The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Big Frank on May 24, 2022, 12:52:34 AM
-
Gaylord, MI was struck by an EF3 tornado on May 20, 2022 which injured 44 people and killed two while also leaving thousands without power. My friend was working on his mom's cabin 30 miles away at the time, and he said there was thunder that was non-stop for a long time. Before the echo from one boom went away another one started and it kept going on and on like that. It was the first time he ever heard it do that non-stop, I think he said for 20 minutes constantly, and I've never heard it do that before. He said there was hail too but it was clear hail, too small to form big white balls. It was really hot then a cold front rolled in and stirred up the tornado. Last week it was really hot here one day too, around 88 I think, and after I mowed just my front yard I came in the house and sweated so much it looked like someone poured water on the carpet in front of my seat, and my fingertips were pruning up from the sweat running off. That's the first time in my life I ever had wrinkled skin from sweat but I may have caught COVID or something too.
My friend's place is north of Mio, northwest of where the main highway turns east where the gold star on the map is. Google maps puts Hobby Lobby, the large building in the 12th picture 32 miles straight line distance from his cabin, while most of the damage wasn't quite as far to the west. It was mostly just north of downtown near the hospital according to the only article I read. We were caught in a bad hailstorm while riding our ATVs Jul. 03, 1999 when an EF2 tornado went by on the other side, to the east of us and wiped out half of Comins. That started as a thunderstorm over Gaylord that moved over Lewiston before turning into the tornado that did major damage to Comins then turned into an F1 tornado when it left the community. Another tornado went by a couple miles from his place October 18, 2007. It was one of six tornadoes from one big storm that day. I think it was the one 13 miles long with 115 mph winds and the next closest was 21 miles long with 110 mph winds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaylord%2C_Michigan
A bunch of tornadoes ran around my area one day last summer or the year before. For someplace that's nowhere near tornado alley, sometimes it seems like we get a lot of them, but they're usually smaller ones like F2s. Thankfully nothing in my lifetime compares to the Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence of 1953. "An extremely devastating and deadly tornado outbreak sequence impacted the Midwestern and Northeastern United States at the beginning of June 1953. It included two tornadoes that caused at least 90 deaths each—an F5 tornado occurring in Flint, Michigan, on June 8 and an F4 tornado in Worcester, Massachusetts, on June 9." I have to take Wikipedia's word for it since I wasn't born until the following decade. Tornado outbreak, June 7–9, 1953. 50 tornadoes confirmed. F5 tornado maximum rating. 3 days duration of tornado outbreak. 247 fatalities, 2,562 injuries. $340.6 million damage, $3.45 billion (2022 USD). That will be $1 Trillion by the end of the Biden Presidency. ::) @$$hole! >:( Midwestern and Northeastern United States affected. Part of the tornado outbreaks of 1953 (421 tornadoes! $596.105 million damage, 1953 dollars, $6+ billion 2022 dollars). We had tornado drills in the hallways (no windows) at elementary school and I remember teachers talking about the Flint–Beecher tornado back then because a lot of them lived through it. It went right through the city of Flint and the unincorporated community of Beecher. That was an F5 tornado, the most severe tornado damage on the Fujita scale, 261–318 mph wind, incredible damage. There are worse tornadoes on some planets we can't live on, but F5s are the worst tornadoes that hit on Earth. Now the United States and Canada use the Enhanced Fujita scale where EF5 = >200 mph, Incredible damage. I thought my friend or his wife said the tornado the hit Gaylord over the weekend was an F4, not an EF3. EF3 = 136–165 mph, Severe damage. That would only be around 2.5 on the old F scale but it was still bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Flint%E2%80%93Beecher_tornado
-
More pics.
-
And more.
-
Picture number 14 was one big fustercluck of one couples' yard. The guy's looking out over them from where his roof used to be. About 2 dozen neighbors helped them clean up on Saturday when all the pictures were taken. But one person said people were outside helping each other out within the hour after the tornado hit. A lot of them have names I can't pronounce that are almost certainly Polish.
Warning! Dumb joke follows.
Why do so many Polish names end with ski? Because toboggan is too hard to spell.
I bet Tom Bogan can spell toboggan. After all, he's not named Tomski.
-
Always amazed by the power of a thunderstorm
-
You're not the only one Mike. I recently found out you can get struck by lightning several miles farther from a storm than I thought possible. There can be clear blue skies as far as you can see and lightning can still strike from a far off storm. I can't remember how many miles they said it was but it was a long way. It turns out a bolt from the blue is a real thing and people have been hit by them.
-
The distance lightning will travel is why golf courses clear at the first rumble of thunder. If you can hear it, you have been in danger already.
-
The distance lightning will travel is why golf courses clear at the first rumble of thunder. If you can hear it, you have been in danger already.
True. If thunder could travel that far lightning could have sooner. But already being the highest object around, and then holding a lightning rod up in the air is why the ones who don't clear out later on wish that they did. An even worse place to be when you hear thunder is on a roof. If I'm on a roof and hear thunder I'm going down the ladder and putting on clean underwear when I get to shelter. One time my dad was working with another carpenter who previously got hit by lightning while working on a roof. He was wearing a necklace with a large crucifix on it at the time and it heated up to a lava-like temperature instantly. So he had a scar in the shape of a ring burned around his neck and a DEEP scar in the shape of the cross burned into his chest for the rest of his life.