[silver_pilate]

Yeah...it was a bad night here as well. There was one supercell which spawned 6 tornadoes across a four hour period. The thing just wouldn't fall apart.

One tornado dropped west of the town of Happy about 30 mi. south of here and took out the southern edge of town. It destroyed numerous homes and demolished the First Baptist Church killing two people and critically injuring two more with many wounded. The first tornado (actually the second from this storm) was a large wedge tornado, but it thankfully went back up before town as it would have taken the entire town out. The second twister was a stove-pipe which hit town. From the damage and pictures, I'd say about an F-4. Maybe a weak F-5.





Crazy thing is I passed through Happy about 20 minutes before the twister did. I woke up with a feeling in the morning. I've had it before, and it always ends up being right. Can't really describe it. I guess when you've grown up with this stuff you get a feel for the weather. I left early for home knowing it would get bad, and luckily I left when I did.

The rest of the tornados dropped over open areas with minimal damage to traffic and roads.

Luckily nothing in the immediate area where I'm living and only one twister about 15 miles to the west of where my parents live.

This is the first fatal tornado in the TX panhandle since 1995 when a twister killed one person on the southern edge of Amarillo.

--nathan