Know that tune?
It is a beautiful song and my favorite one by Sonny James.
And who is Sonny James?
He had a famous country music band and he hailed from Hackleburg, which is located in NE Marion County in NW Alabama.
A very smooth-sounding band with great harmonizing somewhat like the country music group Alabama.
All of that to get to my point about a tragic tornado. Any tornado is bad, but when a powerful tornado hits a small town, the tragedy becomes ten-fold. It happened on this date in 1943, when two-thirds of Hackleburg was destroyed by a powerful F4 tornado that plowed through the little town at 1:30 in the morning. Everyone was asleep. At least 85 homes were destroyed with 17 business establishments also wiped out. Four people were killed and 60 were injured. All of the fatalaties were in homes. Hackleburg residents reported being awakened by an unscheduled freight train.
But it was no freight train.
Only 90 minutes later, an F3 tornado cut a 10-mile path across Northern Cullman County, mainly through the Vinemont area where Cullman Airport is located today. Two persons were killed and 14 injured. Two homes were destroyed and completely swept away and dozens of others were heavily damaged.
Such tragedies to small towns happen over and over. It also happened on this date in 1927 when the small town of Rock Springs, Texas was virtually obliterated. Over 95 percent of the town's buildings were destroyed and 72 died.
It is a beautiful song and my favorite one by Sonny James.
And who is Sonny James?
He had a famous country music band and he hailed from Hackleburg, which is located in NE Marion County in NW Alabama.
A very smooth-sounding band with great harmonizing somewhat like the country music group Alabama.
All of that to get to my point about a tragic tornado. Any tornado is bad, but when a powerful tornado hits a small town, the tragedy becomes ten-fold. It happened on this date in 1943, when two-thirds of Hackleburg was destroyed by a powerful F4 tornado that plowed through the little town at 1:30 in the morning. Everyone was asleep. At least 85 homes were destroyed with 17 business establishments also wiped out. Four people were killed and 60 were injured. All of the fatalaties were in homes. Hackleburg residents reported being awakened by an unscheduled freight train.
But it was no freight train.
Only 90 minutes later, an F3 tornado cut a 10-mile path across Northern Cullman County, mainly through the Vinemont area where Cullman Airport is located today. Two persons were killed and 14 injured. Two homes were destroyed and completely swept away and dozens of others were heavily damaged.
Such tragedies to small towns happen over and over. It also happened on this date in 1927 when the small town of Rock Springs, Texas was virtually obliterated. Over 95 percent of the town's buildings were destroyed and 72 died.
on April 12, 2006, 8:55 am
Since we are talking about history, can you tell me how was the reception of the first "computer" models as they came into play in the weather service. Were they welcomed gladly or were there naysayers that preferred the old maps and claimed the old way was better?
How about the use of radar, and satellite imagry? Were the forecasters in awe or were they simply disgusted and worried they would loose their job one day when the computers could do it for them?
Its a relatively slow day at work, so pardon my rambling.
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on April 12, 2006, 9:35 am
Maps used to e plotted and hand-drawn by individual forecast offices. This was a tremendous amount of repetition. Finally the facsimile network cam aboard. Even though the early fax charts were of poor quality, they saved a ton of work.
When I joined the USWB at Birmingham Airport in 1957, we had no radar, none, flat zero. There were times I would go upstairs to the FAA Control tower on top of the terminal building, crawl into their "radar shack) in the back of the tower. Ceiling was only 4 feet high soo you had to crawl or sit. I would take a pencil and sheet of onionskin paper and trace the radar echoes, go back downstairs and write a special weather statement for the weather wire.
Finally we got a used WSR-3 radar. An antique. Could not put the main console in the USWB Office so it was downstairs and 150 yards away on the airport. We had a small repeater in the office with a black rubber hood...had to look down in that hood to see where rain and storms were. During times of severe weather, one of us would go down to the main radar shack so we could do RHI (scan up and down the side of a thunderstorm to get the height) and report back to the office on a squawk box.
We finally got a satellite hookup that would give us a 10x10 pix every 15 or 30 minutes. Pix came out sticky and wet so we would lay it out to dry...but everyone would gather around and look at the pix.
Things today are light years (no, light-centuries) of those days.
Did not mean to write a book...but some of this will be in my book, "Scatterbrains and Scattered Showers" which I probably will not get around to until after I die!
Radar and satellite...a different story. I think both were welcomed with open arms and dancing in the streets.
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