the Monster of 1925(the national weather service's biggest blunder)

84 years ago on just before 1pm March 18, 1925 eyewitness said they saw what appeared to be "a huge black mass and fog" rolling over the hills in the Missouri Ozarks the people had no idea what it was until it got closer and saw debris churning in the mass by the time they recognized it was a tornado it was too late. one of the early eyewitness was a mail carrier(postman)
said that he saw a "AWFUL COMOTION PLUNGING ACROSS THE LAND".
For 3.5 hours this Menancing looking Cloud would thrashed the States of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana the name given to the storm is known as the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925. of the 3 states that was affected Illinois took the brunt of the storm's wrath with 606 deaths. Throughout its life span people said that it did not look like a tornado but a huge mass of clouds or a black cloud hugging the ground rolling over like a "barrel". this was during a time that forcasters were not allowed to say the word tornado in their forcasting or study tornadoes the band was put into affect in the late 1880's which lasted until 1947. even in the 1800s there were sucessful forcasting that did save people's lives but the army signal corps said that it was impossible to predict the actual touchdown and that they did not want mass histeria to spread among the people. After the Tornado's rampage the Nation began an outcry for a type of warning system after 22 years the band was lifted and in 1947 the nation's first tornado forcasting in so many years was a sucess. the national weather service vowed that nothing like that will ever happen again meaning a tornado ban. Murphrysboro,illinois 234 lives were lost a US record for tornado deaths in town or city

the Tri-state Tornado is not massage about the past but about the future.
a storm of this magnitude will happen again but when and where?

the stats of the tornado
F5 rating
695 confirmed Dead(deadliest in US history)
2027 injured
3 states affected (missouri, illinois, and indiana)
estimated average ground speed (62-73 mph)people said that it got dark so quickly and there was this great roar.
219-234 miles of continuous destruction for 3.5 hours(path length and duration world record)
average width 1Mile wide but in some areas over a 1Mile wide
wind speed may have suceeded 300 mph
apearance and speed were contributed factors

13 counties
20 towns damaged some never recovered
15000 homes laid waste
in Indiana 10 mile range 85 farms destroyed


still America's worst tornado disaster

but largely remains forgotten.

 

I was in a tornado outbreak like that back in 1974. Not a thing the weather service can do.

One of the strongest tornadoes ever measured wiped out a town next to me back then. I saw the twister go over my house as a greenish glow in the nighttime sky. I went to bed about 10 minutes later, and all of a sudden, sirens went off everywhere.

The lightning was flashing just like a strobe light. Only time I've ever seen that.





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you must be talking about either tanner alabama or xenia ohio

 

Alabama, but not Tanner.


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my bad how about guinn,alabama

 

Bingo, except it's Guin.
Also home of one of the last American drive-in's.

I saw The Exorcist there back in the 70's.



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there has been alot of discussion that Guin tornado might have been stronger than Xenia Ohio

 

Possibly. The technology back then wasn't very good at measuring this kind of thing. Guin is a tiny little town away from major cities and their radar. It's been hit at least once before.

I do know there is an audio recording of the storm hitting a house. They played it on the radio several times in the weeks afterward. Somebody sat the mic in the window before they headed for the basement.

This is the town website. Maybe somebody here could link you up with it and some photos? I know there's more to this than what you're finding on the net. http://www.guinal.org/



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While that was a big blunder, the hurricane of 1938 was an even bigger blunder

Assuming the hurricane would follow the path of previous hurricanes which barreled up the east coast, and would then head out to sea, the weather service predicted partly sunny skies with warm conditions; but the cat 3 storm continued up the coast and wiped-out most of new england

Hotwater

 

This just shows that weather prediction is not an exact science, although it isn't very difficult where I live, especially in the summer.