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 

 

Huge Western Winds Continue; Big Colorado Fire Threat Today

Rangeland fires in Colorado Wednesday amid high
winds. Today, there's a particularly dangerous
fire risk along parts of Colorado's Front Range
as winds could reach 100 mph. 

 More rounds of high winds are hitting the West today after some incredible gusts roared through an enormous part of the western United States. 

In most places, today's gush of wind in the western United States isn't quite as bad as Wednesday's mess. But it will cause added damage in a wide area that has already suffered huge amounts of tree loss, power outages and structural damage.

The scariest place today will be along and just east of the Front Range in Colorado, where an incredible dangerous potential fire situation is unfolding. More on that in a bit. 

Some of the top wind gusts in mountainous areas included 144 mph at Mount Coffin, Wyoming, 142 mph at Goldwater Ridge Washington; 127 mph at Whitewood, South Dakota and 123 mph in Red Canyon.

Down where people live, the gusts were still incredible. Reports include 102 mph in Golden, Colorado, 101 mph in Rapid City, South Dakota, 99 mph in Missoula, Montana and 85 mph in Casper, Wyoming. 

Miraculously, I'm only aware of one death so far. It was a 55 year old man in Idaho who died when a tree crashed through the roof of his house and landed on the bed where he was sleeping. 

COLORADO DANGER

In Colorado, about 25,000 households were still without power Thursday afternoon after Wednesday's storm. That one brought local wind gusts of up to 100 mph. 

On Wednesday, areas around Boulder, Colorado Springs and places like that were worried about wind-driven wildfires. Thankfully, no heavily populated areas had wildfires. But three of them broke out in rural Yuma County. 

The largest of them raced through 12,000 acres and destroyed four structures, all either sheds or abandoned houses. The fire was 90 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon, Colorado Public Radio reported.

Now, a new storm looms today with a new round of winds of up to 100 mph in the immediate foothills of the Front Range again.  The hurricane force gusts are not expected to cover as large an area as Wednesday's storm. 

But, it's even drier than it was Wednesday, and the winds will be widespread. A large area covering an area from Nebraska down through the western half of Texas is at risk for large, wind driven wildfires today. 

A smaller area right along the Front Range from about Boulder and Fort Collins Colorado up through Cheyenne, Wyoming is really scaring people today. 

The strongest winds and lowest humidity in those cities will hit this afternoon through early this evening. A rare "particularly dangerous situation" red flag warning is in effect for areas immediately adjacent to the foothills in and near Boulder, west of Fort Collins and near Cheyenne. 

It's rare to see that kind of wording in a fire risk advisory. It means any fire that can get going could race erratically through trees, rangeland and neighborhoods. You'd expect that if winds gust to as high as 100 mph, as predicted. There's a risk of another firestorm like the one in December 2021 that destroyed around 1,000 homes around Boulder. 

A grass fire in Cheyenne Wednesday forced the evacuation of a neighborhood. The fire was contained, and people are back home, but today's weather forecast is surely freaking people out around there. 

WIND ELSEWHERE

People are still cleaning up from the gales from Washington to South Dakota.

Rapid City, 101 mph gusts were reported, not far from downtown. At the official weather station at the regional airport, the wind gusted to 94 mph, the highest wind gust on record, beating out an 89 mph gusts during a July, 2002 severe thunderstorm. 

A wildfire broke amid strong winds in Rapid City, South Dakota. It burned along Skyline Drive, a posh section of the city. It looks like firefighters contained the fire before it could burn any houses. 

However, around Rapid City, a radio tower collapsed in the winds, buildings lost their roofs and a lot of trees toppled. 

Throughout the huge state of Montana, crews were clearing fallen trees. Big Sky Country often gets big wind, but it's usually not as widespread for as persistent as this. At one point Wednesday, the entire state was under a high wind warning. 

Today, it's only the western half of Montana under a high wind warning, but winds could still reach 80 mph in some mountainous terrain. 

As new storms come off the Pacific, more high wind warnings are in effect for parts of Oregon.  The weather pattern will continue to feature a fast, west to east blast across the U.S. so more windy weather will keep cropping up here and there coast to coast through the Christmas holiday.  

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. 

 

When Tornadoes Get Romantic

The bad pun people among us are calling
this a whirlwind romance. Storm chaser
Bryce Shelton proposes to Paige
Perdomas recently as a large
tornado loomed in the background
near Clark Lake, South Dakota.
She said yes 

 Nobody could resist calling this a whirlwind romance. 

On June 28, Bryce Shelton got down on one knee to propose marriage to Paige Berdomas. She said yes.

The reason why everybody knows about this is because of where the proposal took place. It was on a rural road near Clear Lake, South Dakota, which is no big deal. Except for the fact a large tornado was swirling nearby at the time.  

The now viral photo shows the proposal.

Both Shelton and Berdomas are storm chasers, two of the now-seemingly zillions of people who roam the Plains, South and Midwest in the spring and early summer, hunting down tornadoes and severe storms. 

The two first found each other online in the chaser community then finally met up one day in Iowa. They've been partners in storm chasing since. 

On the day of the tornado/proposal, the couple had been hanging out around Fargo, North Dakota, waiting for forecasted storms to develop. 

Finally, a promising storm popped up near Watertown, South Dakota about halfway between Fargo and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and the chase was on. The storm eventually spun off the Clear Lake tornado, and by extension the proposal. 

The proposal had to be near a tornado. That was the rule.  

"She has always told me that if I was gonna ask her to marry me, she wants it be in front of a tornado," Shelton told USA Today. 

The whole thing at first glance looks kind of AI-generated, but in this case the proposal - and the tornado behind them, was very real. The tornado was more photogenic than most. In fact, it was among the most photographed twisters of 2025 so far. 

Which made the proposal photo perfect. 

To be fair, the real proposal was captured on a live stream with a tornado in the background. Storm chaser Brian Copic re-created the moment a short time later after a second tornado touched down. That's the photo you see in this post. 

The couple are hoping for calmer weather on their actual wedding day. "No tornadoes for the wedding. I want to wear a pretty dress," she said. 

Another romantic tornado. This time at a wedding 
ceremony in eastern New Mexico back in late May.

 I do have mixed emotions about this. The tornado also destroyed somebody's house, damaged others and injured a man. I guess people can find both joy and tragedy in the same event. 

This isn't the first marriage-related tornado incident I've seen. 

Tornadoes have been been known to be wedding crashers every once in a great while. 

On May 25, during an outdoor wedding in eastern New Mexico, a tornado touched down some distance behind the venue. 

Wedding photographer Chesnea Clemens spotted the tornado, then realized it wasn't headed in their direction, so they didn't have to take cover now if not sooner.

Instead, she hustled the couple to spot with a view of the tornado. The happy couple kissed under dark skies while the tornado twirled behind them. "Nothing says for better or worse like saying I do with Mother Nature throwing down in the background," Clemmons posted on social media.

As cool as these incidents are, if there are wedding bells in your future, I hope  your big day has clear, calm weather. 

 

 

Rare Yankton, South Dakota Heat Burst Creates Weird Dawn One-Hour Hot Spell.

 I have a big affinity for Yankton, South Dakota, since that's where my husband was born and raised, and I have several relatives and friends there. 

The Meridian Highway Bridge, now a
pedestrian walkway, in Yankton,
South Dakota. Anyone out on that
bridge around 6 a.m. Saturday
will have experienced a rare
"heat burst" that sent temperatures
up by 20 degrees in 15 minutes.

So I was kind delighted in a weather nerd sort of way when Yankton, a  very nice southeastern South Dakota city about the size of St. Albans City and Town combined, experienced a weird and rare weather event early Saturday morning. 

Bonus: The event wasn't dangerous, but just really strange.

At around 5 a.m. Saturday, the weather was pretty routine in Yankton, if a bit warm for the season. The temperature was 68 degrees, it was vaguely humid for the season. The wind was from the southeast at just 6 mph. 

Then, an hour later a 6 a.m., things took a bizarre turn. The temperature abruptly soared to 91 degrees, rather rare for an afternoon high this time of year  never mind 6 a.m.  During this event, the temperature rose 20 degrees from 70 to 90 degrees in Yankton in just 20 minutes.

Other weird stuff happened in the moment.   The humidity crashed to near desert dry levels, and the wind abruptly started gusting to 40 mph. 

Within an hour, it was over. By 7 a.m., the temperature was down to where it was at 5 a.m., the humidity came back up to where it was, and the wind was light again, but this time from the west. 

So what the hell was all that about?

What happened in Yankton is a wild effect from a dying thunderstorm. A mature thunderstorm ingests hot air and rises. As the storm weakens, the hot air stops rising, and the rain from the thunderstorm starts to fall into dry air.  That leads to the thunderstorm collapsing. Initially, the descending air from the collapse is cool as the evaporating water tends to chill the air. 

Once the raindrops are gone, compressional warming quickly heats up the air due to compression. That air reaches the ground as a big burst of wind that has become hot. 

This kind of thing is rare, and needs certain conditions to happen. The air that starts to descend must begin from really high up.  That gives any rain a head start to evaporate on the way down. There must also be a pretty thick layer of dry air so that the rain evaporates quickly well before reaching the ground.  

For this to work, the downdraft must have a high velocity.  Warmer air tends to rise. So the velocity of the sinking air with a heat burst must offset the fact the warming air is becoming less dense that under normal circumstances would want to rise.

That's mostly the reason it got so windy in Yankton when this heat burst was happening. 

Heat bursts almost always happen late at night or in the pre-dawn hours. 

Heat bursts are more common out west than the are in the East, where we are. They're similar to microbursts, which we do have quite often. The difference is in a microburst, a lot of the precipitation does not evaporate. So you end up with a huge gush of damaging wind and rain. 

Even though heat bursts are rare, this is the second time this year South Dakota has experienced one. In the pre-dawn hours of July 31, the temperature at Mobridge, South Dakota went from 78 to 91 in 15 minutes as winds gusted to 50 mph. 

Some heat bursts can contain damaging winds, so Yankton was lucky in that the wind wasn't too terrible. A heat burst in Oklahoma back in 1996 produced wind gusts as high as 105 mph the cause $15 million in damage.   

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.  

Widespread Severe Storms, Floods Striking Much Of U.S., Vermont Spared As Usual

A SD DOT traffic cam caught the eerie green hue
of a derecho blowing into Sioux Falls, South Dakota Tuesday

Very often, when a severe heat wave hits parts of the United States, severe weather, including sometimes derechos, blast areas just to the north of the hot zone.  

That has certainly been the case the past couple of days, and will be the case for a couple more.  

A long lasting heat wave has settled in over the south central U.S. Meanwhile a large area north of the heat is being raked by repeated intense storms and flash floods. 

 The severe weather over the weekend and into this week has extended from Montana, through the nation's midsection, then on the Mid-Atlantic States.  The rough weather has been passing far to the south and west of Vermont, and that trend will continue for at least a week or so. No scary weather for us.

It's certainly been scary elsewhere. South Dakota and parts of Minnesota and Iowa were smacked by a derecho yesterday, the second one to hit that region this year. To remind  you of the definition of a derecho, it's a packet of intense, persistent thunderstorms that travel at least 240 miles, and creating numerous reports of winds gusting to more than 58 mph.

Winds sure gusted past that in South Dakota Tuesday. Howard, South Dakota, saw a gust of 99 mph. Frequent wind gusts of 70 mph or more were recorded there for more than 20 minutes. Huron reported a gust to 96 mph, the second time in two months that a thunderstorm brought 90 mp gusts to Huron.'

The airport in Sioux Falls clocked a peak wind of 80 mph. Gusts of over 58 mph lasted for a good 45 minutes there. I saw numerous reports from South Dakota and Iowa of gusts in the 65 to 85 mph range. 

In Sioux Falls, the storm blew in with an intense, otherworldly green color in the sky. As the National Weather Service describes it, the sky takes on a bit of a reddish color in the late afternoon and evening as the sun begins to approach the horizon. All that rain and hail in the storm cloud scatters blue light. when the reddish light is scattered by the blue water/hail tones in the storms, you get green. 

Judging from the photos, the green sky really outdid itself yesterday in Sioux Falls.  

Another pocket of severe weather hit areas around Maryland, Virginia and the Washington DC area. A tornado touched down and caused damage around Bowie, Maryland. 

While anyone in that band from Montana to the East Coast could see more severe weather today, the places to watch in particular are Montana, the Ohio Valley and the Carolinas. Same is true Wedneday and Thursday. 

Another outbreak of severe storms is then likely later in the week in and around North Dakota and Minnesota.

I'm also struck by how widespread the flood risk is with this. A huge band from northeastern Colorado to Virginia is at risk for flash floods today. Not everyone in this zone will see a flood, but there will be pockets in this big area with dangerous floods.  Fort Wayne, Indiana, hit by its highest wind gust (98 mph) on record during a severe thunderstorm in June, suffered a nasty flash flood Tuesday. 

Five to as much as eight inches of rain poured down near Fort Wayne Tuesday. Fort Wayne itself had 2.83 inches of rain, tying the record for most rain on a single July day. That city, along with swaths of Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia, are under threat for more torrential rain today. Columbus Ohio already dealt with flash floods early this morning.  

Many of these same areas are under the gun Thursday and Friday, too, especially east of the Mississippi River'

Well away from the heat dome and its "ring of fire" storms, we in Vermont sit in a northwest air flow from Canada. That has lasted for weeks now and shows few signs of letting up. 

The good news is this is giving us frequent spells of sunshine, pleasant temperatures and low humidity. The bad news is any weather system that comes through doesn't have all that much moisture to work with. So rainfall over the past week to 10 days has been fairly lame. Little rain is in the forecast until at least next Tuesday.    

VIDEO

YouTuber 8th C.Elisabeth shot this video of Tuesday's very green severe storm rolling into Sioux Falls, South Dakota, The videographer said they did not color correct the video, so the green you see is what people in Sioux Falls saw Click on this link to view, or watch below:

Impressive Derecho, Storms And Dust Swept The Northern Plains Thursday

Violet storm and haboob approaching Sioux Falls,
South Dakota last week. Photo via twitter, @NancyAllard17

While we await some potential severe weather later today, I am still agog at the wild storms that swept through parts of the Midwest this past Thursday.  

The storms later today might be dangerous, but Thursday's episode was in a league of its own. 

An impressive line of storms known as a derecho swept through a good chunk of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota Thursday with wind gusts as high as 107 mph.  Needless to say, widespread damage was left behind.

The storm has been blamed for three deaths.

The storms were a derecho, defined as a fast moving line of intense thunderstorms that lasts for many hours. By definition a derecho produces a swath of damage of at least 240 miles and causes frequent wind gusts of at least 58 mph.

Thursday's event easily met this criteria.  

Preliminary data indicates there were 55 reports of wind gusts of at least 75 mph. This ranks second in the number of such reports with a derechos. Thursday's derecho now means the top four highest wind speed derechos, at least as measured by the number of hurricane-force wind gust reports, have happened in the past two years. 

The derecho with the biggest number of 75 mph+ reports was 64 with a storm last December. Ranking third is the Iowa derecho of August, 2010, which was the most expensive thunderstorm in U.S. history.  Iowa has now been hit with three of the top four worst derechos. 

Thursday's derecho focused its fury on eastern Nebraska and eastern South Dakota, and large swaths of Iowa and Minnesota. 

As the storms briefly turned day into night, the howling winds caused immense damage. 

In Tripp, South Dakota, the wind gusted to a whopping 107 mph. Drone video from the town showed four large grain elevators toppled, and structural damage to several buildings. 

The fast moving line of storms - the forward motion of these things was more than 70 mph - kicked up walls of dust. These are known as haboobs, which are huge dust storms that drop visibility to zero and are obviously very dangerous to anyone out on the highways. 

Haboobs are pretty common in places like Arizona and Texas.  But they're relatively rare in the central and northern Plains. At least they've been rare since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

At least five tornadoes were embedded within this derecho. The worst was in Castlewood, South Dakota where a tornado swept through the middle of town, badly damaging the community school and destroying a number of houses.

Video.

As always, click on the links if you can't see the video displayed in this post on your device.

Here's video from the Argus Leader of the haboob sweeping into Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

Fox Weather obtained video of the tornado and storm sweeping into Castlewood, South Dakota:

Kevin W. Ray captured the approach of the storm and a tree falling in his Sioux Falls neighborhood:

 

Out Of State To Experience The Last Summer Day Of 2021

View from my airplane window the other day as we descended
into Sioux Falls, Vermont last Thursday.  It's awfully hot
out here on the Great Plains for late September! 

 I've got another couple of days out here in Yankton, South Dakota, and as I watch Vermont slowly plunge into its first real autumnal cool spell, it's full on summer out here.  

It was 92 degrees out here in Yankton Sunday, so it was a truly summer day. It wasn't very humid, so the heat was manageable. Forecasts call for temperatures of near 90 degrees in Yankton today and tomorrow.

This all will make my impending return to Vermont feel even chillier than it will be. And it will be chilly enough, as many Vermont towns will stay below 60 degrees Wednesday and Thursday. 

Normal temperatures out here in Yankton are only a little warmer this time of year than in Vermont. But extremes are wider. Daily record highs are hotter than in Vermont, and daily record lows are lower.

The bottom line is, if you think Vermont weather bounces around a lot, try the Northern Plains. 

Back in Vermont, I'm pretty sure there won't be any true summer weather again until next, well, summer. Or maybe late spring.  That hot air in the Plains is not heading toward Vermont. Instead, an upper level low pressure system will direct Canadian air over us for the next few days.

It's a dry pattern, too, which is too bad because northern areas of Vermont still need the rain. A cold front and weather disturbance today will produce a tenth to three tenths of an inch of rain today, which is really not a whole lot. 

Very light, scattered showers could roam around Wednesday and Thursday in the chilly air but won't amount to much.

So far at least, frost during this cool spell looks like it will be limited to the normal cold spots. But keep watching the forecast daily. If any part of Vermont ends up getting several overnight hours of clear skies and light winds during this cool spell, frost could be more widespread.

Sure, there will be warm days ahead as we're still early in autumn.  But sustained summer weather is gone until next year.