phones, no mobile data, no GR3–just your car, your weather radio, maybe a tiny portable TV, and a ton of hopefulness and excitement as you drove happily down the highway toward a sky full of rising towers?

Remember when seeing a tornado was rare and busting was something you simply expected and took in stride as part of paying your dues?

Remember before the movie Twister came out?

Remember before the Stormchasers series?

Remember when storm chasing wasn’t “extreme”?

Remember when storm chasing barely was at all?

Remember when Storm Track was a print newsletter published by pioneer chaser David Hoadley? I regret that I never subscribed, because I could have learned much from it.

Remember when the online version was a resource everyone welcomed and loved, not a point of contention among some chasers? I’m so glad the worst of that scuffle is a few years behind us now.

Remember when there was no live stream to fuss with, no competing with a league of other chasers all getting similar footage of the same storm, and no rush to process your video and get it to the networks first? (Not that I would know about that last point personally. I’ve never gotten the hang of it and don’t particularly care.)

Remember when there was nothing to prove, no reputation to make or uphold, and no stripes to earn?

Remember when it was just about the storms, period?

Don’t you wish it still could be?

Why can’t it?

Remember how excited you were when you first got hooked up with a laptop, GR3, and mobile data?

Remember how, before then, you used to stop at airports and small-town libraries just to get a glimpse of the radar?

Remember when there was no TwisterData, no HRRR, no SPC mesoanalysis graphics, no easy way to obtain forecast soundings, no abundance of forecasting resources available at just the click of a mouse button?

Remember when you weren’t even aware that there were forecasting resources available to you?

Remember your first exposure to the SPC forecast discussions, reading through all that arcane gobbledegook and thinking, “These people speak Martian”?

And then thinking, “Maybe if I just head for the center of where it says ‘Moderate Risk’ . . .”?

Remember discovering COD and looking over their forecast maps and not having a clue what they meant or how to use them? You pulled up the 500 mb heights/wind map and admired the pretty colors and thought, “This looks like it could mean something.”

Remember not knowing the difference between GFS and ETA and RUC?

Remember ETA and RUC?

Remember knowing absolutely nothing about forecasting, and how you struggled to learn, and how thrilled you felt when you finally pieced things together and successfully picked a target, or at least had your forecast verify?

Remember all that?

Never forget.

Many of you are too young to have experienced some of the things I’ve mentioned. You missed out on something good. It doesn’t all sound good, I’ll grant you–no in-car radar, no access to a bazillion free online weather resources–but it had its virtues. Not that I’d care to go back to caveman days, but I’d love to reclaim their spirit.

The beat goes on, and those of you who boarded the bus farther down the road are building your own list of remember-whens. But we who are in our mid-forties and older can recall simpler times. They were far less technically advanced, but they were also infinitely less frantic and driven overall. I guess you have to reach at least fifty years of age before you get to say stuff like that. It’s the province and privilege of duffers. I qualify, and I’m okay with that.

I wish I could claim something akin to the number and quality of tornadic encounters, and the knowledge gained thereby, and the photos to show and the stories to tell, possessed by some of the luminaries who are my age or not all that terribly much older. Those guys have got a lot to remember! But what’s mine is mine, and it’s enough to reminisce upon. If you got your start when storm chasing was of a different character than it is today, you know that you were privileged to come up in a special time, a time that can never be reclaimed. And memories of those days are well worth treasuring and reflecting on and feeling grateful for the experiences that created them.

 

 

 

July 16, 2013 by
Filed Under: Opinion & Editorial, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Uncategorized, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

Remembering April 11, 1965: Highlights of the Palm Sunday Tornado Memorial Service

If you’ve been following this blog lately, then you’re well aware that yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak. The commemoration held at the Tornado Memorial Park in Dunlap, Indiana, came together beautifully thanks to the hard work of my friend Debbie Watters, who owns the park. To say that it was a memorable event understates some of the truly amazing things that transpired.

dan-mccarthy
Dan McCarthy, the meteorologist in charge at KIND in Indianapolis, was the keynote speaker. Dan did a superb job describing the strides that severe weather forecasting and the warning system have taken since 1965, and explaining how the Palm Sunday Outbreak served as a catalyst for those changes. If there is any comfort to hearts that still ache over the loss of loved ones in the storms, Dan suggested that at least part of it may lie in knowing that a tornado catastrophe of such magnitude is unlikely to ever happen again.

Several other speakers followed Dan. Last of all was Debbie. I think one reason she does so well behind a microphone is that she pours her heart out toward her listeners. At a gathering of tornado survivors and their families, the needs may not be readily apparent; but Debbie, having lost her brother Stevie in the Dunlap F5, knows what lies below the surface. It had to have taken some courage to address the subject of survivor guilt as honestly and

balloon-release-at-memorial
straightforwardly as Debbie did, but it’s only in shining light on such a painful issue that its grip can perhaps be broken on people who, over four decades later, still wonder why they lived while their loved one died

At the end of the service, there was a balloon launch in loving memory of the Elkhart County tornado victims. It was a poignant moment, watching those bright, merry balloons soar skyward into the blue.

But it was the behind-the-scenes happenings, the interpersonal connections, that will live on in my mind. There were some heartwarming moments, and a few that were just plain incredible. Debbie had always wondered who the stranger was who saved her mother’s life after the tornado, and who sheltered the two of them in his car until an ambulance arrived. Yesterday, a woman introduced herself to Debbie as the man’s wife. You can imagine what a powerful meeting that was for both women.

45-year-commemoration-at-dunlap-tornado-memorial
Among the roughly 150 attendees, I was delighted to see Paul and Elizabeth Huffman. Paul is the retired Elkhart Truth photographer who took the famous image of twin funnels straddling US 33 south of Dunlap, destroying the Midway Trailer Court. That photo, one of six in a sequence, is arguably the most famous and dramatic tornado photograph of all time, and one that has inspired more than one young kid to pursue meteorology as a career.

Now in his eighties, Paul is a peppery and humorous personality, and his wife, Elizabeth, is a sweetheart. It was fascinating, in talking with them, to get insights into how things played out that day. Paul wasn’t even aware of the twin-funnel structure when he snapped the photo; in his viewfinder he saw just the rightmost funnel. It was only when the startling image of “The Twins” emerged in development that Paul realized he had captured something extraordinary on film.

I was particularly pleased when one of the speakers, Brian Beaver–an award-winning radio correspondent formerly with IPR–took time to publicly recognize Paul and honor him for his achievement.

My friend Pat Bowman and her brother John were also present. But of course they would be–Pat is integrally knit into these events. She and Deb are my two “tornado ladies,” dear to each other and to me. The way that the three of us connected is a pretty incredible story in its own right, and it all started with Pat. Actually, it started long before, with a newspaper account of a young couple’s tragic loss of their child, and of a small boy’s prayers for them in response. There is a reason that Pat is very special to me. But that story is for another time.

elizabeth-and-paul-huffman-debbie-and-pat
The last photo on this page is one I will always treasure. That’s Elizabeth and Paul Huffman on the left. Debbie is the blonde, and that’s Pat on the right. God gifts us with people, and it was a blessing to me to see these four together. The threads of events that connect them are intricate and remarkable, and I feel privileged to see the connections continue to unfold in their lives and in mine.

April 13, 2010 by
Filed Under: Event, Life, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes: Great Forecasting, Poor Warning Infrastructure

The death toll for the historic 1965 Palm Sunday Outbreak varies depending on your source, but the number 271 packs the authority of a U. S. Weather Bureau survey submitted by a five-man team to Dr. Robert White, the chief of the bureau, just three weeks after the disaster. Add to it one known casualty from Iowa who lingered until after the report was released before succumbing to his wounds, and 272 is a reasonable tally.

However many deaths were in fact attributable to the Palm Sunday Tornadoes, the bottom line is, a shocking number of people perished in the 20th century’s second-worst tornado outbreak.

Why? Certainly there was no fault with the forecasting, which was as spot-on as you could possibly hope for, even without the benefit of all the severe weather parameters that exist today.

The research team appointed by Chief White asked that same question: what was the breakdown? Three weeks after conducting extensive surveys through the tornado-stricken six-state region, they had answers, and recommendations to accompany them that have shaped the course of both tornado research and operational forecasting.

The Weather Bureau Survey Team Report of Palm Sunday Tornadoes of 1965 is fascinating in a number of respects, not the least being the fact that in it, one can see the shape of things to come. Striking as well, amid the overall commendable efforts on the part of the various weather bureaus to warn the public, were a few notable communication disconnects. The report shows that the first two tornadoes of the outbreak struck at about the same time, 12:45 CST, in eastern Iowa. The first warning wasn’t issued until 1:00, fifteen minutes later.

In West Michigan, the Alpine Avenue F4 tornado in northwest Grand Rapids, which leveled the Swan Inn and tracked as far as Rockford, struck at the same time that the first warning was issued. Ditto for the town of Burnips, located fifteen miles southwest of Grand Rapids. Residents in the beginning paths of these tornadoes had zero lead time. Two hours later to the east, in similar fashion, Radnor, Ohio, received its warning at the same time that a tornado was tearing its way through town. As for Marion, Indiana, seven minutes advance notice was probably very little better than nothing.

Remember, in those days, civil defense sirens weren’t sounded during tornado warnings in Great Lakes communities. The only means of alerting the public to imminent danger was radio and TV, and those depended, of course, on people being tuned in to them.

The long and short of it is, the warning system back then was nothing like what we have today. We’ve come a tremendously long way in 45 years. Many of the strides we’ve taken were first set in motion by the research and recommendations of the Palm Sunday Outbreak survey team. If anything good can be said about the mayhem of that dark April evening, it is that out of its tragic losses arose advances in the public warning system that continue to do a marvelously effective job of saving lives today.

January 29, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , ,