The Most Iconic Photos Of U.S. Tornadoes And The Stories Behind The Images

This photo is regarded as the first photo
taken of a tornado. It was in April, 1884 in
Garnett, Kansas. Photo by A.A Adams

Tornado season is ramping up. Every year, we get dramatic photos and videos of the tornadoes that show their power, their terror, sometimes their horrible beauty. You just hope nobody got hurricanes in all the chaos. 

Over the years, some tornadoes create iconic images that last forever and are referenced by experts, whether geeks and others as incredibles bits of history. 

Here are some of the most iconic images of tornadoes over the years. 

FIRST PHOTOGRAPH

There are many candidates vying for the first photograph of a tornado ever taken.  Almost all of those candidates have been proven to be fakes, or so altered that they really don't depict what was going on.

But one widely recognized photo is considered the first one. It shows a long, skinny funnel extending out at an angle from a dark cloud. It looks like a tornado that's "roping out." That means the tornado is beginning to dissipate. It stretches out and gets narrow until it falls apart. 

Unlike other supposed first tornado photos, this one taken by a fruit farmer named. A.A Adams makes sense. The clouds look like they would in a "normal" tornado, not some idealized version of one. The tornado hit Garnett, Kansas on April 26, 1884. It damaged some homes and barns and supposedly carried a man and his wagon through the air, injuring him. 

This doesn't mean the danger is over. Supercell thunderstorms sometimes cycle tornadoes. One dies, and later on, a new one will develop.

I don't know if that's the case with this one. 

Worcester, Massachusetts, June 9, 1953:

The Worcester County, Massachusetts
tornado on June 9, 1953

The statistics on this tornado are incredible: 94 people were killed, 1,288 were inured. At least 4,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The tornado was up to a mile wide and plowed through 45 miles of central Massachusetts. Debris from the tornado was thrown as far away as Cape Cod. It was easily the worst tornado in New England history. 

This was a Midwest style, highly destructive wedge tornado. It looked very much like the famous 2013 EF-5 in the Oklahoma City area, and not something that could ever happen in New England. But it did. 

The photo is striking because you see that classic Plains wedge shaped twister with an equally classic looking large New England farmhouse in the foreground. The dichotomy between the tornado and the house its incredibly striking

The photo, taken by Henry LaPrade, also shows the classic wall cloud/mesoscale supporting the tornado from above.  

As bad as Worcester tornado was, it was even the whole story.  The day before Worcester was hit, he  same storm system created an F5 tornado that devastated the northern part of Flint, Michigan and the suburb of Beecher, killing 116 people and injuring 844. A photograph of the Flint tornado is eerily similar to the Worcester tornado pictured here. 

1953 was a horrible tornado year. Earlier that spring, on May 11, another powerful tornado swept through Waco, Texas, killing 114 people

Goshen, Indiana, April 11, 1965

The double tornado image taken during the Palm Sunday
Tornado outbreak in 1965. This was in Goshen
Indiana. Photo by Paul Huffman. 

This one is from the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak on April 11, 1965. This double tornado was photographed by Paul Huffman in Goshen, Indiana. 

Huffman worked at the Elkhart Indiana Truth, the local paper. That day, he was driving down Route 33 with his wife when the saw a towering black cloud. At first they thought it was a fire.

They then realized it was a tornado. Huffman never left the house without his camera, so he pulled it out, went outside the car and starting taking pictures. Huffman kept himself steady in the intenser winds by swinging his leg around his car's bumper.

Hid photo, including the famous double tornado image  and others he took that day, are at this link. 

Judging from his other photos, I'm not 100 percent convinced he photographed two tornadoes. Intense tornadoes often have multiple vortices within them. Essentially tornadoes within tornadoes. It looks like the photo captured two intense vortices within the parent tornado. 

Huffman, however, the storm contained two distinct funnels as it went through, so I can't be sure what happened. 

This tornado moved on to blast through a mobile home park. Later that day, a second intense tornado would go through the same mobile home park.  Thirty-three people died in that mobile home park. Huffman also took heartrending photos of rescuers trying to help the injured in the immediate aftermath of the tornado, 

It was part of the large Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965, one of the worst in modern history. Around 50 tornadoes killed 271 people and injured more than 3,500.  Indiana was hardest hit, and the tornado outbreak is still the worst in Indiana history. 

Topeka, Kansas, June 8, 1966

One of Perry Riddle's photos showing people fleeing
a Topeka, Kansas F5 tornado in 1966.

Up until this time, this was the most expensive tornado on record for the U.S. The F5 twister  cut though the heart of Topeka, damaging much of downtown, including the dome of the State House. More than 800 homes were destroyed and 3,000 damaged. 

The tornado caused more than $200 million in damages, in 1966 dollars. That would be more than $2 billion in 2026 dollars. 

Seventeen people lost their lives in the process. The photo to me is iconic a it shows what appears to be a Midwestern family scrambling for shelter, with the large, black tornado looming behind them. The shadows cast by the clouds and the tornado almost turn the family into silhouettes, making the image all the more foreboding. 

The photo was taken by Perry Riddle as people ran for cover into the Countryside United Methodist Church at 3221 SW Burlingame Road. I was unable to determine whether the tornado hit the church, but the lean of the tornado funnel suggests that it missed that location. 

Riddle took numerous photos of the tornado from that church parking lot, and they are amazingly high quality, especially for 1966.  You can see the other photos in the second half of a YouTube video at this link. 

Xenia, Ohio, April 3, 1974.

Terrifying image of an F5 tornado tearing through
Xenia, Ohio in April, 1974. Image the hour inside
that black maelstrom

The massive tornado here was part of the Super Outbreak of 1974, which was the worst swarm of tornadoes in American history until the next Super Outbreak in April, 2011. 

The outbreak produced 148 tornadoes in the 13 states and Ontario, Canada.  Thirty of them were F4s or F5s, the strongest type. The outbreak caused 335 direct fatalities and injured 6,000 people.

Probably the worst tornado in the outbreak struck Xenia, a city of about 25,000 people in southwest Ohio.  This one reminds me of the Joplin, Missouri tornadoes years later, as both cut through the heart of a small city. In both cases the tornadoes reached maximum strength while cutting through the middle of the communities.  

The photo was taken by Fred Stewart, the public information director at Greene Memorial Hospital. He was also a photography buff. He took the photo through a window on the second floor stairwell at the hospital. The window looked out over the Pinecrest Gardens neighborhood of Xenia

The following information comes from the April 6 1974 edition of the Xenia Daily Gazette. 

"'It looked like it was going to come straight to the hospital,' he said. 'But then it veered off and hit Pinecrest Gardens. The air was filled with debris. I shot four frames before I headed back to the basement.'

 The photo is terrifying as you know just beyond the parking lot, in that black maw of a terrifying tornado, death and ruin is raining down on that neighborhood. 

Makes me sad every time I see the photo. 

 Fridley,  Minnesota, July 18, 1986

Screen shot of a Minnesota tornado filmed from a
traffic helicopter in 1986.

This wasn't exactly the most notable or extreme tornado. But it was the start of a media trend in which video cameras were becoming much more portable, easier to use, and allowed for more daring storm chasing. 

That day, a traffic helicopter with KARE in Minneapolis was able to follow a tornado in Brooklyn Park and Fridley, about 15 miles north of Minneapolis. It is the first known, widely distributed video of a tornado taken from the air. 

The footage was dramatic, with the tornado yanking trees out of the woods and flinging them far outside the twister. It's still one of the more dramatic tornado videos out there. Which is saying something considering we're now in the age of drones and remote videos that can really uncover some amazing tornado image. 

This particular tornado was rated an F2, and damaged a few dozen buildings. 

Andover, Kansas, April 26, 1991

Image is a little fuzzy because it's a screen grab from a 
video, but Duke Evans' video of an EF-5 tornado
in Andover, Kansas was considered the best video
up until its time of a powerful tornado.
The twister passed just behind that row of houses.
The occupants had to be terrified.

Affordable camcorders had become popular in by around 1990, allowing far more people to easily film and share footage of events. That included tornadoes  near tornadoes. 

On April 26, 1991, a tornado outbreak in the central United States produced at least 55 tornadoes, resulting in 21 deaths. The most powerful and destructive of the tornadoes was an F-5, the strongest kind, in Andover, Kansas. 

Duke Evans took out his camcorder and filmed more the six minutes of the Andover tornado's rampage. At the tine it was considered the highest quality tornado footage ever produced. I imagine the film was studies by many tornado experts and in meteorology classrooms everywhere. 

The most terrifying part of the video is when it goes just behind a row of houses. If anyone was in those houses huddling in a closet or basement, the screaming roar of the tornado must have shaken them to their bones. 

Since then, now that we're in the age of everyone having a camera phone, it seems almost every tornado is well documented. But Evans' was the first in a cottage industry: America's Most Terrifying Tornado. 

We'll revisit Andover and another tornado later in this post. 

Jarrell, Texas, May 21, 1997

The Jarrell, Texas tornado as it was developing.
Multiple vortices - mini tornadoes within the main
tornado are visible, giving a dead man walking
looks to the storm, The tornado became extremely
powerful and essentially stalled over a subdivision
killing 17 people 

This was a tragic, weird and largely unexpected F5 tornado that hit the community of Jarrell, Texas. Although some severe thunderstorms were forecast that day, nobody expected a powerhouse twister like this one in the community about 40 miles north of Austin. 

The photo of the tornado is called "Dead Man Walking" and you can see why. The photo was taken while the tornado was rapidly powering up to it F5 status. 

As I mentioned above in the Palm Sunday, 1965 piece, powerful tornadoes often have multiple vortices. Essentially tornadoes spinning within the parent tornado. 

The photo was taken by Scott Beckwith as he stood outside the building housing his employer, Jarrell Farm Supply. 

He caught the beginning stages of the tornado, when it began as a narrow, almost harmless looking rope, to the Dead Man Walking photo that because famous. 

Knowing what happened after the photo was taken, the tornado with its vortices inside it really looks  a sort of grim reaper heading toward a neighborhood to take a lot of lives.

Which is precisely what this tornado did.  It headed slowly southwestward, the opposite direction of most tornadoes. 

A typical tornado's forward speed is about 20 mph and can be 50 mph or more in some instances. The powerful F5 tornado then did the worst thing possible. It essentially stalled over the Double Creek Estates Subdivision. It sat there crawling forward ever so slowly through  the subdivision, with its 260 mph winds, for three minutes. 

The people in the subdivision's houses never stood a chance. 

The winds were so strong, and lasted so long, that every piece of several homes was swept completely away from foundations and ground to small pieces. Some construction material was pulverized down to dust. Asphalt was lifted off the street and blown away. Cars blew half a mile or more away from where they had been parked. 

The destruction was arguably the most extreme of any tornado seen in the United States. 

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, April 27, 2011

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado of April 27, 2011 seemed
to have tentacles coming out of it 

While many years since 1974 had more than the usual number of tornadoes, it seemed the days when tornadoes killed several hundred people in a single year seemed in the past. Then came 2011.  That year, 553 people died in U.S. tornadoes. Only the year 1925 had more tornado deaths.  

Many of these deaths occurred in what I'd call the Super Duper Tornado outbreak of April 25-28. 2011. This one far outdid the famous 1974 Super Outbreak with tragic results. 

According to the Weather Channel:

"An incredible 349 tornadoes were spawned in just 72 hours April 25-28, according to NOAA. While the Deep South - Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee - bore the brunt o fit, tornadoes tore through parts of 21 states from Texas to central New York. 

According to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, 929 tornado warnings were issued by 44 different National Weather Service offices from April 25-29."

Also, 199 tornadoes occurred on just one day - April 27. The normal amount of tornadoes in the U.S. during the entire month of April is 194. 

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado during this outbreak really stands out. It wasn't the strongest of the outbreak as there were four EF-5 tornadoes and the Tuscaloosa storm was "only" an EF-4 with top winds of ???

This tornado claimed 65 lives along an 80-mile path from Greene County, Alabama, through Tuscaloosa  and into the northern suburbs of Birmingham, the Weather Channel notes. Despite the very high death toll, the fact that this powerful tornado rolled through such high populated areas speaks well to the warnings from the National Weather Service and local television stations.

A fascinating aspect of the visuals on this tornado were the horizontal vortices wrapping around the tornado. You see that sometimes in the most ferocious tornadoes. It always makes me think these tornado are sentient monsters with tentacles trying to pick people off the streets. 

Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011

The view out a van window as their occupants were trying
desperately to flee the EF-5 Joplin, Missouri tornado in
2011. If you click on the photo to make it bigger and
if you look closely, you can see the tornado looming
just a very short distance away 

The horrible tornado season of 2011 wasn't done after the Super Duper Outbreak. On May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado slammed through Joplin, Missouri, a city of about 50,000 in southwest Missouri. 

The tornado killed 161 people, making if the deadliest tornado since 1953 and the nations seventh deadliest on record. 

The tornado also showed what a monster tornado can look like, and how it can give people who are used to big storms a false sense of security. 

The tornado was wrapped in rain, and just looked like a big ugly black cloud approaching. It seemed to be a nasty storm looming, for sure, but not the cataclysm it turned out to be.

There's a haunting must-see YouTube video taken from inside a van with several knowledgeable storm chasers inside. They know that black mass looming behind the buildings they are passing is a highly dangerous tornado. The van load of storm chasers know they have to get out of the way very quickly or they will be hit and quite possibly killed by the twister.

Their escape is hindered by people keeping to routines as if death was not looming in that black cloud. 

The notes on the YouTube video say:

"It is interesting to note that many drivers on the road were completely oblivious to the sirens, and were driving and texting on their cellphones instead of observing the approaching tornado and trying to get out of its path. Most of us felt sick afterwards, but it actually sank in a few hours/days later as we really had no idea what was actually happening in Joplin."

Part of the reason the video is so haunting is because many of the buildings that the van drove past were reduced to ruins moments later. Subsequent videos of the aftermath proved that.  

 The people in the van are increasingly panicked as the tornado closes in,  but they manage to get onto Interstate 44 and speed away from the twister in the nick of time. 

That photo of the black mawing mass looming over Joplin still gives me chills.  

Andover, Kansas, April 29, 2022

An incredible still from a wild video taken via drone
and produced by famed storm chaser Reed Timmer

Just three days after the 31st anniversary of the immense tornado of 1991, Andover, Kansas was struck again. And like the earlier tornado, new technology offered a stunning fresh look at the power of a twister. 

This one was an EF-3 when destroyed several homes and damaged other buildings. The tornado was on he ground for 21 minutes and tracked 12.8 miles. 

But the dry stats on this tornado don't give nearly the amazing vision of what tornadoes can do. Prominent tornado chaser Reed Timmer incredibly captured the tornado ripping up houses from a drone he launched nearby. 

The resulting video from Timmer is absolutely jaw dropping. The best footage is at the beginning as the well-lit tornado pulls roofs from a series of houses in the neighborhood. At one moment, the roofs of three adjacent houses lift off simultaneously. A white snow of insulation fills the air, as does a maelstrom of boards, roofing material and other debris. 

Just incredible what a tornado can do, especially when viewed from the air 

 Crystal Lake/Gary, South Dakota, June 28, 2025

The "Dancing Tornado" in Gary, South Dakota last year

This one is called the dancing tornadoes. Tornadoes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes: Funnels, wedges, stovepipes, ropes, drill bits, you get the picture. Individual tornadoes also change their shapes during their lifetime.  

This one in South Dakota last year was a real shapeshifter.  It starts out with a classic stovepipe shape. Then in quickly turned into a rope, which is usually a sign a tornado is about to dissipate. 

But this time, the rope thicken again. And for the lack of a better description, the ropey tornado danced. Sort of wiggled as it moved across the countryside.

Click this link to view the dancing tornado.

As cool and interesting as this tornado was, it wasn't all fun and games. It was an EF-3 twister, with wind speeds of 155 to 165 mph. It traveled nearly ten miles, damage several properties. A farm house, garage, two machine sheds, a barn and grain bins were completely destroyed. A half ton pickup truck was hurled 300 yards.

South Dakota gets plenty of tornadoes but not many are as strong as the "dancing tornado." Statistics show South Dakota had 1,931 twisters between 1950 and 2024 but only 75 of those were EF-3 or greater. 

We're not getting into the heart of tornado season. There's already been plenty of horrifying and wild photos and videos of tornadoes and their aftermaths this year. And unfortunately for the victims of these storms, there's more tornado pictures coming over the next several weeks 

 

Minnesotans Find Ally In Frigid Weather In Battle Against ICE

The now-infamous image of the ICE agent slipping
and falling on an icy Minneapolis street has become
a symbol of how winter-tough Minnesotans
are enduring the battle against ICE
oppression much better than the federal
forces in town to take away all the immigrants

The Battle of Minnesota between federal ICE agents and the good people of Minneapolis and other cities rages on. 

The citizens of frigid Minnesota have discovered they have one key ally in their struggle against the excesses of these often out of control federal agents. Winter. Including the regular slippery, not Gestapo ice, as in frozen water. 

Minneapolis has so far had the kind of winter we've had here in Vermont. Lots of freeze/thaw cycles and bouts of freezing rain to make everything even more interesting underfoot.

Judging from the videos of ICE agents slipping and falling on the ice, much to the delight of their many critics, I think the boots issued to ICE agents weren't exactly made for a Minnesota winter. 

Very much like Vermonters, Minnesotans know instinctively how to deal with winter. How to dress for it, how to embrace the cold. As The Other 98% wrote on Facebook:

"Beyond the spectacle of agents in tactical gear skidding on black ice, this moment reveals something deeper about the confrontation: A clash between a highly militarized federal apparatus and a community rooted in lived experience.

Many protestors have come equipped with insulated gear, boots with traction spikes and the kind of winter sense from years of Minnesota cold rather than federal training manuals. That difference - lived winter resilience versus bureaucratic enforcement - is playing out in real time on city streets."

Demonstrators are also using winter as a tactical tool against ICE, and against at least one right wind agitator who came to Minneapolis, and quickly fled. 

A constant hot spot in the Minneapolis unrest is the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE agents are headquartered. The weather turned much colder in the past few days in Minnesota. Protestors dumped water on the pavement near the building to form ice that could hinder, or at least annoy ICE agents. 

ICE ended up arresting four people, who they called "agitators" for "refusing to disperse." It appears ICE was irritated that they (allegedly) "threw objects, shouted profanities and endangered  the public by pouring water on the roads to create icy, hazardous conditions."

Judging from those ICE falling on ice videos I mentioned, the water on road idea just might be effective. 

On Saturday, Jake Lang, a right-wing nut and pardoned January 6 rioter, tried to lead an anti-immigration demonstration in Minneapolis, but hundreds of Minnesotans did not want to put up with his garbage. 

So, they chased Lang out of town, throwing punches at him, which I'm a little concerned about, and spraying him with water from squirt guns, which I'm not even a little concerned about. Temperatures hovered near 10 degrees at the time, and Lang did not appear dressed for the weather. 

Although video showed a little blood coming out of the back of Lang's head, he reportedly was not seriously injured. But I bet he was damn cold. 

Meanwhile, Trump is toying with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy 1,500 federal troops to Minnesota. 

Critics, and there are a lot of 'em, say doing that would just escalate the uproar over ICE raids, at least some of which look legally dubious. It also appears ICE agents' interactions with protestors aren't always kosher, either.

In any event, the Pentagon is ordering about 1,500 active duty soldiers to get ready for what might end up as a deployment to Minnesota. The soldiers are with the Army's Alaska-based 11th Airborne Division, which specializes in cold-weather operations. 

 It looks like the Trump administration is beginning to notice the difficulty of dealing with a northern winter.  

Minnesota weather is now frigid and getting colder. Temperatures are only in the single digits with snow falling today. It'll be below zero tonight. An even stronger Arctic blast is due in Minnesota by next weekend.  

People out in the streets are rooting for the Arctic blast. The New York Times quoted Chris Foreman, a military veteran who has joined the protestors near the Whipple Federal Building: "I want it to get cold.....People know that a lot of these ICE guys are from the South. They're coming into a different environment and they're not used to it."

Frigid weather tends to slow things down. I hope that the Arctic cold will bring the temperature down figuratively as well as literally. 

Meteorologists Are Human, Let Them Be Human, Karen!

KTTC Meteorologist Nick Jansen briefly interrupts
his on air forecast on July 28 to text his wife,
warning her a dangerous storm was headed
their way and to get into the basement.
While most people praised Jansen, a few 
criticized him for caring about his family.

 Gawd, there's always somebody who has to complain about everything. 

Such was the case on July 28, when television meteorologist Nick Jansen was on the air at KTTC in Minnesota, warning viewers about dangerous storms passing through the region. 

Then he did what a few losers regarded as unthinkable.

After spending hours explaining how the storms packing 70 mph winds and threatening to drop some tornadoes were approaching, Jansen paused, and  pulled out his cell phone. He texted someone, taking all of maybe ten seconds to do so. Then he told viewers,  "Sorry, just had to text my wife, baby was sleeping,"

He wanted to make sure his family was safe, sheltering in their basement. 

That, apparently, was a high crime to a couple KTTC viewers. Apparently, Jansen's quick text was the height of unprofessionalism, because he dared think about his family while at work. The nerve!

 The person wrote to the station, saying "That he has to call his wife to make sure she takes the baby to safety? Maybe some people think it's noble or cute..... I don't."

Another email from someone, "You should  have told your wife before you went to work."

Well, tough shit, viewer. 

Jansen, to his credit, clapped back on Facebook. "That's not me being unprofessional... It's me being human. I am a husband and a father FIRST."

The person who complained was clearly in the minority, but still a pain in the butt.

Other viewers who saw Jansen text his wife on air took it as a public service, and a cue to take the storm seriously.   "I have heard from a couple of neighbors... They said once you said that about Angie heading to shelter, we're like, 'All right, we better take this seriously if Nick think it's going to impact our little community," Jansen wrote.

I probably would have thought the same thing. 

The incident went viral, mostly because the legions of normal people out there know Jansen did exactly the right thing, and complaining about him was dumb.  Outlets like Inside Edition, People, E! News and Today picked up the story 

Other meteorologists have had on air moments similar to Jansen's   Four years ago, James Spann, a legendary Alabama meteorologist and tornado expert, stopped on air during a severe weather outbreak to text his wife. The reason? A tornado was heading right toward his house.

Spann's wife did go into a tornado shelter, and Spann later told viewers after the storm had passed that his wife was safe.  Their house was damaged but largely intact.  

Television meteorologists - along with other newscasters - are routinely criticized for idiotic things that have nothing do do with their ability to deliver weather forecasts or the news. ABC Meteorologist Ginger Zee earlier this year was told by some dummy on social media, "You're not aging well." Zee replied, "What a privilege to be aging in any manner, thanks for your opinion, though."

A pregnant Seattle meteorologists was insulted by someone who believed her baby bump "distracted from her presentation."  

My answer to that viewer is "Stop staring, you pervert."

And don't even get me started on those who whine bitterly that their scheduled viewing of "The Real Housewives of Enosburg Falls" or whatever is interrupted by a meteorologist cutting into the broadcast to tell you a tornado is heading your way. 

TV meteorologists are there to tell you whether you need an umbrella tomorrow. Or more importantly, warn you when the weather gets dangerous. That's it. 

If you don't like they way they're  dressed, or have a family, or a personal life, or private personal opinions, shut up already. Nobody wants to hear it. 

 

 

 

 he explained to viewers 

Wicked Winds In The Upper Midwest As Wild Thunderstorms Sweep Through

Ominous thunderstorms bear down on the Lewis and
Clark Marina in Yankton, South Dakota Monday
evening in this web cam grab. Violent storms
caused a lot of damage in parts of South Dakota,
Iowa and Minnesota Monday and Monday night.'

The expected big storms - a likely derecho - in the Upper Midwest developed, spreading hurricane-force gusts in parts of South Dakota and Iowa. 

Damage reports are just started coming in, so we don't know the extent of it. But I'm sure there are structures with roof damage, houses with trees into them, and widespread power outages.

A derecho is officially defined as a batch of intense thunderstorms that spread frequent gusts of 58 mph or more, causing damage along a path at least 240 miles long. 

This just happened, so I don't know whether this will be officially defined as a derecho. But it probably will be. Reports of damage and gusts of 60 mph or more were reported between Sioux Falls, South Dakota and at least Davenport, Iowa, and those two cities are about 340 miles apart as the crow flies.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center will make a final determination as to whether last night's weather meets the derecho criteria.   

The complex of storms created some pretty incredible winds in the eastern half of South Dakota and through Iowa and parts of southern Minnesota.

Wind reports include 99 mph and 92 mph northeast of Sioux City, Iowa; 92 mph in Spencer, Iowa, 90 mph in Janesville, Iowa and 87 mph in Irene, South Dakota. 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had gusts to 83 mph. The city was ground zero for arguably the nation's worst derecho on record back in 2020 when wind gusts in Cedar Rapids reached an incredible 140 mph. Still, last night's storm had to be disheartening for a community trying to regrow its tree canopy from the storm five years ago.

Campers, some of them occupied, were blown over in north central Iowa, near the Buddy Holly Crash site.  At least 27,000 Iowans were without power last night.

In South Dakota, tree damage was widespread through much of the eastern part of the sate. A 200-foot tall cell tower collapsed in the town of Hudson.  The tower had carried signals for Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Companies were working on a temporary fix to return service to the area, according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. 

A second clump of storms that was part of the same system produced storms further north in Minnesota and Wisconsin. A storm gust of 76 mph was reported in Rochester, Minnesota. 

Although there won't be anything as widespread as last night, severe storms are still a good bet in a broad zone from Montana through parts of Wyoming, South Dakota, pretty much all of Nebraska and western Iowa through this evening. 

Video:

Before the likely derecho coalesced, a tornado formed in southern South Dakota. A lightning strike associated with the same storm resulting in this video of the fire and the tornado simultaneously. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

Severe Weather/Tornado Outbreak Upper Midwest Today, We In Vermont Could See Severe Storms Later Tuesday

Widespread severe storms and likely tornadoes are 
likely today, especially in red and orange areas 
on this map. 

The Upper Midwest if bracing for a rough day today of potentially strong tornadoes, giant hail and destructive winds as the weather set up is almost ideal for a severe weather outbreak in that neck of the woods. 

That severe weather is forecast to some extent migrate toward the Northeast, maybe affecting Vermont later tomorrow. More on that in a bit. First, today's Midwest threats.

TORNADO RISK DETAILS

Even before our storm really got going, things were looking ominous Sunday evening. Some supercells spit out a handful of large tornadoes in western and central Nebraska.

Some pretty strong storms were ongoing early this morning in eastern South Dakota and southwest Minnesota.

These are just a preview. The main show will get going this afternoon

The area under the biggest threat for dangerous weather today includes most of Wisconsin and Iowa, southern and central Minnesota and northwest Illinois.  

Major cities most likely to be under the gun are Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota; Madison, Wisconsin; Des Moines, Iowa and Rockford, Illinois.

A somewhat lesser but real threat extends southwestward all the way down to Texas.  

We know we'll see severe storms and tornadoes in the Upper Midwest today, but we don't 100 percent know exactly how they'll evolve.

If supercells manage to form and maintain themselves ahead of the main line of storms later today, then we end up with the risk of strong, long-lasting tornadoes plowing through Iowa, southeastern Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

That scenario is a maybe/maybe not. But if these dangerous supercells erupt, they'll go from nothingburgers to extremely dangerous monsters in minutes. The National Weather Service office in the Minneapolis area is not mincing words in their forecast discussion:

"The takeaway from today's severe storm potential is to remain vigilant of the potential for storms to go up quickly. This may mean checking your phone more often or keeping an eye to the sky, but don't let your guard down in this environment."

 If, instead, the main line of storms exerts itself more, there might not necessarily be those supercells out ahead of the storm  This second scenario is still bad news, as there will be zones of destructive straight line winds and quite a few embedded tornadoes in this mess.

The most likely outcome  today is a combination of what I described above. The main question will be how many supercells form ahead of the main blast of storms. 

TUESDAY'S STORM ADVANCE

Tuesday's severe storm risk area is in yellow, with the
orange area at a somewhat higher risk. Note how the
yellow risk area extends into parts of Vermont, 

By Tuesday, the main threat from this dynamic storm heads east. The storm center itself will race up into central Quebec, but its powerful cold front will press east into the Great Lakes. 

Tuesday's threat area runs from southern Quebec and Ontario, then southwestward through northwest New England, the eastern Great Lakes, northern Ohio Valley then all the way down to central Texas. 

The greatest threat looks go from central Ohio, through northwest Pennsylvania and on into western and central New York.  

While there might be a couple tornadoes in this area, the main threat is damaging winds and large, destructive hail.

As noted, the severe threat extend into Quebec and northwest New England, so that puts Vermont in play. Details next:

VERMONT THREAT

This daffodil looks completely defeated and possibly 
dead after Sunday's snow in St. Albans, but....

Before we get into the severe storm threat, a final word or two on Sunday's snow.

A couple places got an impressive amount of snow. A high elevation spot in Greensboro reported .1 inches of snow. Brownington reported 3.5 inches.  

Here in St. Albans, it was striking how snowy and miserable it was in the early afternoon.

 By evening, it was a downright pleasant spring evening, with sunshine and relatively mild air. Go figure.

Today, by the way, will be gorgeous, with sunshine and temperatures in the 60s to near 70. Enjoy!

Now onto our next threat. 

But same daffodil three hours after above photo was taken
shows a nice recovery. This daffodil, and the rest of
them in the gardens, might have to endure some
severe thunderstorms Tuesday evening in northwest Vermont.

South winds ahead of that approaching cold front will throw a squirt of warm, somewhat humid air into Vermont. 

 Most of the day will actually be nice with highs reaching well into the 70s, with maybe an 80 degree reading or two in a couple of Vermont's more "tropical" towns. 

Dew points - a measure of how humid it will get - should reach the mid 50s to around 60. That's kinda humid for this time of year but not oppressive. 

Thunderstorms thrive on humid air, so the more muggy the air is, the more fuel for these storms. 

So the outlook for the thunderstorms in the humidity category is so-so.  

However, there will be strong winds aloft. Storms that do form can grab that high altitude air and shove it down to the surface, where we are. That's why there's the risk of severe storms.  A few of these could have wind gusts to 60 mph or even a little more. 

The heat from sunshine created instability, which is part of the reason why the thunderstorms are likely to be so strong over New York, since they'll hit there in the afternoon.

Timing is such that the storms look like they'll come in very late in the afternoon and evening. For instance, current forecasts have the best chance for thunderstorms in Burlington between 6 and 8 p.m. Tuesday,

By the time they reach Vermont, the storms will be beginning to diminish. At this point, it looks like a few storms still might have enough oomph to be severe generally in an area north and west of a line running from roughly Rutland to Montpelier to east of Newport. 

As the storms head toward southeastern Vermont later in the evening they'll diminish to nothing scary. 

Note that not everyone will get a severe storm. Northwest Vermont is in a level two of a five point risk scale, five being the hair-on-fire top scary alert. Our level two "slight risk" means scattered severe storms are possible, but they'll tend to be relatively short-lived and not terribly widespread.

So, just keep your eye to the sky Tuesday evening if you're in northwest Vermont and head inside if you receive a severe thunderstorm warning or see ominous skies to the west and north. 

The cold front might also produce some fairly strong winds after the thunderstorms go by.  These winds won't be associated with any thunderstorms, but they could cause very isolated power outages in a  few spots.

Unlike the cold front we saw this past weekend, it won't get nearly cold enough for snow.  Instead, Wednesday looks bright, refreshingly cool and breezy.  

A Grieving Family Gets Their Father's Sunset, Thanks To The Kindness Of Strangers

Sunset over Mankato, Minnesota on January 16. After a
gloomy two month period in Minnesota, the sky lit up
on the day Vietnam veteran Craig Wilson passed away,
Photo from Sparrow Media via Facebook

In this (in my opinion) dark age of America, I'm always looking for the light. 

So, too, was a grieving Minnesota family this winter

Vietnam veteran Craig Wilson was laid to rest this winter on a dark, overcast day at the Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery in Preston, Minnesota.

In the final couple months of his life, as his family gathered with him at a Minnesota hospital, they couldn't help noticing how gloomy and cloudy the weather had been, darkened their mood even more as the family patriarch faded. 

Wilson died on January 16.  Late that afternoon, the Minnesota sky lit up with what locals say was one of the most spectacular sunsets in memory. Wilson's family took it as a sign.

Wilson's daughter, Emily Canney, took in that sunset. But after it was over, she realized she never took a photo of it. Which was important, given her father's memory 

"'All that night and all the next day, I'm kicking myself because I didn't get a picture,' Emily said. 'How could you not capture this stunning glorious sunset?'"

Sunset over rural Minnesota on January 16. Photo by
Sandy Zimmer Gaulke

Canney went to the "That's so Minnesota" page on Facebook and wrote: "I'm wondering if any of you amazing photographers happened to capture last night's sunset. My dad passed away yesterday and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a picture."

Canney hoped that maybe one photographer would respond.

Instead, 883 people did. A few of them offered condolences without a photo. But the overwhelming majority of respondents posted photos of that January 16 Minnesota sunset. 

There were pictures of the sunset over cities. The sunset over the prairie. The sunset over the north woods. Sunset over an informal ice hockey rink. You get the idea. 

Then there were comments like this: "Your dad must have been special for God to have painted such a beautiful sky."

In this age when there's too much darkness around, it's gratifying that so many people want to literally show each other the light. 

It might seem like a small gesture, posting a sunset photo to raise the spirits of a grieving daughter.  But every positive, "small" gesture is really a big one.

It's wonderful that the weather cooperated to create this beautiful sunset, this beautiful tribute. Even better were the people who went outside in the middle of a Minnesota winter to capture a sky glowing in all those colors.  

It's all about finding the light. 

  

Strong, Unusual Storm Outbreak Likely In Midwest Today, Some Severe Risk New England, Too

An outbreak of very intense severe storms is likely
in the Upper Midwest today. New England has a much
lesser, but still real chance of some severe
storms today, too.

 Severe storm forecasters today are worried about an unusually strong outbreaks of severe storms in parts of the Midwest, which include the risk of a derecho, or possibly two of them affecting the same general area.  

New England and to an extent Vermont is under the gun for severe weather, too, but not nearly to the extent as what's going on in the Upper Midwest. More on New England in a  bit. 

Today's target area for intense storms seems to be much of South Dakota, the southern half of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. 

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is pretty aggressive with their wording regarding the hazards in that neck of the woods. They're expecting supercell thunderstorms to develop in South Dakota, then merge into a bow  echo plowing into Minnesota.

A bow echo is a line of often severe thunderstorms, arranged to form what looks like a backwards letter"C."  In this case, the supercells and the line of storms are expected to spin off tornadoes. possibly many hurricane-force straight line wind gusts and giant hail.

If this lasts long enough, it would be considered a derecho. A derecho is defined as a line or cluster of severe storms that have a path of at least 240 miles long, with frequent reports of winds at or exceeding 58 mph. 

The most destructive thunderstorm in U.S. history was an August, 2020 derecho, mostly in Iowa that caused ??? in damage

Today, after that initial line of storms in South Dakota and Minnesota, the Storm Prediction Center expects another batch of supercells to form in South Dakota. These would again merge and rake many of the same areas that would have had the expected earlier storms with more hurricane force gusts.

There's always a lot of uncertainty with severe weather forecasts, so this likely won't develop exactly as I outlined here. But if you live in the area I outlined, or know somebody who does, they should stay weather aware all day today and well into tonight so they're ready to take cover from what could be some very scary storms. 

These storms are hitting an area beset yesterday and today with extreme humidity, which is fueling the expected storms.  The dew point, a measure of how humid it is, reached an incredible 81 degrees in Yankton, South Dakota Sunday.

Any dew point over 70 degrees is considered oppressive. Although the actual temperature was only 92 in Yankton Sunday, the heat index was 111 degrees.

NEW ENGLAND

A southward moving disturbance promises to set off scattered storms today, some of which might be severe. Southern New England has the highest risk of damaging winds and large hail in scattered storms. 

These southward moving disturbance can set off surprises. An initial ripple in the atmosphere touched off some rather isolated, but slow-moving storms over the Lake Champlain islands overnight. Parts of Grand Isle County, Vermont had more than two inches of rain from these. Meanwhile, not that far away in St. Albans, I received a meager 0.15 inches. In Burlington, no measurable rain fell. 

Today's storms, including the risk of a strong one, could hit anywhere, but are most likely east of Lake Champlain, and probably south of Route 2. Already this morning a few downpours formed in central Vermont and had begun working their way towards the southeast.

That doesn't mean areas in the Adirondacks or close to the Canadian border are off hook.  Some scattered downpours developed in the Adirondacks a little before noon, and I wouldn't be surpise

A few more shower and storms might develop further north later, then move southeast. We'll wait and see on that. 

The chances that storms will grow big enough to produce local instances of damaging winds and hail are definitely greater in southern New England than here in Vermont. Still, we might see isolated instances of trouble over the afternoon in the Green Mountain State.

Things should simmer down by the time sunset rolls around this evening. 

Midwest Flooding Has Been Quite Scary, Probably Worst Since 1993

Interstate 29 in southeastern South Dakota looks like
an immense lake after torrential rains caused 
catastrophic flooding in the region. 

 The flooding in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota this month has been scary to say the least, as a summer of storms have unleashed havoc in the region.   

This is far worse than the usual torrential thunderstorms and local flash floods fairly common in the Midwest each summer.

You might have seen the horrible images of collapsing houses, whole solid little Midwestern towns under water, so many square miles of cropland drowned. 

At first, it was the smaller creeks and rivers that caused all the destruction. The high water has now moved into bigger rivers. Even the mighty Missouri and even mightier Mississippi are now flooding. And that flooding is forecast to get worse.

Per the Washington Post: 

"As of Monday, rivers across the Missouri River basin were at major flood stage: The James, Vermillion and Big Sioux rivers in South Dakota and the Des Moines and Little Sioux rivers in southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data."

This flood hits me more in the gut than usual because I have relatives in eastern South Dakota and in Minnesota.

Luckily, their towns, like Yankton, South Dakota, have so far avoided the worst of the flooding, though the James River nearby Yankton is cresting at major flood stage. 

The torrential downpours have tapered off for now, but the damage is not done done. A whopping ten to 18 inches of rain fell on chunks of the Missouri and upper Mississippi River basins last week.  No wonder the flooding is still getting worse.   

Examples of extreme damage are everywhere.

As of Tuesday, several major highways remained closed by flooding, including Interstate 29 in southeastern South Dakota. In that area, McCook Lake and the Big Sioux River combined to wash at least two houses away. Many more were damaged or destroyed, and severely undermined by rushing water. 

In Iowa, at least, 1,900 homes have been damaged or destroyed by the flooding.  Part of a railroad bridge collapsed into the floodwaters at North Sioux City, Iowa. In some of the most widely reported and viewed flood news, water detoured around a dam in Mankato, Minnesota, threatening worse flooding. The dam itself was still holding as of Tuesday. 

 The flooding hit because South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota were on the northern edge of the big heat dome that caused record high temperatures from Texas to the East Coast. The northern edge of a heat dome like this is known as the "ring of fire" because torrential rains and thunderstorms often ride that edge of the heat. 

This is consistent with climate change, too. A warmer atmosphere can contain more moisture. Storms can grab that extra moisture and dump it as torrential, flood-producing downpours. I don't know to what extent climate change had to do with this Midwest disaster, but the potential fingerprints are there.

The rainfall over the next few days in the flood zone looks milder than it's been, but still enough to potential cause issues. Rainfall in Iowa could amount to up to two inches over the next seven days.  

Some of that expected rain is likely to come down as pretty intense downpours, increasing the chance of local floods as those gullywashers hit already soaked ground. 

Even with the relative lack of downpours, the flooding in the larger rivers could last well into July.  

It's Ba-a-ck! Canadian Wildfire Smoke Making Inroads (*Not In Vermont Yet)

A thick, smoky haze engulfed St. Albans on June 25, 2023
as winds blew wildfire smoke southward from Canada.
Fires are starting in Canada again, and we might have
another smoky summer like last year as a result. 

 Air quality alerts were in effect in much of Minnesota and Wisconsin this morning as wildfire smoke from Canada drifted into the two states behind a cold front. 

So yes, last year's acrid "gifts" from Canada are back. 

Fires are burning in British Columbia and Alberta, generating smoke that's spreading across much of central Canada and dipping down into the north-central United States.     

The fires near Fort Nelson, in northeastern British Columbia forced the evacuation of 3,500 people.

A wildfire near Fort McMurray, an oil hub in northeastern Alberta put residents there on alert for possible evacuations. 

That had to make the 66,000 residents there especially antsy, with memories still fresh of the 2016 calamity there. In May, 2016, a massive wildfire roared through Fort McMurray, killing two people and destroying 2,400 homes and businesses. The blaze was the most expensive disaster in Canadian history. 

This weekend, a few well-timed showers helped temporarily tamp down the fire near Fort McMurray. More showers are in the forecast and shifting winds are driving flames away from the city for now.   

The fires, though widespread in Canada, are is far not as extensive as they were this time last year. Which means there's not quite as much smoke being generated.  In turn, that means the big smoke outs we had last year in the United States aren't repeating. At least not yet. 

LOOKING AHEAD

There's plenty of time for wildfires to grow, as they can last all summer and into the autumn. 

We also have some ominous signs for wildfires this summer in Canada.

Last month, Canada's government warned of a potentially explosive fire season, citing drought in parts of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Additionally, unseasonably warm temperatures melted snow prematurely, allowing the landscape to dry out earlier and faster and more completely than it otherwise would.

The same thing happened last year, when 37 million acres of Canadian forest burned. That was easily the worst fire season in the nation's history.  

Another wildcard is "zombie fires." Those are fires from last summer that spend the winter smoldering underground all winter. 

If hot dry weather hits, those zombies could come back to life, causing new big, destructive wildfires. There's evidence that's starting to happen in Alberta. 

CLIMATE CHANGE ROLE

Canadian government officials say climate change has made wildfires more likely in Canada than they once were. 

I also need to detour into a bit of a rant here.

Climate change denial types are all over social media, thinking they have a winning argument.  They're mocking a non-existent notion that "leftists" think climate change causes wildfires.   As if those worried about climate change think forests just spontaneously burst into flames if it gets too hot out. 

To be clear, nobody thinks climate change "causes" fires.  Lightning, downed power lines, arson and stupid people are major causes. The problem is climate change often makes those fires worse than they otherwise would be.

If climate change makes things hotter and drier, the fires will more likely get out of control and spread more widely. Climate change can turn nothing burger local blazes into widespread, dangerous conflagrations. 

VERMONT OUTLOOK

So far, unlike last year, there are few if any fires in Quebec and other eastern Canadian provinces.  If that trend continues, we in Vermont are less likely to see dense smoke like we did last year.  Instead, the western Canadian fires will probably occasionally make our skies hazy, but the pollution in general might not be as bad as last year. 

All bets are off, though, if Quebec and Ontario burst into flames like last year.  Could happen this summer. 

As for that smoke currently in the upper Midwest, forecasts don't bring much of it our way once that cold front makes its way through New England during the middle of the week. We might see a bit of haze in the sky, but I don't anticipate a big smoke attack. 

It's Feast Or Famine On The Mississippi River: From Too Low Water To Major Flood

Mississippi River floodwaters surround a ballpark in
Davenport, Iowa this week has another major 
flood crests its way down the northern half of the river.

 Last autumn, long stretches of the Mississippi River were at near record low levels, thanks to drought in much of its immense drainage basin.  

Fast forward to now, and we have the opposite problem: Parts of the river are at major flood stage. 

A flood crest has been moving down the Mississippi through Minnesota and down into Iowa and has been cresting this week. 

In late April, the river crested at 15.89 feet, the highest since 2001, says ABC News. In St. Paul, Minnesota, the river reached its highest level since a substantial flood in 2019.  

The flood crest on Monday at Davenport, Iowa was the eighth highest on record for the Mississippi.  That comes just four years after an even higher crest flooded swaths of that city's downtown.  Water broke through some of flood defenses in 2019, causing enormous damage in and around downtown Davenport. 

So far, flood defenses have held around Davenport and other Iowa cities along the Mississippi. But the battle against the river has forced businesses and streets to close, and some people to evacuate homes as a precaution. It's no picnic. 

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has issued disaster proclamations for 15 counties to help residents respond to the Mississippi River flooding, says ABC. 

It looks like the Mississippi crested at Davenport on Monday and is slowly receding. There could be a second crest if heavy rains develop in the upper Midwest.  Forecasts over the next week call for moderate amounts of rain so they should be OK.

Flood warnings along the Mississippi extend southward to just north of St. Louis.  Below St. Louis, the river gets bigger, so the contribution of snow melt water in the river is less of an influence. But the water will still run high all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy rains could cause flooding later in the spring and summer below St. Louis. 

The high water is disrupting and closing off barge traffic along the Mississippi in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois and soon, possibly Missouri.  Last autumn's low water also disrupted barge traffic. 

You can't win.  

The flooding this year can mostly be blamed on snow, not rain.  The winter brought amazing amounts of snow to areas around the very upper reaches of the river and its tributaries in and near Minnesota. Duluth had its snowiest winter on record. Minneapolis had its third snowiest.  Pretty much all that snow melted in late March and April, and here we are with the resulting flood. 

Early Winter Storms Try Men and Womens' Souls (Not Yet, Vermont)

This February, 2019 ice storm in northwestern Vermont 
was treacherous enough under foot. But the roads became
skating rinks, causing hours long traffic jams.  In the past
couple of weeks, this type of thing happened in two places
that got hit by modest winter storms. 

We've had precious little snow here in Vermont so far this winter, but the flakes will surely fly.

We skated through the first snowfall of the season back in mid-November pretty well. We had our share of car crashes, but it seemed to me it wasn't as bad as I've often seen with the initial white day of the winter. 

Depending on the timing, the consistency and intensity of a snowfall or ice any time of winter, but especially early on, things can get really horrible fast. 

I remember an example back in February, 2019 when freezing rain suddenly began falling across northwestern Vermont just as the evening rush hour began. The ice, the sliding cars, the fender benders and all that had practically all area roads at a standstill. This included Interstate 89.

What was normally a half hour trip home from work turned into a four or five hour ordeal for many. 

Like I said, we've been lucky so far this early season. And aside from some light snow in the forecast for at least parts of Vermont Sunday and Sunday night, we're still not looking at any big winter storms. 

Other cities and regions have not been so lucky this winter.  

I've got two examples that will make you shudder and be very happy it hasn't really snowed much in Vermont this season, much to the chagrin of skiers and riders.

It snows in Vancouver, British Columbia every winter, but their Pacific Coast climate usually brings them a steady diet of rain, drizzle, fog and clouds.

When it does snow, it's often a wet slush, which is especially treacherous under the wheels of vehicles. 

As December opened, Vancouver received about four inches of wet snow. Not a biggie. But in that hilly city, with the storm timed with the evening commute, it caused chaos. Some people were trapped behind backups and fender benders on highways for eight hours or more. Yuck.

If you don't see the image below, click on this link to view the mess. Or, click on the image below if you see it. After that, scroll down, as I have another example, as I love to be cruel. 

Next up, we go to Minnesota, especially around the Minneapolis metro area.  As we well know, Minnesota is a wintry, snowy state.  You can make an argument that Minnesota is even more wintry and horrible in the winter than Vermont.

But, apparently, people can't drive in the snow in Minnesota, either. During a wintry period from November 29 to December 2, MDOT logged 506 crashes.

MDOT also has an amazing array of traffic cameras, which offer hours of entertainment showing us people not exactly being competent in winter weather. 

From the very worthwhile to subscribe to Wham Slam Traffic Cam channel on YouTube, here's a great compilation of the Fails of early winter in Minnesota, in and around the Minneapolis metro area. Again, click on this link if you don't see the image below, or if you do, click on that.