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The Oklahoma Tornado
On May 3rd, 1999 an outbreak of 74 tornadoes occurred in the heart of tornado alley, Oklahoma and Kansas, killing 48 people. Among the storms was a massive F5 storm that tore through areas on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, demolishing or damaging more than 8,000 homes and ringing up more than $1 billion in damage. Chuck Doswell, a veteran storm chaser and atmospheric scientist followed the F5 storm and reported to the BBC that he knew in an instant that this storm was "off the scale".
In his 27 years of chasing storms, he estimates that he has seen 150 to 200 tornadoes, and he said that the twister he saw on Monday "was the most awesome ... tornado that I've seen." Tornadoes usually dissipate in 10 to 15 minutes. "This one just kept going and going," he said. When he first saw the storm, he immediately recognised it as a classic supercell, a massive thunderstorm. Shortly after Mr Doswell intercepted the storm, a large cone-shaped tornado dropped from the sky. It quickly dissipated. "But I thought, 'this storm is not done'. He followed the storm for 30 miles looking "right up into the heart of it", and he said it was clear that the storm would produce another tornado. In that minute, a huge funnel touched down, and instead of dissipating, it grew.
"If you haven't experienced a tornado, you can't possibly imagine what a storm like this can do," he said. A tornado can sweep a well constructed home from its foundation and scatter the debris for miles. It can pick up train carriages. "A similar tornado outside of Tornado Alley could produce hundreds of casualties, easily," he said. One resident of the devastated area said "I don't know that I'm going to live here anymore. That was too big to be real. It looked like something out of the Wizard of Oz." The Los Angeles Times described it as one of the most powerful storm systems ever to hit the Midwest, chewing "through neighbourhood after neighbourhood, spawning twister after twister - including one with multiple funnel clouds, an extremely rare phenomenon - for 20 horrifying hours".
For many returning to salvage possessions it was impossible to recognise
their own street. One man found a letter on the ground that had been mailed,
and apparently delivered, to a city an hour-and-a-half's drive away. The
tornado had brought it back to him - he thought he was lost. Another reported
seeing a full-grown cow that had been impaled on a broken power pole -
"just like a shish kebab". But, it was the discovery of human remains
that really shocks. One resident said that the "bodies were so mangled,
they must have come from someplace else. They were completely nude. I
think the wind had stripped them." There are many sites on the web dedicated
to tornadoes and storm chasing. Probably the best site is that maintained
by the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norwich, Oklahoma.
