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Saw My First Tornado

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 5:30 am
by figarocat
We had quite an outbreak of tornadoes here in southern Wisconsin this evening... one touched down only a few miles from our house; fortunately it was moving away from us. I managed to get a few pictures... they are posted to my website at http://webpages.charter.net/figarocat/.

Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:50 am
by Weasel
Wonder how much damage there was in Stoughton?

Great pictures BTW!!

Pat

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:49 pm
by Weasel
I seen some of the damage photos on television...quite a powerful tornado. The one fatality was reported to have occurred when a chimney collapsed on a person while he was in his basement.

Amazing how the national media exagerates, at times, when reporting about what actually happened. An ABC news report stated that 80-90 homes were "destroyed" in the Viola (on the border of Vernon and Richland counties in SW WI) area the following evening. While there was extensive damage to vegetation, most of the structural damage was fairly minor (primarily west facing garages, a few roofs, and blown out windows---hardly "destruction" although those affected may feel it came close) according to the survey done by the La Crosse weather office:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/arx/events/aug182005_tors.php (about half way down the page). Just national news being national news I suppose.

Well we got our outbreak for this year...to say the least!!

Thanks again for posting those great photos, Jeff!!

Pat

Ps In all fairness to ABC I think they got the Stoughton and Viola storms confused. One of the storm reports did mention 80-90 homes were destroyed in the Stoughton area..

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:44 am
by figarocat
Yeah, they're rating the Stoughton tornado an F3... on the ground for 40 minutes, path length 17 miles, maximum width 1/2 mile.

The amazing thing about that 1/2 mile width for me is, my in-laws' house and my church are separated by about half a mile... everything between them is pretty much gone, from what I hear. It passed right between them and neither sustained any damage to speak of. My in-laws lost a tree limb, but that's it... they just got power back today.

Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 10:18 pm
by Weasel
Another thing that is somewhat interesting is most/all of the damage from the Stoughton tornado seems to have came from the tornado itself, while all of the damage in the Viola tornado came from the downdraft, as the tornado circulation passed to the north of Viola..

Pat