Question about recent tornado activity (Dallas, Fort Worth: yard, retired, radio)

[BigDGeek]

We'd have to have rain to get tornados...not a whole lot of that around.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by need4speed2012

Prolonged cold this winter has caused a cooling of water in the Gulf of Mexico and last time the storm season got off to a slow start was in 2002.

Last year got off to a slow start with tornadoes too, although there was a big one in Georgia in January. February, March and April were very quiet, but May was a disaster with some especially violent tornadoes. There was also an outbreak in November, the first one in several years that I can remember. I feel bad for the people in Illinois who were affected by them, because they were homeless for the holidays, ad also during one of the most severe winters in recent memory.

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

Seems like it to me. I have been here northeast of Lubbock for five years. I've about forgotten what a tornado looks like (knocks on wooden desk.)

Of course, Lubbock got hit by a monster many decades ago.

It does seem to me like tornado activity has moved east over the last couple of decades, though.

Originally Posted by Kibby

Tornado activity has been down the last couple of years all over the country - so have the hurricanes.
We didn't have a single hurricane make land fall last year in the USA .... I don't ever recall that, and I went through my first big hurricane in Texas in the '60's.

I guess Mother Nature used up most of her hurricane inventory in 2005, and most of her tornado inventory in 2011.

As for land-falling hurricanes, I think 2001 was another year during which no hurricanes made landfall in the United States. A tropical storm did early that hurricane season, but other than that, nothing.

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

We'd have to have rain to get tornados...not a whole lot of that around.

That's true too. Rainfall has been pretty close to normal in Georgia, but that's because most of last summer was a washout.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by Kibby

Tornado activity has been down the last couple of years all over the country - so have the hurricanes.
We didn't have a single hurricane make land fall last year in the USA .... I don't ever recall that, and I went through my first big hurricane in Texas in the '60's.

Yes. I recall my family at Lufkin having a house full of relatives up from Freeport during Carla in 1961.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Of course, Lubbock got hit by a monster many decades ago.

That was May 1970. It was supposedly the worst tornado in Texas history. There were 26 deaths ranging in age from an infant to the very elderly.

That was two years after I came to the South Plains.

[rr2005]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

That was May 1970. It was supposedly the worst tornado in Texas history. There were 26 deaths ranging in age from an infant to the very elderly.

That was two years after I came to the South Plains.

My father was an insurance adjuster in Lubbock at that time and took a lot of really amazing pictures of the destruction. With that being said, I've lived in West Texas and the South Plains for 35 years and have never so much as seen a tornado. Maybe tornado alley really is drifting east?

[afoigrokerkok]

Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired

That was May 1970. It was supposedly the worst tornado in Texas history. There were 26 deaths ranging in age from an infant to the very elderly.

That was two years after I came to the South Plains.

It was a bad one, but I've never heard it be called the worst. The 1953 Waco tornado killed over 100 and is tied with the Goliad tornado as the most deadly in state history. Incidentally, it was May 11, the same day as the Lubbock tornado and the same day that several other violent tornadoes have hit different parts of TX.

[afoigrokerkok]

Originally Posted by rr2005

My father was an insurance adjuster in Lubbock at that time and took a lot of really amazing pictures of the destruction. With that being said, I've lived in West Texas and the South Plains for 35 years and have never so much as seen a tornado. Maybe tornado alley really is drifting east?

West TX has always been a bit too far west to really be considered in the middle of tornado alley. You need moisture for tornadoes and it's always been dry. But, then again, it's drier now.

[TX75007]

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

West TX has always been a bit too far west to really be considered in the middle of tornado alley. You need moisture for tornadoes and it's always been dry. But, then again, it's drier now.

Tell that to Dimmit, TX. The 1995 tornado was a doosie.

[afoigrokerkok]

Originally Posted by TX75007

Tell that to Dimmit, TX. The 1995 tornado was a doosie.

There certainly have been tornadoes in West TX. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying the frequency is lower in the western part of the state.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by rr2005

My father was an insurance adjuster in Lubbock at that time and took a lot of really amazing pictures of the destruction. With that being said, I've lived in West Texas and the South Plains for 35 years and have never so much as seen a tornado. Maybe tornado alley really is drifting east?

You've been around nearly as long as I have. I came out in June of 1968.

The last real tornado funnel I saw was actually just outside of Lubbock in about 1986. My daughter and I had just come out of a cafe after hearing the radio announcer say there was a tornado on the ground. As we drove north on the west Loop, we saw a large white funnel tracking along the northwestern edge of the City. I think Reese AFB received some significant damage from that one.

Before that, I had seen funnels west of Clovis and at Bovina. That would have been in the very late 1960s and into the 1970s.

Right now, I'd take a small funnel if it would bring some rain. Today I am watering at least the front yard to keep my sparse Bermuda and trees from dying.