Severe weather during the 1960s

[vorlon13]

When I was a kid, roughly 1960-1970, then as now, we had sever weather. Unlike now, however, weather forecasting was rather more primitive; no Super Doppler 13,000 showing wind speed and direction 100 miles away, no radar capable of discerning hail from rain from debris, and much less well connected members of the public.

Also, for part of my childhood, TV stations didn't broadcast all night.

So, if a storm started rocking the house at night, folks would get us kids up and we'd sit in the living room if it didn't seem really bad, and if was deemed 'really bad', we'd go to the basement.

As I recall, this happened 2 or 3 times every year. We didn't have any information on what was going on, so parents assumed worst case scenario and acted accordingly.

Early storm watches on TV were usually of the form of "70 miles to either side of a line from Beatrice Nebraska, to Adair, Iowa, be prepared for the formation of severe thunderstorms. This may include strong winds, large hail, and damaging winds." LOL, and that might be all we got, but it was an improvement.

I remember an early weather radar image, black and white of course, and the storm they were tracking was so blurred out on the display I considered it worse than useless. IIRC, when they started noticing 'hook echoes' on their primitive radars and associating them with tornadoes, it was a big deal.

We also had, closer to the 70's as I recall, the Weller Method of detecting nearby tornadoes. Flip the TV to channel 2, BEFORE the storm gets too close. Turn the brightness down so the 'ant races' were barely visible, and then watch. Lightning strikes would briefly light up the TV screen, a rather cool effect, actually, and then the money shot was, if the screen slowly brightened and stayed bright, there was a tornado in the vicinity and you needed to take it seriously. Dad rarely let me do this, back then TV sets were expensive and fussy, and unnecessarily messing with one, particularly if a kid was twirling the knobs, was a BAD IDEA.

As late as 75 or 76, however, when I was off on my own, I used the Weller method to detect the Jordan Iowa tornado. Neat trick. Not sure I could even get a 'modern' TV these days to do the Weller Method, might give it a try sometimes.

Weather watches and warnings are done county by county now. We get cell phone pictures and footage sent to the TV stations in real time now, very different from 55 years ago waiting to see the pictures in the subsequent newspapers.

[Foxaèr]

You seem to have weathered the 60s well enough.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Palm_...o_outbreak
The second Palm Sunday tornado outbreak occurred on April 11–12, 1965, in the Midwest U.S. states of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, with 47 tornadoes (32 significant, 17 violent, 21 killers). ... It was the deadliest tornado outbreak in Indiana history, with 137 people killed.

[Minimalist]

Charge the bitch with murder.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/...er-people/

Woman Prays Tornado Away to Kill Other People

Now a woman in Rowlett, Texas claims that she used the power of God to command the tornado that hit there Christmas day to hit somewhere else instead. Eight people were killed.

Let's see how long she sticks to her bullshit claim.

[vorlon13]

Rev Robertson did the same thing.

Only with a hurricane since Rev Pat has THAT much more POWER.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wasn't much better by '92, when andrew coverage was basically an endless loop of the following:

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That failure spurred a revolution in forecasting and emergency response at a federal level.

Long before my time, lol...long before all of our times...but the Bay Hurricane of 1921 struck completely by surprise...it hit in the middle of the night, in what was then a small town (and because of this it only managed to kill 8 people..so far as we know). The force of the surge was so immense that it broke through and permanently altered the barrier islands, sandbars, and flow within boca ciega and tampa bays. An 11 foot high wall of water coming from every direction simultaneously swept over a town that had 2 square miles of ridge that peaked at 44 feet. Weird ass fact...this storm destroyed the worlds first commercial airport. The house I grew up in, 60 years later... was one of a few dozen existing structures, sitting on that ridge, that survived. It's weathered every storm and tornado since wholly intact. So we expected a whole bunch of nothing no matter what. Lost a fence and a tree last year, but that was that. FEMA's in the area doling out funds for harder hit pieces of the bay.

On the one hand...the changes in how families experience storms where you're at (and from when you're at) is a long drive indirect connection between you and I, between our experiences. OTOH - for the people afflicted by one of the main drivers to that revolution aren;t that muich affected..in their experience....by it. Native Crackers don;t give a fuck about a storm. Never have. That;s why we keep building trailer parks in tornado paths and cities at landfall...and we sit back, crack a brew, and watch taped episodes of judge judy....with the volume at max to cover the sound of the invisible freigh train outside.

Stormgod wants to kill you, your ass is dead. Mostly, though..and thankfully, he doesn't give a shit about killing you...personally.