Thanks for the e-mail and here goes. The most exciting weather event we
have here in North Texas is the Tornado. We have had two really bad
tornadoes hit Wichita Falls in recent years. The first was in 1964 the
northwest part of town, doing little damage, but then hitting Sheppard AFB.
Sheppard is north of town and the tornado destroyed the base hospital and
then dissipated as it moved toward Oklahoma. The second, and much stronger
tornado, hit us April 10th, 1979. It touched down right at 6PM just to the
southwest of town. It was so big that the weather spotter who first saw it
didn't know it was a tornado. He thought the cloud had touched the ground.
The tornado killed 48 people and destroyed over 3000 homes. It was the
first tornado that Doppler radar tracked and received storm wind speeds
from. Wind speeds were clocked at over 250mph. There are still places in
the southwest part of Wichita Falls that have not been rebuilt. Just the
concrete in the ground remains. The tornado was classified as an F4. Almost
as destructive as you can get for a tornado. As you can well guess, people
around here really watch the skies when a tornado watch or warning is in
effect.
We have been really low on our water as well. But not that the spring
rains have hit us we are starting to get water back into our lakes. Wish us
luck.
Our winters up here can be cold but the cold weather does not stay long.
Usually only a couple of days and then another warm up. The coldest
temperature ever recorded in Wichita Falls was -12. The hottest was in June
1980...117F. Warm hu?
Our average temperature in the winter is about 54F and in the summer 98F.
Winds average about 11mph year round from the south ( in the spring, summer
and fall) and from the north in the winter. Well, it is time for me to get
busy and get the weather ready for 5pm.
Good luck on you project,
Skip McBride
-----Original Message-----
From: Gema Padgett [SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 10:33 PM
Subject: your weather
Hello, We are a fourth grade class at Willie Brown Elementary in Mansfield,
Texas. www.brownelementary.com
We are using the internet to contact different people in different regions
of Texas to find out about their weather. We have been in contact with
NBC5's meteorologist Rebecca Miller in Dallas/Ft. Worth. She has given us
input on weather in our area. We are now contacting different NBC
meteorologists in Texas. We would like for you to give us some insight to
your weather. We are sure it is very different than ours. What important
weather events have happened around your area?
So far we have researched the Galveston storm of 1900, the ice storm in
Texarkana 2000, the 1995 hail storm in Ft. Worth, the Houston floods last
year, and the tornadoes in Ft. Worth, Arlington and Mansfield last year.
We would really like to add to our research. Thanks for your help,
Mrs. Padgett and class