The National Weather Service has declared that the damage in Michigan City and environs yesterday was caused by straight-line winds, not tornadoes. But I wonder, did they see these bleachers? I don’t see how straight-line winds could possibly have caused this. Watch the whole video to understand why I say that:
It’s those wooden posts that seem like the “smoking gun” to me. Here are some photos that make the same point:
I could be wrong, of course. The NWS certainly knows more about this stuff than I do. But I wonder if their inspectors even saw these particular bleachers. I’d love to know how straight-line winds could blow large, heavy metal bleachers into a set of wooden spikes — at an impact velocity of 100 mph or whatever it was, and with 50 yards’ worth of forward momentum — without bending the spikes.
Looking at the damage, it seemed clear to me that the bleachers had landed on the spikes from above, coming from a vertical, not horizontal, direction. I’m not convinced by the NWS’s statement that my interpretation was incorrect.
Via Google Maps, here’s a satellite view of the location of the bleachers in question. The red line indicates the path they took:
Closer view here. Wider view here. Map of Washington Park here.
More photos of the bleachers after the jump.
August 24th, 2006 at 11:16:35 pm
It’s a street… it’s not a busy street.
Nice.
August 24th, 2006 at 11:25:36 pm
Totally off topic, but there’s an interesting review of the Spike Lee movie on Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2148102
August 25th, 2006 at 1:24:24 am
The bleachers are light aluminum for the most part, im sure strong winds from any direction could cause this to happen. Either that or the breakup up between Tom Cruise and Paramont has caused a rip in the fabric of Time, and is forming a BlackHole sucking the life out of the Planet, who knows really :)
August 25th, 2006 at 1:31:59 am
The bleachers are light aluminum for the most part, im sure strong winds from any direction could cause this to happen
Perhaps so, but it isn’t the twisting of the aluminum that I’m most impressed by — it’s the fate of those wooden spikes. Surely, a large mass of bleachers, even light aluminum ones, moving horizontally across (or just above, and parallel to) the ground, propelled by 100 mph straight-line winds, would knock over, or at least bend over, small wooden spikes in their path, rather than simply landing on top of them while barely affecting their “lean” at all.
I just don’t see how the bleachers could have landed in that particular position, without damaging the wooden spikes, if they were blown by straight-line winds. It seems for all the world like a tornado picked them up and dropped them.
August 25th, 2006 at 2:18:29 am
I’m not saying it was not a tornado, but I will say that I have seen similar patterns from the straight Santa Ana winds here in California. Specifically, I watched a set of bleachers once break loose, tumble and land a football field away. There were no posts for them to land on, but they were doing somersaults that sent them fully airborn, which, if it happened here, could have produced the scene you happened upon.
August 25th, 2006 at 2:20:17 am
Hmm… good point, lexicon.
August 25th, 2006 at 7:21:35 am
Does the NWS definition of “straight line winds” necessarily mean that the wind was simply blowing in one direction? Or, is it that they use that term when there’s a nasty storm with wind that they can’t verify as a tornado? It could be that these “straight line winds” were swirling quite a bit, but just not with enough rotation to qualify it as a tornado.
Just rampant speculation from not-a-weather-nerd.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:03:54 am
Little Katrina nugget:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14510763/
August 25th, 2006 at 9:58:01 am
You’re wrong Loy. I have more experiance with this type of storm. There was no Tornado!
August 26th, 2006 at 8:38:26 pm
Yeah, it was pretty interesting on the south side of MC that night, though our Chili’s did pretty good, considering…..
August 27th, 2006 at 5:41:24 pm
I was just visiting today. From the looks of the trees in your area, it was a tornado. Some trees fell in one direction and a couple hundred yards down, they had all fallen in the other direction. Looks like a twisting motion to me. I live in the heart of Tornado Alley-looks like a typical very small tornado.