Severe
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A new Michigan State University study looks at the impacts of living on a mobile home on tornado safety. Of all of the tornado-related deaths that have occurred so far this year, 63% were in mobile homes. And the South is prime territory for mobile home residence, due to a combination of zoning and poverty…
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The second deadliest tornado in history happened in Natchez MS on May 7, 1840. A large and powerful tornado went right through the center of town, flattening most of the buildings. But even worse was the damage on the Mississippi River, which was filled with boats, including 120 flatboats and a steam boat. Many bodies…
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In 2014 on April 30 a morning storm came through Athens and dropped a large oak tree between my garage and my neighbor’s house. It barely missed the garage but clipped a corner of the neighbor’s house. I had moved my car out of the garage less than half an hour earlier, which was lucky because…
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Gotta love that title! NOAA describes the current active tornado season in their latest blog at Climate.gov here. According to the article, “as of April 17, 570 tornadoes have been reported (preliminarily), which is almost a hundred more than average. The season jumped out of the gate with an incredibly active January: 134 tornadoes in…
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Today is the sixth anniversary of one of the worst tornado outbreaks on record, rivalling the Super Outbreak of April 3-4, 1974. Many large and horrifically damaging tornadoes occurred from Mississippi to Tennessee, destroying homes and businesses and killing and injuring many. Here are some selected video remembrances of the storms. Weather Channel video: Anatomy…
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As I was browsing today, I ran across this really interesting article on how most people are killed or injured by lightning. Surprisingly, direct strikes only cause issues 3-5 percent of the time. The greatest cause of problems is ground current, where lightning hits the ground and travels along the surface (especially if the ground…
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Today is a big anniversary for me–it marks the 50th anniversary of the tornado that went two blocks from my house in Grand Rapids MI, kicking off my interest in studying the weather. The storms in Michigan were overshadowed by the Belvidere IL tornado and others that also happened that day. You can read more…