The worst was 1979 - an F5 tornado in Wichita Falls, Texas. It started as three funnels on the rural, southwest side of town that steadily moved towards each other to form one massive funnel that was a mile wide on the ground. The funnel stayed on the ground for 8 miles heading east northeast across the southern side of the city. Wichita Falls is a city of about 100,000 residents (Sheppard Air Force Base is just north of it) that lies less than 20 miles south of the Red River (Oklahoma border) in North Texas.
Started out as three funnels.
Became one, mile-wide funnel.
We had slab-parties (have a keg delivered and set up on one of the many empty slab foundations in those neighborhoods) for months.
One of the weirdest was in Dallas in the mid-1980s. Watched a massive, pitch-black front roll in when the temperature was in the high 70s to 80 degrees. It rolled over us very fast and within 15 minutes the temperature was down to the upper 30s.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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