Tornado Strikes Downtown Gaylord: More than 40 Injured and Fatality
A devastating tornado swept through Gaylord, MI today. Lot of damage,more than 40 injured and at least 1 dead.
Heart goes out to the entire community. Hoping for the best for everyone affected.
https://apnews.com/article/tornadoes-michigan-detroit-weather-d49ca0c7505cd7c3eda55132ea6eca5d
Wow yeah that looks bad. Can only hope the rest of the community is safe and don't have irreparable damages to their homes..
I live AA adjacent and have been getting semi-warnings for about 3 days. I hope that they are as all right as can be.
Unusual place for a tornado to say the least —- and not a weak one either as I guess (purely a guess but others are speculating similarly based on video and damage) this will be an F2 or even an F3.
Also the radar loops on this storm! Classic supercell and hook echo, looked like the type of radar presentation you’d see on a storm in Oklahoma or Kansas.
Definitely a once in a generation type storm for Northern Michigan. Back in 1956 there was an F4 that went from Onekama to Suttons Bay. Same day as the F5 in Grand Rapids/Hudsonville.
I strangely had 2 tornado experiences in Leelanau County, MI as a kid. One was on Lake Michigan that I could watch from our house as it danced on the water. The other hit at night and I could hear it. Some buildings moved off their foundation and lot of wind damage, fallen trees, etc. but not catastrophic. I was scared as hell that night and remember jumping in the bathtub.
I was also in Oklahoma City in a hotel when one hit there in the middle of the night but fortunately stayed out of the city. I slept in the tub that night too.
I can only imagine what it is like to experience it directly.
Lets hope it's a once in a lifetime storm. I'm not so sure it will be... They're only getting worse all over the world.
I expected that the frequency of tornados was increasing, but when I did a (very quick) look at what those who study tornadoes have to say, that does not necessarily seem to be the case. However some trends related to tornadoes do appear to be changing.
“We show that national annual frequencies of tornado reports have remained relatively constant, but significant spatially-varying temporal trends in tornado frequency have occurred since 1979. Negative tendencies of tornado occurrence have been noted in portions of the central and southern Great Plains, while robust positive trends have been documented in portions of the Midwest and Southeast United States. “
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0048-2.pdf
“Will global warming cause more tornadoes? If so, that has not happened yet. Brooks et al. compiled data on the occurrence of tornadoes in the United States between 1954 and 2013 to determine if and how tornado numbers have changed. Although the authors saw no clear trend in the annual number of tornadoes, they did see more clusters of tornadoes since the 1970s. In other words, there has been a decrease in the number of days per year with tornadoes but an increase in the number of days with multiple tornadoes. Why this clustering effect has occurred is not clear.”
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1257460
There is definitely reason to be worried about more heat waves, droughts and heavy precipitation events. The science is less clear on whether we should (at least on a national basis) be worried about more tornadoes.
Heating a substance will make its atoms and molecules move faster. This happens if the the substance is a solid, liquid or gas.
More heat in the atmosphere = More energy in the atmosphere = Stronger storms
The weather will absolutely get worse. All aspects. Significantly.
For example, try boiling a pot of water and see what happens. Then imagine a much more gradual experience happening in the atmosphere over the past 150 years. It will begin to move more at a higher temperature.
To argue this would be to argue very very basic middle/high school science. We know exactly what will happen with any temperature increase to any substance including the atmosphere.
Or to put it very simply. Reread the Three Little Pigs.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this isn't a once in a generation storm. These types of events are going to be happening more frequently and only getting worse.
Oh my! Popcorn.gif
Someone sent me photos of the aftermath and yikes - between this and the Blue Lakes Fire, it has been an unkind month for folks in that general area. Hopefully, those affected get a respite from this so they can begin to pick up and start rebuilding.
I have been going up there my whole life (since the 70s) and have a house about 15 miles from Gaylord. This is horrible all around. I pray for all.
Yikes.
I am not alone in recognizing several of the spots involved; Gaylord is a regular stop for us, as we pass through every time we visit family, and sometimes it's a "spend a bit of time" place as well. I see we have mgobloggers already on-thread who are a lot closer; you've probably stood next to affected people in line at Walmart or bought meals at the Culvers.
A lot of people hurt. Could be much worse, frankly. But that's no comfort for the one who died, or the ones who know them.
I stop at the Walmart and Meijer in Gaylord when I am going to Mackinac or the U.P. because they seem to stock better than the stores in Southeast Michigan, and I am familiar with many of the places in the photos and videos the local media has posted. The people in Gaylord are incredibly nice and sincere residents, and I hope the ones who are injured recover quickly, and hope even more the community gets back on their feet soon. It is heartbreaking that one person has passed away due to the tornado.
fired up after the front passed a sister's house, no damage to her. but yeah, big damage in gaylord and extremely rare up north. i would post pictures if i knew how to get them from texts.
here is a link from a local source: https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/at-least-one-person-killed-during-tornado-in-gaylord
EDIT: and adding this story with more pictures
Fascinating to see the real-time photos and video, but I'd really prefer that people take cover.
I have seen and been somewhat close to a couple of ater spouts which are basically water tornados. I think you can usually easily see where they’re headed
I don't know, man. The things can change tracks pretty quickly. I say if you can see it and the debris flying in the air it's time to take cover.
EDIT: Here's a track from a twister in Benningon, Kansas. How unlucky to be in the spot that gets hit twice!! My god.
if it wasn't so serious you could hear chris berman narrating in the old ESPN days, 'there he goes, WHOOP!, now he's coming back the other way!'
Live in town, and watched it go right past my work. Luckily the family all made it home, and sleeping soundly even with no power. Both kids have friends whose houses suffered tremendous damage. Start to help a long clean up tomorrow morning. Keep everyone up here in your thoughts, we can all use it!
So sorry, yet so glad to hear you and your family are safe. Take care, my friend.
I just saw some of the pictures on MLive of the damage. Just wow. You and yours are definitely in my thoughts.
I grew up in Gaylord, and my mom and uncle still live there. My mom took safety in a building when the sirens started, and thankfully she and her car are fine. Her house is in rural Gaylord and avoided damage, but she and the rest of the city are without electricity. My uncle was working in Panera, and the employees safely took cover in the interior of the building. All the windows blew out of the building, though. Jimmy John's and Jiffy Lube are demolished. Dozens and dozens of cars were flipped.
Thanks for posting and glad to hear they are safe. Just not something you are expecting in rural Michigan. It had to be terrifying.
There are several accounts now of people reacting quickly and intelligently to urge people to take cover in protected parts of buildings. They saved some lives.
Just saw that Panera on Fox 2. Glad they are safe.
>strikes gaylord
I think that's a hate crime nowadays
Seriously? WTF? Do they have empathy on your planet?
Yeah, you're right, not appropriate.
I've said many an inappropriate thing in my day. Humor is a fickle beast. Take care.
I chuckled. Sometimes people use humor to deal with difficult situations. You didn’t poke fun at the people or the damage in Gaylord, so I thought it was ok. But maybe wait a day or two next time.
The tornadic storm also produced hail the size of hen eggs just to the north of the vortex. That also caused considerable damage.
It reported dropped baseball sized hail in Posen. Not sure if thats 100% true or not.
Death toll in Gaylord now stands at two.
Channel 17 in GR carried the Gaylord news conference a short while ago, the State Police spokesman said a second fatality has been discovered and that the injured list is still at 44 people plus one missing.
Without a doubt, that was one very powerful tornado. Like others said earlier here and on various news reports, it's quite possible that post-storm analysis reveals it was a F3 storm. So many destroyed homes and businesses, so many vehicles flipped around like they were toys, including a 32,000 lb truck that was overturned.
https://twitter.com/viscount_news/status/1527781865465204738?t=c-VMTFa_C9lKpUCSrysB7Q&s=09
We were there Janus last week - I t bought to my self I’m surprised Maurice’s is still open a ladies clothing store. Well it looks like its gone now. Very tragic but could have been way worse as it’s very busy area
if that trailer was loaded it would indeed be around 32,000 lbs. looks like something is in it, maybe sand or gravel.
buddy of mine is camping in gaylord, did not get injured, says it is torn up baaad. very sorry to hear about the loss of life.
Occasionally Michigan will get these more violent plains type tornadoes. Luckily the environment for these higher end tornadic supercells don't occur that often in Michigan. This guy was lucky! https://twitter.com/wxkaitlin/status/1527773465813700610
Stupid and Lucky. Geebus. But then, on the other side of the street, even more stupid and not lucky. I often think a lot of people lack situational awareness, that is certainly the case here. Incredible post.