Today a 1000 mile wide storm hit the central United States and of course being in Memphis we were in the path. Normally 3-4 hundred mile storms are almost common,this was way bigger and for a while pretty damn scary,no power,and the Tornado warning sirens are the same type used in WW2 for bombing raids,every school house has a siren and we are less than 1/2 mile from the one in my area. Don't know if the UK has this problem but we really are lucky as I stopped the count at 8 siren warnings today.Saxondog
Radar earlier today April 11th.jpg (62.13 KiB) Viewed 1176 times
The darkest red almost blood red are cells of tornadoes,but even the ones that don't touch down have the effect of the winds,or shear the wind speed can easily top 100mph with the funnel several hundred feet in the air and never completely forming to touch down. We have a very good warning system,but knowing it's coming help alot but if it hits your home the chance of living is very slim. That's one reason older homes like mine have cast IRON bath tube and the bathrooms are always in the center of the home wear the supporting walls meet. You get in the tube and cover your self with a mattress held down over you with rope. Insane to see this large a storm over land and with so many tornadoes but we have survived. Thankful to God for that,many did not survive today's storm.
Fortunatly for us in the UK these extreme weather events are not present here.
The only Tornados we have are flown by the R.A.F and will be over Libya as we speak.
Your account of hiding in your bath with a matress over you is truly frightening ...fingers crossed for you and I hope you and your family will only have to watch the damage on TV - and not experince it for real ......
Andy
It always gets darkest before it goes completley black......
Thanks Guy's, In my lifetime of living in Memphis,or since 1981 I have only know one really bad Tornado in which our niehbors house was hit by a huge tree crushing the back section and the bedroom of their small son. We together with our nieghbor found the child very scrarred and other wise ok.
Being hespanic they were not prepared or realized the danger,that same storm had large trees uprooted blowing down a 6 lane wide street and cuasing massive damage to store fronts.
The other time I actually saw the funnel and the damage was at work across the Mississippi river and this tornado missed the factory by maybe a half mile while me and another worker looked out the back fire door and saw it hit a truck stop and instant vehicles in the air it jumped the interstate and hit another truck stop on the other side,went through the small city of West Memphis and hit the High school,by a miracle no one was killed at the school but several people did die at the truck stop.
These storms are common but now we have early warning systems of Doppler radar which can even tell the wind speeds,it is the wind and debris that kills most people. Thankfully this storm did little damage here but North of use their were some homes destroyed.
On top of this we also live on the only Fault line East on the Mississippi River called the New Madrid Fault named after the Town where it is centred,so on occasion we have earthquakes, the city made famous by Music is also a dangerous place to live.
Many years ago an Earthquake changed the course of the Mississippi River and created a huge lake called Reelfoot lake on the Missouri,Tennessee and Kentucky state lines,amazing that nature is still the dominate force on the planet and sometimes mother Nature lets us know who is in control. Like Japan. Thanks for the well wishes and concern, Saxondog
Between mid-December 1811 and mid-March 1812 a series of catastrophic earthquakes shook West Tennessee and the rest of the Central Mississippi Valley. Judging from reports and eyewitness accounts, the quakes would have measured among the highest ever recorded on the modern Richter scale. Some reports said that the quakes were strong enough to awaken sleepers in Washington, D.C., and allegedly some tremors were felt twelve hundred miles away in Quebec City, Canada
The first of these historic quakes occurred in the St. Francis River area of northeast Arkansas; the second struck five weeks later and several miles to the northeast. Two weeks after that the third and strongest of the three quakes hit the area, with its epicenter still further north, at the little river port town of New Madrid, Missouri. The last of these three quakes is estimated to be the strongest ever recorded on the North American continent.
Geologists associate this early quake activity with the New Madrid or Central United States seismic zone. This ill-defined series of deeply buried faults runs roughly parallel to the Mississippi River Valley. The zone extends from Cairo, Illinois, south through Missouri to Marked Tree, Arkansas. A side branch also extends into the Reelfoot Lake region of northwest Tennessee.
Since the affected region was a sparsely settled frontier, few written accounts exist of the early quakes. According to a few personal diary entries and scanty eyewitness accounts quoted in local newspapers, the endless days and nights of earth tremors and thousands of aftershocks must have been dreadful to experience. Few settlers had ever experienced a quake.
The quakes caused much destruction along the Mississippi River as far south as present-day Memphis and as far up the Ohio River as Indiana. During the strongest of the quakes, great cracks and fissures opened and spewed out sand and water. Gaping crevices formed, some twelve feet wide and deep and more than twenty feet in length. Low waterfalls developed at points along the Mississippi in the vicinity of New Madrid. They were short-lived, however, in the soft sediments of the river valley. Shifting currents and changing flows along the Mississippi, Ohio, Arkansas, and other rivers created and destroyed islands, sandbars, and other familiar features. The quakes caused waves to rush over river banks. Return currents washed countless limbs and even whole trees into the main channels. Massive log jams formed, making navigation even more perilous.
Many boats capsized, and cargoes and crews were never seen again. Seasoned riverboat pilots had to deal with whole new rivers. Cracks and fissures, downed trees, and other obstacles made roads and trails impassable. Massive landslides occurred along the Mississippi and Ohio River bluffs from Memphis to Indiana. Some ground areas rose or fell as much as twenty feet relative to the surrounding landscape. An eighteen- to twenty-acre area near Piney River in Tennessee sank so low that the tops of the trees were at the same level as the surrounding ground. Whole forests sank below their original level and filled with water to form swamps and shallow lakes. The eighteen-thousand-acre Reelfoot Lake was either formed or enlarged during the 1811-12 earthquake episode. In other areas, lakes and swamps rose to higher elevations. Soon their waters drained away or evaporated. In time they evolved into prairies and upland forests. Much of this land now supports Tennessee cotton and soybeans.
As devastating as these early quakes were, destruction in human terms was light. Population was sparse, and Indians, traders, and settlers were quite self-sufficient, capable, and resilient. Due to a lack of census records and other reliable counts, the exact number of people who perished as a result of the quakes will never be known.
Very interesting account Blake, I didnt realise your area was such a volatile place to be.
A common response from people who are not living in such lands would be - why not move ??
I would anticipate the answer to invole roots, jobs , security and income. I guess its always the case that real life is not a simple set of choices...
Keep your head down !
Andy
It always gets darkest before it goes completley black......
Hi Blake glad to hear that you got through that,I watch ABC and CBS news,hardly a mention off it,I was shocked to find out that England has more tornado's than anywhere else,but they are so small we dont notice them! the biggest ones tear a few roof tiles,we get the odd hurricane down south,but where you live they call it tornado alley right?I've seen on TV trucks picked up and thrown! but not here,the odd tree and truck gets blown over and thats it,
