Cordell Oklahoma Tornado - May 22, 1981

[glynners2006]

0.39 looks pretty cool..

[pytko3]

The tornado at 0:31 looks like the one from "The Wizard of Oz" 1939.

[manifoldspace]

Where did you get all of the footage from? I've only seen the ending segment of it.

[MissMaddy881]

i saw a clip of this tornado once. i think it was in this docu that i had about tornadoes as a kid. it was called 'twister: fury on the plains'.

[NismoDJ20]

This tornado looks so sweet. 0:33 is GREAT

[Dac719]

It does look a lot like the Wizard of Oz tornado at the end of this video. Makes me wonder if the tornado used for the film wasn't real tornado footage used for the background. Who says long skinny bendy twisters only happen once in history? Perhaps the first one was in Kansas in 1939 (hint, hint) and this is the second one in Oklahoma in 1981. Perhaps there were more before then.

[RoSs3897]

@Dac719 it became long and skinny because the rear flank down draft pushed the bottom of the twister away

[MissMaddy881]

@Dac719 unfortunately, the tornado in the wizard of oz was fake.

[Dac719]

@MissMaddy881 I don't know. A lot of people told me it was fake. But, the whole thing...the storm clouds...the strong winds...hats, doors and windows blowing away...it all looked too real to be fake.

[smore94]

@Dac719 yea it was all done with some smoke, dust and a little brain power to use a nylon as the body of the tornado, pretty smart actually. I think there was a film documentary about the movie that they explained it in once.



[KWEKOSHKUKI12]

poor cheyenne arapaho people...

[Angelxonxthexwind]

Well duh!IT'S AN OLD VIDEO RETARD!

[Theguyof93]

It kind of looks like the one from the wizard of oz towards the end I think

[mda037]

This was the tornado that Howard Bluestein and his crew from OU tried to deploy the TOtable Tornado Observatory (TOTO) without success.

Also, this was the day that Clinton, OK was hit twice by two differnt tornadoes.

Later this same day, a very large (F4?) wedge tornado was well documented near Binger, OK.

5-22-81 was a great day to chase storms in Oklahoma!!

[dmitch86]

Nope, that was in 1985 in Arkansas.

[serpentisma]

you're both wrong. may 3rd, 1999 topped them all.  and the history books already point that one out.

[dmitch86]

You're thinking of the Doppler on Wheels. TOTO was the first real attempt at deploying an instrument package inside a tornado. "Dorothy" from the movie Twister was based on the TOTO from the 1980's

[mda037]

You are right that 5/3/99 was the largest outbreak of tornadoes in Oklahoma history.

I was just saying that 5/22/81 ... which this video is from ... was also a great, productive chase day with a number of tornadoes documented.

[dragonridley]

Just because May 3, 1999 was a good chase day doesn't mean there weren't others.

[Yutzwagon404]

it looks very weird at the end.

[olivialandnative]

i can see why it's called the "wizard of oz" tornado. so pretty

[CharginChuckBro]

when the tornado is sidways.

[jamesmdyer]

What are the dynamics that produce this type of tornado?

[jaybienweb]

I think it was a shift in the wind direction that made it all bendy like that. Great vid.

[WillieDines1]

AC :), your videos just keep getting better and better :), thank you for uploading this new version :)

Another well deserved top rating to the collection :) Willie