Jarrell, Texas EF-5 Wedge Tornado - May 27, 1997

[Worrell057]

At the end of this video is shown a small tornado that went through Cedar Park, Tx. following the F-5 tornado in Jarrell (both in Williamson County). The very end of the video shows a train the Cedar Park tornado blew off the track right before it gutted an Albertson's supermarket. The tornado then hit numerous houses in the Buttercup Creek subdivision (one man died of a heart attack) then jumped south into Travis County where it hit a number of houses killing one person there.

[djgarfield22]

i wish someone will put dateline minute by minute with this story

[Worrell057]

@djgarfield22 For a timeline of Central Texas tornadoes on that date, search for the wikipedia article called "1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak" for details.

[thatfiredguy29]

Nature At its finest

[AJTwister97]

@dragonseed87 Maybe someone could travel to Jarrell or news stations in Texas and find the video. Also, your fascination isn't morbid, it's quite normal. You're just extremely curious about it, like me since it's such an elusive find.

[coldbrewbeer]

I was in this storm and never saw a tornado. I could hear it but couldn't see it. Im 28, lived in Texas all my life and have never seen a tornado. how sad is that?

[evilwatermelon]

@coldbrewbeer thats funny because i live in washington state and ive seen a tornado here lol.

[AJTwister97]

@dragonseed87 I found that video and I wish to see more of it, but it seems video of Jarrell are nonexistent. I'm not saying they don't exist, just EXTREMELY hard to find. Any suggestions?

[dragonseed87]

There seems to be no more than the few clips we've all seen. I'd like to see more of the shot on the other video where the tornado is standing still and the lightning strikes several times. That one's scary as hell to me - it had to have been heading right for that person's house. I think my morbid fascination with this tornado comes from how different it is from any other tornado caught on tape. And how it happened just north of Austin - so freaking random.

[mrstexas777]

I was a reporter at the CBS affiliate and I covered this tornado in both Jarrell and Cedar Park. I also had a friend who lived in Lake Charles but was from Jarell. She lost her mom and two brothers in this storm. Really a sad memory for me and an unforgettable experience as a reporter.

[gabrielgcox]

@mrstexas777 Is there anyway you could pull strings to release some CBS footage on YouTube for the purpose of historical reference? With as phenominal and tragic as this storm was, there is a complete lack of information on the event.

[ColonelAngus75]

@mrstexas777

Were you the reporter seen in the footage of the tornado shot by KEYE just after it formed?

[DSFanatic2010]

I was born 2 days after that sucker tore through! No joke!

[TheMightykaz]

Thank you so much for posting this! I have been looking for years for a good Jarrell tornado video. Man this thing was a monster! Wow.

[Chives5150]

I first learned about this tornado while watching a 1997 episode of "Raging Planet". I haven't seen that many videos about this tornado, though. This, however, is a great video on it.

[PappaGunscho]

That funnel not only scraped off the pavement, but it dug 18 inches deep into the dirt at it's strongest point. There is a sign for Jarrell hanging on the wall of some bar in Port Aransas. The bartender told me it was found nearby after this storm.

[eav0567]

Great find. Looked almost two years for the same.

[dragonseed87]

How terrifying to watch the storm just sit there and take its time, and to think of all the people who are suffering inside of it. I don't see a reason this would be F6, it only seems to be an F5 that moved unnaturally slowly. I wish there were some kind of testimony from the people who experienced being in the direct path of that monster. Then again, anybody who was stuck in that thing for as long as it sat there probably died of shock if not anything else.

[TheMightykaz]

@dragonseed87 I have hear people say it was an f3 which I think is ridiculous. The movement and updraft sure looks like an f5 though. I know that is hard to judge but that thing just looks freakish. Joplin, Hackelburg, Philidelphia and Smithville 2011 were prob stronger. But who knows.

[TexasStormChasers]

@TheMightykaz "Who knows" is right. Personally, the reports from the Jarrell tornado are more impressive than anything I've heard. I was in Joplin right after the tornado, and it was terrible, but still not as bad as the Jarrell reports. The Joplin tornado and Jarrell tornado actually occurred in similar environments (very high instability/low wind shear), but the Jarrell tornado was an even more extreme case.

[TheMightykaz]

@TexasStormChasers I was there to. I live 40 min from Joplin. I was keeping track of the weather that day. The CAPE was as high as 5,500. That day it was very difficult to breath. I have a personal training studio and my well conditioned clients were doing terrible. I was watching radar on my i phone and I thought the storm looked very ominous. I commented about it. Just an odd formation don't you think? Did you make it east of Lowes in Joplin? That was the worst area I saw.

[TheMightykaz]

@TexasStormChasers The only tornado I heard with similiar reports was the Philidelphia tornado. The 2 to 3 feet deep trenches and like the jarrel tornado the scorched pavement. I think jarrell sucked up 8-12 inches of top soil. The most amazing photo I saw of Jarrell tornado was sucked up pavement on the outer edge of the tornado path. Possibly by intense sub-vortices at the edge? Do you think Joplin and Jarrell are extremely rare events?

[dragonseed87]

@TheMightykaz I'd love to hear elaborate testimony from people who survived the Jarrell tornado. Apparently one woman survived in her bath tub - how was that even possible in this storm? At work, when I was checking a man's ID, I was shocked to see he was from Jarrell. I was dying to ask him about it, but my conscience luckily took over and decided that would be extremely disrespectful. Oh well - I guess the mystery makes it even creepier.

[dragonseed87]

@TheMightykaz So, I did a hell of a lot of digging and finally found some home videos of the Jarrell tornado. If you type in Tornado With 4 Twisters and watch the video with the same name, the last minute or so focuses on Jarrell and has the closest shots I've seen - even the infamous "Oh God, please make it go away.." vid. It honestly doesn't look like F5 winds up close. I'm starting to understand why people would think it's an F3. Seems eerily docile....

[gabrielgcox]

@dragonseed87 great find! I hadn't seen that home video before. they are much closer than any other vantage point I've seen on the storm. I wish the video didn't cut out in the middle of the story though!

[Worrell057]

@dragonseed87 Oh, it was an F5 alright. I was one of the very first emergency responders to arrive in the subdivision where most of the damage occurred (I was a Deputy Sheriff). The tornado was so very large and was moving so slowly across the terrain, maybe 10 mph. It tore asphalt right off the road and bark off the trees. Nothing but concrete slabs left. Not only 27 people killed (some whole families), but hundreds of cattle. Took days to clear it and let people back in.

[TexasStormChasers]

@dragonseed87 There is no F6/EF6 rating. Because the (Enhanced) Fujita scale is a DAMAGE scale, and because a '5' rating means complete, maximum destruction, it is not possible to attain anything higher.

[dragonseed87]

@TexasStormChasers I'm well aware of this. What I was trying to convey was that it didn't look like what we like to think of as a hypothetical "super" tornado, and the winds measured weren't even high end F5 - its sheer destruction seems to be just from how slowly it moved. I'm not an expert on tornadoes, but I'm not sure how the Moore 99 one isn't considered the worst ever - every video I watch of it is just nightmarish. Even Reed Timmer doesn't consider it the worst.

[afrosheenqueen]

Thanks for uploading. It is hard to find.

[Happyhooves1]

I live right near the town, and it was VERY scary.

[08sunbabe]

i did a class project on this tornado

[MedelProductions]

This needs more views!!! 5/5

[TheKristen76]

wow they said they almost made that tornado an EF6

[miche1df]

@TheKristen76 The EF scale wasn't introduced until 2007, and it doesn't go about EF5; the old F scale did, but the ratings of F6 and above were never used because it's based on damage, and F5 winds cause nearly complete destruction.