Tornado of 2020-04-19

Late in the evening of April 19, 2020 a severe storm came through our area.  We lost power for several hours and received several weather warnings on our phones.  One warning in particular, an extreme weather alert, corresponded to the sound of very high winds outside.  At the time, we did not appreciate the severity of the situation.  The next morning we discovered that a tornado had passed through our fields just to the south of the house.  The path of the tornado was quite evident by the track of broken and downed trees in pastures and over fences, culminating in a huge oak tree that fell on our neighbors house (Shirley's old house for those of a certain age and background).

A few days later, Jeffrey found a write-up (link) by the National Weather Service that described this event as an EF-1 tornado and included a text discussion, a storm track and several photographs of the damage they took from the road.  They classified the tornado as EF-1 based on one of our pine trees that they could see from the road.  They said:

• The tornado continued southeast before crossing Bouie Road. A softwood pine tree was observed to be completely stripped of branches, with the top twisted off giving the tornado its likely peak maximum strength at 105 mph, along with several snapped and uprooted softwoods in the vicinity.

This is my photo of that pine tree, taken the day after the storm.

A blowup of the top of the tree shows the lone remaining branch, with a few pine needles on it.

The oak trees near Ed's house, by the old dairy barn (now removed, only slab remains) took a severe beating.  There are many broken branches twisted around up in the tops of the trees and a good number of fallen branches.  

Looking back from the top of the hill, by Ed's house, one can see the path the tornado took across our fields,  Where once there was a solid wall of trees, there is now a gap of downed trees showing the tornado's path.

It turns out the sheep were bedded down on this field in the foreground.  I believe the tornado pretty much went right over them throwing quite a few small branches across the field.  There was no damage to the sheep, but one ewe collected a souvenir that she wore for the morning before it fell off.  The other sheep thought this ornament was quite strange and for the most part kept away from her.  

Several sections of fence were impacted by the downed trees that fortunately did not cause permanent damage, but had to be cleared.  There were also sections of our farm roads/paths that were impassable until we cleared away the downed trees and branches.  The top of this tree went into the fence, but was readily cleanable with a bit of chainsaw work.

This was a monster of a tree that stayed above the fence.  Jeffrey and I were eventually able to clear it, but it was a pretty good chore.  We were able to keep the big log from crushing the fence.  We used the tractor with grapple to move the sawed logs around, but if the log got much more than 6 ft long, the tractor couldn't lift them.

One other casualty of the storm was the grain bin that we haven't got installed yet.  It actually rolled over the electric fence and into the line of blueberry bushes.  Whitey dog is in the foreground.

As I write this, it is a few weeks past the storm.  We've taken care of the critical cleanup areas, but there are still a number of downed trees and branches that remain to be worked on.  One problematic area is the forage areas that we had just planted with peas, beans and millet about a week or so before the storm.  The plants had emerged and were a couple of inches tall.  Trying to get fallen branches and tree limbs out of these fields would cause more damage to the crop than just leaving them there until the end of the season.  The sheep will be able to eat around the fallen tree parts.