Too Close for Comfort
It’s tornado season. Make sure you’re prepared!
Severe weather season has awakened in the central United States, and rather than yawning and stretching in a slow rousing from slumber, it has leapt out of its cave like a hungry bear. We’re awake and alert now, heart rates high and nerves jangled as if we were woken from sound sleep by an airhorn.
For as much severe weather as we get here in the central Plains, it has been a few years since large chunks of the Plains have had an outbreak of classic late-afternoon springtime tornadoes. That changed on Friday, April 26, as a series of strong tornadoes raked Nebraska and Iowa.
These tornadoes had cities in their sights. The outskirts of Lincoln and suburbs of Omaha in Nebraska took direct hits, as did Omaha’s major airport and small towns like Minden, Iowa.
The outbreak reignited on Saturday, April 27, across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The classic afternoon to evening tornadoes in Kansas, northeast Oklahoma, and Texas would have been active enough for a day, but then thunderstorms ramped up quickly in central Oklahoma after dark. Tornadoes raked Oklahoma cities like Sulphur, Norman, and Ardmore, cloaked in darkness and heavy rain.
Vantage Point
People who have known me for a while know that we* go out looking at storms. Colloquially, this is “storm chasing,” but I hesitate to use that language because some bad actors have given it a bad reputation. We pride ourselves on staying in safe parts of the storm at safe distances; we are not the reckless drivers passing cars in no-passing zones, ignoring stop signs, or driving straight into tornadoes. You won’t see any videos from me on YouTube going viral.
As a storm bubbled in Lincoln, before it took aim on the west Omaha suburbs, we were chasing a different tornado-producing storm to its northwest, just north of Seward, Nebraska. The interesting tornado produced multiple vortices that skirted the ground on either side of a north-south highway for about 10 to 15 minutes. The tornado was never violent and angry, though it did cause some minimal damage to trees and outbuildings and push a semi truck onto its side and into the back corner of a car. It ended in a long rope tornado that arched far from the parent thunderstorm.
Of all of our close calls this weekend, none were when we were chasing storms.
By the time our storm was done producing its tornado, the one in Lincoln had started to produce tornadoes and move north of Interstate 80. We could see that it was heading on a path just a few miles west of our home. Chasing that storm was not an option; we were too far behind it, and it was moving into a metro area where traffic and debris make chasing far more hazardous.
Then, the west Omaha tornado got really nasty on radar. We gaped at the velocities we could read out on radar, the tornado debris signature (or “debris ball”), the towns of Elkhorn and Bennington in its path. I measured the distance from our home to the point where it got really nasty, and it was a mere 5 miles away. The tornado had been just 3 miles from home earlier in its life.
Too close for comfort.
Our goal was simply to get across Omaha and into Iowa, crossing the damage path as minimally as possible. We encountered the damage path west of Elkhorn, where it was more narrow and more rural, and got across as efficiently and safely as we could. We did not try to stop to assess damage or try to follow the tornado toward more populated places looking for people who might need help, and some might wonder why. To us, taking damage pictures immediately after the tornado, as people emerge from shelter to inspect damage, feels inconsiderate (to put it mildly). We are not trained or equipped for search and rescue operations; that’s a job that only trained first responders should conduct. Thus, we had no business being in or near the damage path. Our best service is to get and stay out of the way so that emergency responders can do their jobs, and that’s exactly what we did.
We reached a vantage point on the Iowa side of the Missouri River, about 15 miles east of Omaha, just as the Omaha airport tornado materialized and crossed the river. We could see it as it pushed into Iowa, even at the distance we were, and our heart sunk as we realized it was on a path toward our friends’ home. We followed it up all the way to their house, certain we’d be needed there to help them with cleanup. Somehow, that tornado lifted at their doorstep, leaving them only with a little leaf debris and light yard decoration overturning. They escaped the downed power lines, destroyed outbuildings, and damaged roofs just a half mile down the road where the tornado had done its last damage.
Way too close for comfort.
We could have continued chasing west, if we hurried, and seen the next powerful tornado from Minden to Harlan, Iowa, but we were spent. We’d seen enough close calls for the day to our home and our friends’ homes, and we went back to rest at the home we were so grateful to still have.
Yes, We Are Safe
My texts lit up on Friday afternoon and continued late into Friday evening and beyond. The neighbor moms, baseball moms, and book club threads filled with questions as soon as the tornado warning for the closest tornadoes came out: Are we in the path? Is everyone all right? Is the threat over? I did my best to answer questions immediately, to give information proactively, because on each of those threads, I’m the “weather mom.” They trust me, and I want to give accurate information. I let the neighbor moms know that our neighborhood was not in the path, but that it was close - stay put and hang tight until it passes. I let the baseball moms know that anyone on the west side of our town or into Elkhorn could be in the path, but anyone closer to the neighborhood where several of us live would be all right. The book club thread filled with comments before I could even be proactive, because many of the book club women were much closer to the path. Fortunately, everyone was safe.
Then, the texts came in from family, friends, and colleagues - dozens of them, asking if we were all right. I’m so grateful for everyone who checked on our family.
It’s disquieting, to say the least, to watch a strong tornado churn through neighborhoods just a few miles from home, wrecking familiar paths and buildings. I think it’s safe to say we all needed a few deep breaths that evening and felt a little happier to be in our our needed-a-cleaning, slightly-messy, just-right home.
That nobody died or suffered serious injury in the Elkhorn-Bennington EF3 tornado is simply stunning to me. The National Weather Service had issued tornado warnings with strong messaging and plenty of advance notice, but when a strong, nearly mile-wide tornado moves across an area as populated as the suburbs, it has more opportunity to cause harm. Even with good warnings and good intentions, sometimes people just don’t have the means to get out of harm’s way or a safe place to go.
And Then Some
The stormy pattern lingered on Saturday, spawning a few tornadoes in Kansas (one of which we saw and photographed), Texas, and parts of Oklahoma during the day. Much of Oklahoma stayed out of the worst storms until the very worst time of day: after dark. As thunderstorms exploded across central Oklahoma, they spun up quickly to produce tornadoes buried deep in rain and barely visible. Several of those storms produced strong tornadoes that tracked through cities, too.
Watching from home in the evening, we eyed a storm southwest of Norman, Oklahoma, our previous home, that started to produce brief tornadoes. Then it produced one that was not so brief, starting southwest of town and sliding right through north Norman. We zoomed in to the tornado signature on radar and watched it skirt the very neighborhood we had lived in. In the light of day, the damage path was just a few neighborhood streets away from our old home.
Too close for comfort, even from far away.
OK. That’s enough close calls for now.
Pay Attention and Remember Tornado Safety Rules
Severe thunderstorm risks, including tornadoes, will continue through the spring, punctuating the relatively quiet days in between storm systems. A relatively quiet spell had lulled us into feeling some distance from the threats, but for certain, the too-close tornadoes have snapped us back to attention.
Tornadoes can happen just about anywhere, and spring to summer is the most active season for tornadoes. Don’t forget those tornado safety rules!
Get in, get down, and cover up.
Or, in more detail:
Go as low as you can, whether it’s a basement, storm cellar, or lowest floor of a building.
Put as many walls as you can between you and the outside. If you’re not in a basement, that might mean a closet, a bathroom, or under a staircase.
Cover yourself with pillows, blankets, mattresses, or anything else you can that provides cushion and protection.
Wear your shoes to your shelter. If a tornado strikes, you’ll need to make sure you can emerge safely without puncturing your feet.
Put infants in their portable carriers. They offer protection in case you lose your grip on baby.
Keep an emergency kit in your storm shelter area that includes flashlights, a whistle, a first aid kit, water, and other important items.
There is no safe shelter in a mobile home, RV, or car. Plan ahead to be in a secure shelter before severe weather arrives.
Finally, make sure you have a way to get tornado warnings. Your smartphone will alert (noisily and with intense vibration) for tornado warnings via its WEA (Wireless Emergency Alert) signal. Make sure you have WEA enabled - it truly can save lives, as it is one of the only alerts that will wake you up in the night or make a noise proactively. At home, set up a NOAA Weather Radio to receive alerts. When warnings are issued for your area, heed them! Yes, some warnings are false alarms, but the cost of going to your shelter a few extra times is worth the safety when it does affect your home.
*”We” indicates to our whole family. We all watch the weather together!
This Month in Wilder Weather History
April 12, 1945: A tornado strikes Mansfield, Missouri, knocking down trees on the Rocky Ridge farm of Laura and Almanzo Wilder. The tornado was rated F3 on the Fujita Scale and had a path from near Bradleyville to Ava to Mansfield. Their tornado was part of a larger outbreak across the Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois, including an F5 tornado in Antlers, Oklahoma, and several F4 tornadoes. No fatalities (20 injuries) occurred in the tornado that clipped the Rocky Ridge farm, but 119 people died in tornadoes during the outbreak. The death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the same day overshadowed the tornado outbreak and its devastation in news coverage.
I was in my basement twice on Friday night - shoes on and blankets and pillows nearby. The first time in a few years I’ve had to shelter through a storm. We were lucky, no tornados or damage in our suburb. Glad your family stayed safe!