Weather History

This Day In Weather History

In 1986, extremely powerful severe thunderstorms slammed South Dakota, Northeast Nebraska and Iowa. Parts of Central and Eastern South Dakota were clobbered by baseball and softball sized hail, as well as three F2 tornadoes that caused around $500,000 damage. An F3 tornado with a track 40 miles long but only around 75 yards wide, crossed the Nebraska/Iowa border 6 miles south of Sioux City. It caused around $50 million damage in Dakota County, Nebraska and $500 million damage in extreme Western Iowa. In fact, 6 tornadoes struck Western and Central Iowa. Most of Iowa was raked by 60 to 80 mph winds. The winds derailed 18 trailer flat cars of a west bound freight train near Boone, Iowa. Sixteen of the cars fell 187 feet into the Des Moines River.

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In 1819, a small but intense hurricane struck the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama. In Mississippi, Bay Saint Louis and Pass Christian took direct hits where most houses were leveled. The exact total of fatalities is unknown, but 41 crew of a sailing ship were killed. At the time, it was considered the worst hurricane in 50 years. These were two of the areas over which Hurricane Camille, which achieved a Category 5 rating, would cause catastrophic destruction and kill 259 people on August 17th, 1969.
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