Tornados in Dallas (Fort Worth, Plano, Garland: violent crime, good hotel, bankrupt)

[colt357_2000]

I beg to differ about the 1957 tornado being the last one to touch the ground in Dallas. I grew up in North Dallas and watched a small tornado in 75 or 76 dance across my neighborhood. It touched down around Marsh and Walnut Hill and went back up somewhere around Preston and Royal. It was a small storm compared to the 1957. It tore up fences and roofs. No one was killed as I recall, but I could be wrong.
I'm 51 years old and have seen two tornadoes. One of those was in Oklahoma so it doesn't count. I know people that have lived here all their life, and never saw a tornado.
Bottom line is be alert during weather warnings in Texas. I wouldn't spend much time worrying about them.

[colt357_2000]

I have seen alot more bad hailstorms, then tornados. One in particular was very frightening when I was a kid.
My brother and sister had taken me with them to the park to watch some kids play baseball. I was about five, they were older , thirteen and fourteen I think, I was the baby....lol. The park was just a few hundred yards from the back of our house.
It was a typical spring afternoon, sunny, but hazy, with a high humidity. We were standing behind the backstop, in the sunshine, when I heard a thud. It sounded like someone had taken a baseball and thrown it into the ground, as hard as they could! This was followed by another, and another. One striking the ground a few feet from me. It was hail.
There was a sudden flash and crack of lightening far too close for comfort, and the sound of the hail comming was like a heard of wild horses. The western sky had turned black and had that green tint in it that I would learn later in life meant HAIL!.
My brother picked me up, and He and my sister ran for the house! I remember Mom standing at the back sliding glass door, waiting for us. We all ran to the hallway and shut the doors, and mom threw me in the hall closet. It was the center of the house, and away from glass.
I could hear glass breaking and wind blowing from the closet and tryed to open the door, but there was something against it. I later found out it was my mom, keeping me in there. It may have been the safest place, but it was the scariest place too!
When it was over, there was broken glass everywhere. We went outside and the ground was covered in hail. It looked like it had snowed or sleeted. Behind the storm, the sun was comming out again and all was calm.

[KewGee]

The whole state of Texas in the past 56 years has had 31,812 hail events and in the same amount of time, 7,565 tornadoes, so yes, we have more hail than tornadoes. They both scare me.

Dallas County has had 80 tornadoes in 56 years and 486 hail events.

[Guingirl]

Wow!!! Okay...that is very weird. I was talking to my neighbor last night and I think he was talking about that same storm. He had mentioned that he looked on the horizon and it was "green" which I thought was odd and then he said that there was a kid that was running to go get in his beatup pickup truck because he was afraid of the hail damage and he was hit in the head and killed.

He said it was in 1995 during Mayfair? Was that it?

[colt357_2000]

The one I wrote about was in Dallas in the 60's but I lived in NRH when the mayfair hail storm hit. I was not there buy my neighbors were. Their brand new ford mini van was nearly totaled. They were lucky to escape with their lives. They opened the doors to let a lady and her kids in to get out of the hail and soon as they did, the front and back glass was blown out by softball sized hail.
That was a bad one!

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by Guingirl

Wow!!! Okay...that is very weird. I was talking to my neighbor last night and I think he was talking about that same storm. He had mentioned that he looked on the horizon and it was "green" which I thought was odd and then he said that there was a kid that was running to go get in his beatup pickup truck because he was afraid of the hail damage and he was hit in the head and killed.

He said it was in 1995 during Mayfair? Was that it?

Yep. Remember that one, it was a Friday night. My husband played softball on Friday nights and we all had been out at the ballfields in Garland and it was great weather. Mayfair in Ft Worth was going on that weekend. Then the storms blew thru after we got home. It was bad and I remember someone got killed in it. It did not hail anywhere else in the metroplex that night. The worst hail storm I was in was a few years ago one evening. We got hit TWICE by two different waves and they came down in different directions so if your vehicle was parked outside it got damage ALL THE WAY AROUND! The stones were big and jagged, they were NOT your normal smooth hail stones. They ripped everything to shreds. Windows got knocked out in one neighborhood by us. Everyones roofs in northeast Garland, Richardson, Plano and Allen got destroyed. The insurance companies sent in their disaster teams to cover all of the claims.

[Saul Pena]

Was this hailstorm the same that got all the airplanes at DFW damaged?
and tha car lots along 635 and Jupiter??

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

Yep. Remember that one, it was a Friday night. My husband played softball on Friday nights and we all had been out at the ballfields in Garland and it was great weather. Mayfair in Ft Worth was going on that weekend. Then the storms blew thru after we got home. It was bad and I remember someone got killed in it. It did not hail anywhere else in the metroplex that night. The worst hail storm I was in was a few years ago one evening. We got hit TWICE by two different waves and they came down in different directions so if your vehicle was parked outside it got damage ALL THE WAY AROUND! The stones were big and jagged, they were NOT your normal smooth hail stones. They ripped everything to shreds. Windows got knocked out in one neighborhood by us. Everyones roofs in northeast Garland, Richardson, Plano and Allen got destroyed. The insurance companies sent in their disaster teams to cover all of the claims.

[Guerilla]

The farther north and west you go from the Metroplex, the more prone you are to tornadoes. It is basically Oklahoma north of the airport.

[socketz]

West of Fort Worth seems to get extreme weather. As does the panhandle.

I would guess this is because these areas are extremely flat and have little in the way of diversion with regards to extreme winds.

[Guerilla]

I still love the Fort Worth side (the best), though. It does get most of the storms, and I bet most of the tornadoes in the Metroplex occur west of Texas 360.