http://www.homefacts.com/tornadoes/Texas/Brazos-County/College-Station.html

Only 2 F3s and nothing stronger...interesting. Curious which one was that really long track tornado on the map.



[This message has been edited by FlyRod (edited 2/7/2014 1:36p).]

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Curious which one was that really long track tornado on the map.

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What do you mean? It was the 1954 F-3.

Good info. Thanks for sharing.

What's really cool is if you zoom out and look at the whole state. The longer tracks almost all orient NE-SW. I wonder why that is. Someone summon Shel. Meh, I'll tweet him!

http://www.homefacts.com/tornadoes/Texas/Brazos-County/College-Station.html

Looked at Jarrell in 1997 but I couldn't make
Saragosa (mid-late 80's) come up.

It's not very accurate, there was a tornado in the Cullpepper Manor area of Bryan about 10 years ago. It hit the houses just down the street from my house and was an F1.

Not seeing the one in the early 90s near the airport. There was a baseball game at Olsen, 100s of witnesses.

Not very accurate at all. The downtown fort worth tornado is not there. I lived through that one. Wonder what their source data is?

One of those in the 1950's left a tree with a 2x4 or 4x4 through it back behind the old dairy cattle center somewhere. I've been back there to see it but it's been years. I doubt I could find it again.

I have a family member that worked for a news station in Austin who was on scene right after the Jarrell tornado. She was pretty shell-shocked by what she saw.

Having read detailed accounts of what exactly happened to the victims at Jarrell, I would have been pretty shell-shocked too.

Yeah, the news crew actually discovered a body that had not been found yet. They got there really soon after and rescue/recovery efforts were not complete yet.

It was pretty hard for them.

Some of the following links might help.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/choosedates.jsp?statefips=48%2CTEXAS
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/sp3/plot.php
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/

There are a lot missing from the graphic. I can think of two off the top of my head.

There is one which hit near Sul Ross Elementary in Bryan on a Saturday night in October, sometime around 2000 give or take. F0 or F1 IIRC. It tore up some roof tops, ripped down the street lights at Carter Creek & Villa Maria, and damaged the Shell station.

Then there is the one which pretty much went down Texas Ave. in College Station. It damaged the Firestone at Texas & Brentwood, tore up the McDonald's sign, which has never been fixed, and then beat up on the Doux Chene Apartments.

There is a reason the Jarrell tornado is often referred to as the "Dead Man Walking" tornado, an old Indian nickname for a multi-vortex tornado.

Multi-vortex tornadoes are pretty much the worst kind possible and are usually the ones which produce the most fatalities. A recent one was the 2013 El Reno tornado, which had numerous sub-vortexes with winds close to 300mph. Even though the NWS only classifies it as a EF3 because it did so little structural damage (EF rating is based on damage, not measured wind speed), the wind speeds recorded were well into the EF5 category. It was also 2.6 miles wide, the largest tornado ever recorded. This is the storm which killed Tim Samaras, his son Paul, and Tim's longtime chase partner Carl Young. (Anyone who watched Storm Chasers on Discovery would remember Tim and Paul.)

I arrived at the Double Creek Estates in Jarrell within about 10 mins of the tornado hitting.

I haven't written much about it publicly but posted one of the photos I took on the anniversary a couple of years ago. The memories of the victims, their families and the rescue workers are still indelibly engraved on my mind.

https://www.matthewcrawley.com/2011/05/may-27-1997-jarrell-texas/

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Looked at Jarrell in 1997 but I couldn't make
Saragosa (mid-late 80's) come up.

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The Saragosa tornado should be the F4 5-22-1987 track on I-10 that lists Pecos/Balmorhea/Lindsay. Saragosa wasn't much of a town when it hit, much less after, and probably isn't big enough for the reporting purposes of that map. I could have sworn it would be an F5. We were living in Pecos at the time, and my wife was an RN working at the hospital. She could tell some horrible stories of that night from the ER.

I drove a route that regularly took me through Saragosa to Balmorhea, and the first time going through there was quite shocking, to say the least. Literally a town that was blown off the map. What really made the fatality/injury count on that storm so high was the fact that a Headstart graduation program was going on at the time it hit.

I'm actually sitting across from Sul Ross in my in-laws driveway right now reading this. Their house was hit in that 2000 tornado. Not a lot of damage, but still kinda scary when it happens cause you never know.

One went thru the quad in 72 or 73. Living in Utay Hall and remember the sound. Several trees downed and lot of debris. Roof damage. Those damn dorms could withstand a F-5 or a direct nuke hit.

December 29th, 3:45 pm, 2009. Corner of southwood and HArvey.

[This message has been edited by studioone (edited 2/7/2014 9:14p).]

South wood and Harvey? that must have been a really bad one. Wiped it right off the map.