The Cyclone of Rye Cove

[redtiger 1,742]

Thought some of you might find this as interesting as I did,

 

 

 

[GMan 3,569]

Interesting!  Thanks!

[1inStripes 932]

Thanks for posting that redtiger. 

[redtiger 1,742]

My wife stumbled across it and showed it to me. I knew the school house was hit but i didn't know it was destroyed like that, there was nothing left.

[1inStripes 932]

Yes and they had a terrible time getting kids to hospitals because of the poor quality of roads  in the area at that time, plus all the rain.  It was a muddy mess from what I read.  They were finally able to get kids on trains at Clinchport if I am not mistaken and into Kingsport for treatment.  A woman I grew up near lost the use of her right arm from the injuries she received from the Cyclone.  Ive tried ready what I could find about it over the years.

[Beamerball 566]

Much more tornadoes have occurred around here the many people think and some quite strong.  Mountains don't block anything that for sure.  At best the terrain can disrupt flow of a storm itself or the inflow for a strong tornado, but not always.  Often time its just they enter a more stable atmosphere either from nightfall (although some of the worst are at night) or earlier rains/clouds keeping instability down.  One of the worst, and most fearful outbreaks for myself and others was the April 2011 event.  That's the one that produced the Glade Spring tornado.  That was an overcast day and still the dynamics were strong enough to overcome it, and if we had seen more sunshine that day it could have been much worse.  We've had plenty of weaker ones but certainly been some stronger like the Glade Spring tornado, rated an EF3 and three quarters a mile wide, so it was a strong one by all standards.  The '74 outbreak produced an F3 in Washington County, killing one person.  Reports of a violent, strong tornado ripped through parts of Lee, Scott,, and Wise Counties in '44.  They give it an "F3" rating based on accounts and photos.  Injured over 30 people.  The Rye Cove tornado was given an F2 rating.  Washington County has had several of F2 and one EF2 rating in Russell County near Rosedale in '09.  The outbreak of March '33 hit middle and eastern TN hard.  Nashville was one of the harder hit areas in middle TN and then those storms came across eastern TN.  One tornado dropped in Campbell County, TN (which borders Claiborne to the west) and that tornado tracked into Claiborne County, TN (which borders Lee County to the southwest).  They gave that one an F4 rating, the highest I've seen any given in the immediate area.  It killed 12 people and injured over a 160.  Another dropped an tornado across Hancock, Hawkins, and Sullivan Counties and ended somewhere around Bristol it seems, they gave it an F3 rating and it killed about 15 or so and over 200 injured along its path(s).

 

Never ignore the warnings and know that they do strike in whatever terrain.  This is one of the worst places for such.  They don't get trapped in here like some may think, they'll move along with the storm as it goes regardless, but the problem is 1: most of our storms are high precipitation cells, unlike in the plains and southwest which are drier, so ours are usually rain wrapped and harder to see and 2: not only rain obscuring visibility but the terrain hinders distant open views like you'll see out west so when/if we see them its about too late or there's very little time to react.

[redtiger 1,742]

We get a lot of small ones too. One hit about 150 yards from where im living now a couple of weeks ago. Probably 50 trees uprooted or snapped in half. No one injured but it tore through a neighborhood of about 10-12 homes, luckily it didn't hit any homes.