Twisted

For the fourth time in just a matter of five weeks, a tornado developed near or in a major populated area.  From Raleigh and Tuscaloosa in April, to Joplin in May, to Springfield on Wednesday nature has torn asunder   development, property, and lives in the matter of a few seconds of time in a few powerful tornadoes that have unfortunately struck at the wrong place and the wrong time.

For every umpteen tornadoes that "harmlessly" dance across open land in the Plains, damaging little more than farms and barns (not quite unlike the one on the left that hit Indiana last week), there are those few tornadoes that the locals never, ever forget.

Fargo, 1957.  Super Outbreak of 1974.   St. Peter, 1998.   Greensburg, 2007.   There are countless other tornadoes throughout our nation's history that have wiped towns off the map or have caused millions of dollars in damage.    This year has been different, if only because of more tornadoes hitting the wrong place at the wrong time.    One of the years that has come to comparison to this year for tornadoes was 1974...1953 might be a better comparison, if only because of the major outbreaks that occurred in the Southeast and then in the Midwest and Great Lakes during mid to late Spring...and because of the populated centers those tornadoes hit (Waco, Flint, Worcester).   It had been nearly 60 years since major population centers had been hit so close together -- and it could be decades more before it happens again in the same year like it did this year.

For a part of the world like ours that experiences very few intense tornadoes (EF3 or higher), the images of destruction such as the ones we've seen in Joplin are other-worldly and we can almost think "it can't happen here" because it is rare for us to get strong tornadoes.     However, what happened in Springfield yesterday does go to show that in the right atmospheric conditions an intense tornado can develop in places where it is not that common and harm life and property in an instant.