STORM TRACK: September 30, 1986 (Volume 9 Issue 6)

FRONT SEAT AT A MINNESOTA TORNADO: I believe it's the most incredible video I've ever seen. What a view. Did you see that vertical motion on that vortex? It happened July 18, 1986 in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Two helicopter pilots were giving live traffic information when suddenly a thin funnel dropped to the ground on the horizon. They closed in on the tornado and filmed it from less than 3/4 of a mile away. They were lucky to survive as a small branch hit the rotor causing little damage. Awesome, and incredible! Both NBC and CNN television aired the video. Did you see it?

Bill Hoffmann sent in the details: "As you must have heard, we were visited by a tornado last Friday that took its time, put on a great show, and did little damage. I didn't see it because I was attend- ing a graduation ceremony indoors. We heard the sirens but the ceremony continued. It seemed like half the people in the metropolitan area saw the tornado. The other half could watch it live on the KARE-TV, the NBC outlet here. The helicopter was diverted to the tornado and circled it for maybe 10 to 15 minutes. The videotape is mind boggling showing close-ups of the funnel on the ground, whipping trees in a grove as if they were blades of grass. Trees were drawn in a circular pattern, like waves of grain, while occasionally single trees were sucked vertically into the funnel as if on a fast rising elevator."

HOW DANGEROUS IS HAIL? (The following is an excerpt from an article which appeared in the June, 1986 issue of NOAA's disaster preparedness report.) A violent hailstorm -- the worst to strike central China in a century--killed more than 100 people and injured 9,000 others the week of May 22, 1986, in Sichuan Province. Officials report more than 35,000 homes demolished and 7,700 acres of crops destroyed. The showers of ice hit cities of Yongchuan, Tongchang, and Dazu.