- 6 hours ago
Witness the raw power of tornadoes across centuries, from forgotten European disasters to the deadliest storms in U.S. history. Explore how entire towns vanished, how survivors endured the unimaginable, and how science uncovered what truly happened. See how tornado patterns are shifting today, moving into more populated regions and becoming increasingly dangerous. Learn why modern warning systems aren’t always enough and what experts believe is coming next. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
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https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
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For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00June 29th, 1764, seemed like a regular day in one small picturesque town in Germany, Woldeck.
00:09Residents were in church.
00:11Little did they know that a powerful storm was about to hit the area.
00:15It wasn't just an ordinary storm, it was a strong, swirling tornado getting closer and closer.
00:21It was an F2 tornado at the beginning, strong enough to uproot trees like oaks and beaches.
00:26But as time went by, it grew and became more powerful.
00:31It even picked up two children on its way and threw them into a lake.
00:35Something strange happened too.
00:37The water level in the lake rose and then quickly retreated.
00:40Leaving the lake behind, the tornado struck a house, tearing off the roof and knocking down the walls.
00:46Then the tornado changed direction and headed east-northeast, increasing its intensity to F3 level.
00:53That's when something fascinating happened.
00:56A possible twin or satellite water spout merged with the tornado along the shore of Lake Lizin.
01:03It was like two tornadoes coming together.
01:05It got wider and stronger, so it started snapping and uprooting solitary oak trees,
01:10flinging them 115 feet into the air.
01:14It left behind a barren landscape, removing crops, grass and even topsoil.
01:18Back then, people couldn't even read or write very well, let alone use devices that could predict a tornado.
01:25This one was so strong, it destroyed houses, barns and even uprooted trees.
01:30Such a terrifying thing to see.
01:32But there was something special about the church people were in.
01:35It had strong stone walls, so they were safe inside, even though everything outside was getting destroyed.
01:40They didn't even realize how lucky they were until later, with winds estimated to be over 300 mm, it was unstoppable.
01:49The tornado traveled a distance of 19 miles and stretched to a maximum width of 0.6 miles.
01:55A raging storm threw tree branches so high, people believed they ended up in the atmosphere.
02:01Another strange thing about this tornado was that it occurred during a dry storm.
02:05There was very little rain reported, but the storm still managed to make such a mess.
02:09It even produced large hailstones, some as big as 5.9 inches in diameter.
02:14Just imagine chunks of ice that large falling from the sky.
02:18These hailstones caused significant damage to crops and properties, and everything else that was outside at that time.
02:24After the storm passed, one scientist, Gottlob Burchard Gensmer, studied the damage and talked to people who had witnessed the tornado,
02:32only to realize this was one of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded in history.
02:36It reached F5, the highest rating on what's called the Fujita Scale, which measures tornado strength.
02:42It took an hour for the madness to stop.
02:45Back in 1925, people in northeast Missouri didn't have an organized tornado warning system either.
02:52It took them by surprise when one day, in the early afternoon, they saw a tornado forming in that area.
02:58At first, it was a small one that briefly lifted off the ground, but as time went by, it started growing into a massive monster.
03:08Meanwhile, in West Frankfort, Illinois, some miners were working deep underground, about 500 feet below the surface.
03:15Suddenly, the power went out, and they knew something was wrong.
03:19They quickly started climbing up the shaft to get to the surface.
03:23When they finally made it, they were in for a terrible shock, because of the devastating consequences of this giant tornado.
03:31The tornado didn't even stop there.
03:33It kept on making a mess as it traveled a long distance.
03:37It plowed through the land for a whopping 219 miles, all the way from near Redford, Missouri, to the east of Princeton, Indiana.
03:44It moved at a crazy speed of 73 miles an hour.
03:48In one town, Murfreesboro, Illinois, the tornado wiped out a staggering 100 blocks of the town, plus another 70 blocks ended up destroyed by fire.
03:57In another town, Griffin, Indiana, not a single building was left standing.
04:01The tornado got weaker only at 4.30 in the afternoon.
04:05This tornado, known as the Tri-State Tornado, really made history as the worst and longest-lasting tornado ever recorded in the United States.
04:13In April 1965, people in the region of the Great Lakes started complaining about this weird heat.
04:21The forecast showed no storms for that area.
04:23It was because of thunderstorms sweeping across the upper Midwest of the United States.
04:28These storms were insane and so powerful, they created 51 tornadoes in just 12 hours.
04:34The states of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan ended up being hit particularly hard.
04:39Something unfortunate happened during this time.
04:41All this caught the forecast team, the National Severe Storms Forecast Center, in Kansas City, Missouri, off guard.
04:49They quickly tried to send out warnings to let people know what was happening.
04:52But many people didn't hear the announcements because there were no outdoor tornado sirens at that time.
04:58Additionally, a lot of TV and radio stations didn't regularly broadcast weather alerts.
05:03Power was gone, and telephone lines didn't work, which meant many towns were completely cut off from communications.
05:11People couldn't receive the warnings because they didn't have access to electricity or working phones.
05:16One spring day in 1974 was especially hard because of severe thunderstorms
05:23that unleashed a series of powerful tornadoes across 13 states in the United States.
05:29These tornadoes lasted for 16 hours, and they ranged from weaker F-0 to the most powerful and destructive F-5 ones.
05:36At one terrifying moment, there were 15 tornadoes touching the ground at the same time.
05:40One lasted for more than two hours, and two others were swirling around each other like dancers.
05:46This was another big lesson, after which some changes in tornado warnings were made.
05:52In those days, weather forecasters could only warn people about a tornado if they had seen one with their own eyes,
05:58which was mostly too late.
06:03April 26th, 1989.
06:05At around 6.30 in the afternoon, the sky above one district, Manigandj in Bangladesh, turned dark and ominous.
06:14The tornado began its journey from one point, Dalatpur, and moved swiftly eastward, Satoria, Manigandj Sadar.
06:23People living in that region had already been facing a severe drought,
06:26and little did they know there were even worse scenarios coming.
06:30The storm was fierce, stretching about ten miles long and one mile wide.
06:34It covered a relatively small area, but it still caused enormous damage.
06:39It tore through the land and blew away buildings, thousands of trees, strong and rooted for years,
06:44and everything else in its path.
06:46The countryside of Marsala, in western Sicily, is really beautiful.
06:51But it wasn't so stunning on December 8th, 1851.
06:56Two fierce tornadoes suddenly swept across the land, leaving nothing but chaos.
07:00As they moved, they brought along heavy rain and hailstorms, causing even more damage to the already vulnerable farmlands.
07:07One town, Castellamare, had an amazing harbor with plenty of ships, and it suffered great damage.
07:13The news of this devastating event reached far and wide, even making its way to the illustrated London news.
07:19The outbreak in Oklahoma from 24 years ago, May 3rd, 1999, was tough, too.
07:28Just one stormy day caused enormous damage from Texas all the way up to South Dakota.
07:33At least 45 tornadoes touched down, and Oklahoma was hit the hardest with an F5 tornado.
07:39The story seemed familiar.
07:40What first seemed like a small twister quickly grew into a massive force that, at one point, measured one mile in width.
07:48This one ripped asphalt from roads, peeling it away in layers like fragile paper.
07:53It tore the vegetation away and even wrapped roofing materials around power lines.
07:58NASA scientists studied the area using satellites.
08:01They realized it would take between 10 to 20 years for the vegetation to fully regrow
08:06in the region where the tornado left nothing but muddy, barren land.
08:10Oklahoma is in a pretty unfortunate spot when it comes to tornadoes.
08:14Take 1,947 as an example.
08:17The Woodward Tornado got named after the city it had struck.
08:20This monstrous tornado was massive.
08:23It reached 1.8 miles in width, and it raced forward at an incredible speed of around 50 Mampick.
08:29Before reaching Woodward, the tornado had already caused a lot of mess in other towns along its path.
08:36But it was in Woodward, where it unleashed its worst fury.
08:39Without any warning, it struck the city at 8.42 in the evening, catching the residents by surprise.
08:46Communication with the outside world was cut off, leaving families uncertain about the fate of their loved ones.
08:53As if one tornado isn't enough, some areas get struck by a series of them.
08:57In 1,908, an outbreak of tornadoes swept across the eastern part of the United States.
09:04From Texas to Georgia and then northward from Oklahoma to Tennessee, at least 34 tornadoes touched down.
09:11Nature showed no mercy.
09:13Buildings were torn apart.
09:15And once thriving streets were reduced to rubble.
09:17The Fujita scale measures tornado strength based on two things.
09:21The speed of the winds and the amount of destruction caused.
09:25F5 tornadoes are the strongest, most destructive ones.
09:29I mean, some people talk about F6 tornado with winds that could blow at over 300 miles per hour.
09:34If this one was passing by, you'd definitely know how Dorothy felt.
09:38Luckily, F6 exists only in stories.
09:41And Oz is the last place you are likely to end up at.
09:44If you think you're safe from violent tornadoes because you aren't living in the tornado alley, you could be dangerously wrong.
09:58It's shifting to the east.
09:59It looks like we're about to see fewer single tornado days and more days with multiple powerful tornadoes.
10:07And because they're shifting into more populated areas, they could take more lives and ruin more homes.
10:13There isn't enough time to build infrastructure to protect everyone from this fast-moving danger.
10:19So the least you can do to save yourself is learn as much as you can about it.
10:24About 1,200 tornadoes hit the U.S. every year.
10:29You gotta thank the unique geography that sets up the perfect conditions for it, especially in spring and summer.
10:36Winds from the Pacific drop moisture over the Rockies and become dry and cool as they move east.
10:41They collide with warm, humid airstreams from the Gulf of Mexico over the flat terrain.
10:47And that's how unstable air and wind shear, which are the perfect conditions for tornadoes, are born.
10:54Historically, tornadoes were most common in Tornado Alley.
10:58This term was first used in the 1950s by two meteorologists as the title for their research project to study extreme weather in Texas and Oklahoma.
11:07Northeastern Texas and south-central Oklahoma are precisely the areas we think of when we talk about Tornado Alley.
11:15But in the past 10 years or so, it has shifted eastward by up to 500 miles.
11:20Now, eastern Missouri, Arkansas, western Tennessee, Kentucky, northern Mississippi, and Alabama see more tornadoes.
11:28The storms of early 2023 are great proof that this trend is real.
11:33A violent tornado hit Rolling Fork, Mississippi, and another outbreak caused huge damage in the new Tornado Alley.
11:40Data from the past two years shows that large tornado outbreaks with multiple twisters from a single weather system are also moving eastward and becoming more frequent and intense.
11:50The tornado alley is shifting eastward mainly because of supercells, though strong thunderstorms with rotating updrafts create new tornadoes.
12:02Supercells form when warm, humid air near the ground interacts with cool, dry air higher up.
12:08You can say that we're living in the middle of a natural experiment.
12:12We see changes in the basic ingredients for severe storms.
12:16But we don't know how significant these changes are.
12:19Experts predict that supercell storms will become more frequent in the late winter and early spring and less common in the late summer and fall.
12:28The air in recent years is getting warmer and moister, and the interactions between air masses more and more common.
12:36Experts explain that the atmosphere is becoming more unstable and the Gulf of Mexico sends more water vapor into the southeastern U.S.
12:43All these factors fuel the storms.
12:46Research also shows that the so-called dry line which divides the wetter eastern U.S. from the drier western U.S. is shifting eastward, too.
12:55This line has traditionally fallen along the 100th meridian, but has moved about 140 miles east since the late 1800s.
13:04This shift can affect where storms form, as the dry line works as a boundary for convection, where warm air rises and cold air sinks, fueling storms.
13:14Milder winters we've seen recently also mean more opportunities for unstable air masses to interact and form supercells earlier in the year.
13:23It's tricky to predict how the situation will change and how dangerous it is, because we don't have that much data on how weathered patterns affect such short-lived events as tornadoes.
13:34The U.S. National Weather Service only began keeping tornado records in 1950, and they didn't catch many tornadoes in remote areas.
13:43Data shows that the number of days with tornadoes each year has decreased, but there's more tornado activity on those days when they do occur.
13:51The records also show that some years, tornadoes take the lives of up to 20 people across the U.S., and in other years, they take over 100 lives.
14:01But now, there are more people living in the paths of tornadoes because the U.S. population has more than doubled since 1950.
14:09And the southeast, where tornado activity could go up, has way more residents now.
14:14Texas and Oklahoma are well-prepared with tornado shelters, but areas in the southeast are less equipped.
14:22Plus, there are many mobile homes in the southeast which are vulnerable to windstorms.
14:28Tornadoes in this region often strike at night, and they are 2.5 times more likely to cause fatalities.
14:34We could possibly have more events like the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak.
14:41It hit the southern U.S. and lower Ohio Valley, and over just 15 hours, 87 tornadoes rushed through the area and caused massive trouble.
14:5157 people lost their lives across four states and 18 counties, and many others were injured.
14:58The tornadoes were fueled by strong low-pressure systems that brought record warmth.
15:03There were supercells and rotating winds that produced these violent tornadoes.
15:08Early on February 5th, a squall line developed from eastern Texas to Missouri and moved east.
15:15One of the most intense tornadoes traveled 122 miles over two hours.
15:21By the early morning of February 6th, the severe weather threat shifted to the eastern U.S.
15:26It caused wind damage as the cold moved out to the Atlantic, with snow and freezing rain from Iowa to Quebec.
15:34It ruined many homes and even swept some of them from their foundation, made mobile homes fly,
15:39blew many vehicles and tractor trailers off Interstate 40, and threw some cars on trees.
15:46There were wind gusts over 50 miles an hour from Arkansas to Indiana,
15:50hail the size of softballs, toppled trees, and power outages everywhere.
15:55Some areas were flooded because of heavy rains and melting snow.
15:59All this led to over a thousand flight cancellations at Chicago's O'Hare and disruptions at Toronto's airport.
16:07The data from scientists can help new areas of the U.S. prepare for more tornadoes coming their way.
16:13The people in authority will also need to improve community shelters and warning systems,
16:17and educate the locals on tornado safety.
16:21You can also get prepared by learning three basic rules.
16:24Get in, get down, and cover up.
16:27When you hear the warning for an upcoming tornado,
16:30get into the most interior room in your house and stay away from doors and windows.
16:35If you have a basement or an underground tornado shelter, hide there.
16:39If not, just be on the lowest floor possible.
16:41You can use whatever's at hand to protect yourself from debris.
16:46Clothing, pillows, blankets, a mattress, or a bulky table.
16:50Anything will do.
16:52There's a tip that says that the bathroom is the safest place to hide.
16:55It makes sense because those are mostly right in the center of homes.
17:00In March 2023, a man and his girlfriend in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, survived a tornado in their bathtub.
17:06It got thrown into the air but landed safely amid the wreckage of their mobile home.
17:12But there's actually nothing extra safe about being in a bathtub with a mattress.
17:17Closets and walk-in showers that are deep inside the building can also offer good protection.
17:22Don't use elevators.
17:24You can get trapped inside if there's a power outage.
17:26Stay in your shelter until you're sure the tornado threat is over.
17:30If you can, listen for updates from the National Weather Service, local radio, or TV.
17:37Multiple tornadoes can hit the same area, so it might not be safe to leave even after one has passed.
17:42When you do leave your shelter, be very careful.
17:45There could be flooding, debris, collapsing buildings, and blocked roads.
17:50Stay away from fallen power lines and puddles with wires in them.
17:53And don't use matches or lighters in case of gas leaks.
17:56Stay away from damaged buildings as they could collapse at any time.
18:02Being in a car during a tornado isn't much safer than being out in the open or in a parking lot.
18:07Many people get injured trying to drive away from storms.
18:11Tornadoes can produce hailstones the size of softballs and can easily smash a windshield.
18:16If you find yourself outside when a tornado hits, try to get inside any building you can find.
18:21If that's not possible, get as low as you can.
18:25Even a ditch or culvert can be safer than your vehicle.
18:29That's it for today.
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