And there I was,
You'd never believe it,
I thought I was going to die!!!
The most climatic experience that I remember from my years on the farm was the day the tornado struck in June 1956 when I was 15. I was in the hayloft of our barn with several younger siblings and a visiting cousin.
šŖļø Preface ā
My name is Barbara, and I was born in May 1941. I am the eldest of eleven children composed of six girls and five boys.
This photo of me was taken in the Spring of 1956 when I was nearly 15 and about to finish my Sophomore year in high school.
I live on a 110-acre cherry and dairy farm in the upper part of Lower Michigan, four miles west of Traverse City (shown on the map to the left).
Our farm was started by my great grandfather in 1873 and since the 1980's has been designated as a Michigan Centennial Farm (one that has been in the same family for over 100 years).
The photo below of our farm was taken in 1948, eight years before the tornado hit. The trees in the cherry orchard in this photo were fairly young, and they are stillĀ not fully mature in 1956.
1948: Aerial photo of our farm located four miles west of Traverse City, Michigan
I have labeled most of the main farm structures. The only one not visible in the photo above is the silo which is located behind the hay barn on its southern side.
1984 (28 years after the tornado): The hay barn and its attached silo. The large east-facing doors are on the right.
In addition to the cherry crop, we raise 20-30 head of dairy cattle. In the pleasant months, the cattle live in the farm pasture, which they eat for food. They come into the barn in the early morning and evening to be milked in the milking area under the straw barn.
During the winter months, the cattle are housed in the basement beneath the hay barn and straw barn. There they stay until the winter snow melts, where by then their heads are almost touching the ceiling as the mixture of their manure and the straw used for bedding gradually accumulates beneath them.
On the farm, we grow a hay* crop, which is cut and shaped into bales of hay that we store in the hayloft* of our hay barn for food for the cattle during the winter.
* A hayloft is a space above a barn, stable or cowshed, traditionally used for storage of hay or other fodder for the animals below. Hay is a plant that has been cut, dried, and stored for animal feed. Many plants can be used as hay, but alfalfa and clover are the most common.
We also grow acres of grain (wheat and oats). The grain is cut and threshed in a farm machine which removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. The stalks are the straw that we use for animal bedding, and it is stored in our straw barn. We store the grain seeds in the first flour of our granary for later grinding into food for the cattle during the winter. On the second floor of the granary, we store walnuts and hazelnuts in large bins that we harvest free for the picking from trees in the surrounding countryside.
We also grow a corn crop. When harvested, the corn is husked from the stalks and the ears are stored in the corncrib for later shucking and grinding into food for the cattle during the winter.
1955: Dad sawing wood in front of the cornfield
The corn stalks are ground into silage which is stored in the silo ā the silage is also used to feed the cattle in the winter. My main farm chore in the winters is to climb up into the frigid silo before school each day and shovel icy silage down below for breakfast for the cows. No wonder no guy has ever asked me out on a date ā we kids only bathe once a week, whether we need it or not!
I have described our farm, some of its crops, and some of its buildings and their usage in detail so you can better appreciate the tornado stories that follow.
šŖļø Prologue ā
Background: The tornado that hits our farm in June of 1956 is only the second tornado that we ever experienced in our area of Michigan. The first one occurred two months earlier on April 3 ā its path passed five miles from 0ur farm, and it wiped out several small communities, killing one and injuring twenty five (its story is told later in the šŖļø Postscript ā).
Tornado Memories: As is to be expected, several of my siblings have different memories of the tornado than I. My sister Liz #8* gathered childhood memories from all of us kids, which she composed into a Memory Book as a present to our parents on their 50th wedding anniversary in June 1990.
* The number after the names of myself and my siblings refers to the order in which we were born ā since I am the firstborn, I am Barbara #1.
I have included the tornado memories of Leone #7 from the Memory Book after my own. Liz #8 composed her own tornado memories in more recent years for her personal website, which I am also including in this missive.
Date Discrepancy: In the Memory Book, we called it the Tornado of '55, and Liz #8 also uses the date of 1955 in her story.
I have strong memories about an earlier tornado that passed near our farm in the same year as ours. In my research for this missive, I can find no reference to ANY tornados in our part of Michigan before or during this time frame except the one on April 3, 1956. I have to conclude that our memories of the date of our tornado are off by a year ā it really must have occurred in 1956 after the large one that passed nearby in April of that year. Thus I have updated the dates in our stories from 1955 to 1956, and I have changed our ages accordingly.
Writing Style: I have changed the tornado stories from the Memory Book of myself and Leone #7 from past tense to present tense for a more interesting writing style. Liz #8 has already written her story in the present tense.
Family Photos: I have very few photographs of our family from the entire year of 1956, and only 18 from 1955, most of them of poor quality ā we didn't take many pictures back then. I am illustrating this missive with photos from several years.
In 1955 and 1956, there are nine kids in our family. This photo from 1955, a year before the tornado strikes, shows all nine of us together. From the left are our mother Leona entering the house, Mary #4 holding Walt #9, Lillian #5, Leone #7, Elaine #3, Frankie #6, Gary #2, Liz #8 and Barbara #1.
As a reference, the following table shows our dates of birth (DOB) and ages in June 1956 when the tornado struck our farm.
šŖļø 1. Barbara's Tornado ā
It is a hot, sultry Sunday in June 1956 and I turned 15 a month ago. We have company for dinner (noontime for those of you who have become citified ā supper is the evening meal).
Our cousin Charlie, a city boy from Milwaukee, is spending the summer with us ā he is a year younger than I, and his parents are dropping him off today.
1959, three years after the tornado: An older Charlie on the right with his parents and sister.
After feeding us kids before noon, Mom sends most of us outdoors to play while the adults have their dinner ā our dining table is large, but not big enough for everyone to eat at once. Several of us older kids wander up to the hayloft of the hay barn with its large double doors open to the east.
On our way to the barn, we notice that large, dark clouds are forming in the west, and the sky is turning a yellowish purple ā eerily similar to the day when the tornado in April passed several miles from our farm.
Note: Tornados usually come from the southwest, so once we are in the barn, we are facing eastward and can no longer see the storm that is rapidly approaching.
When we reach the hayloft, we start discussing what we would do if a tornado hits at that very instant. I am asked first, being the oldest (and of course, the wisest). I say that the hayloft of a barn is the absolute worst place to be during a tornado ā I would run out and hide in that nearby gully.
Cousin Charlie is asked next, being the second oldest. He says that he would run and jump down below through the straw hole* (even though there are two hay holes* very close and the straw hole is over 30 feet away).
* The straw hole is a hole in the floor of our hayloft just in front of where 0ur straw barn is attached to the hay barn. We toss straw down into the open area below to use for bedding when the cows are kept inside during the winter.
Similarly, hay holes are holes in the floor of the hayloft where hay is tossed down below as feed for the cattle during the long winter.
I don't remember anyone else's answer except for Frankie, who says that he would head for the house.
1955, a year before the tornado: Standing in front of our farmhouse
Inset on Upper Right: Gary #2.
I am standing in the open doorway of the hay barn looking out at the orchard to the east. None of us can see the fast approaching dark clouds which are hidden by the barn.
Elaine comes running up to the hayloft from the house yelling, 'A tornado's coming!' She saw the black clouds moving rapidly in from the southwest and thinks she will frighten us. As soon as the words are out of her mouth, the tornado strikes!
Instantly, every tree in the orchard bends over flat on the ground! The rain hits like millions of bullets! The wind is roaring so loud I can't hear anything else ā it sounds like a freight train is on right on top of us!
My first thought is to run and jump into the gully like I told everyone I would do, but the wind and rain are so fierce that I would rather die than venture out! Frankie #6 starts running for the house, but after 30 feet or so, he turns back.
My next thought is to run for the straw hole as Charlie suggested. Everyone else must have the same thought as they are heading that way also. By this time the whole barn is shaking and swaying above us, and boards are cracking and falling in places!
I am halfway to the straw hole when I am sure that the barn will fall on me before I can make it. I stop and look up at the rafters and yell, Hurry up and get it over with! My whole life flashes through my mind in color snapshots. I am not sad that I am going to die, but I don't want anyone else to be either. Then when the barn doesn't fall immediately, I think that maybe there is time to make it to the straw hole after all.
September 1985: Our farm from the road in front. The straw barn is decorated with my father's collection of antlers from deer, elk, antelope, etc. that he has shot.
When I finally get to the straw hole, several of my younger siblings are gathered around it, looking down and afraid to jump. It is a long drop of 10-12 feet into a thin layer of manure on top of cement.
I yell at them to jump, but they can't hear me. I yell at them again, but they just stare up at me with dazed expressions on their faces. Finally, I push them out of the way and jump myself.
That must have broken the spell because they all jump down after me - except for Charlie. We are all worried about Charlie while trying to figure out where to hide down below ā we know that you should always be in the southwest corner and away from windows. We have a hard time trying to figure which direction is which in our panic ā we have lost our sense of direction in the basement, which has only a few small windows high above.
We mill around, and finally Charlie shows up in the straw hole opening above us and jumps. Charlie is bleeding from a wound on his head ā he had gone to the rear of the barn to see if the back shed was still standing, and had been hit on his head by a falling board.
By the time we figure out where we should hide down below, the storm has lost much of its force. We wait for an interminable five minutes for the rain to die down further. We finally decide that we can safely make a dash to the house.
When we all rush into the dining room, I am shocked to find everyone sitting around the dinner table as if nothing has happened.
1956: Dad & Mom at the dining table
I yell at them, questioning whether they knew that there was a tornado, and I ask them if they were worried about us.
Dad just says that he thought we kids had sense enough to jump down below to safety. Besides, he can see that the barn is still standing.
It turns out that they had had an exciting time in the house too. The front window nearly came crashing in on everyone ā it had been weakened by a hole from a BB gun.
The front of the farm house in 1957. The front window of the dining room with the BB-gun hole is on the lower right.
Dad had to hold the window with his hands and body until Mom got some baking sheets to help him.
The storm has taken our corncrib down.
The next three weeks are spent propping up cherry trees, trying to save as many as possible ā we end up losing about 200 of them.
We have a crew of carpenters working for days to realign the hay barn and the straw barn. The foot-square rafters holding up the roof of the hay barn have been lifted up out of their seating and moved over a few inches. The straw barn has been shifted askew from the hay barn by a couple of feet.
It turns out that we have been very lucky! The funnel of the tornado flattened a 30-foot-wide strip of trees right through our woods, then leaped over our farm building and touched down again on a neighbor's farm a half-mile away. Their farm house sits at the same level as our farm, and their tall TV antenna attached to the house is still standing. However, their barn ā which sat at the bottom of a steep hill below their house ā is completely obliterated, with only the basement still remaining.
šŖļø 2. Leone's Tornado ā
It is summer and the barn is nearly empty of hay bales. The folks are finishing a typical 'Mom' homemade meal with a large group of out-of-town relatives. All of the 'big' kids are playing in or near the barn. At age 6, I am the youngest one playing with them.
They start talking about tornadoes and debate about the best action to take if a tornado were heading for us. I am too young to join in on the debate, but I listen intently. Cousin Charlie explains why the best thing to do would be to jump down the big hole from atop the hay bales to the barn basement. The thought of doing that absolutely terrifies me! That jump is at least a two story jump into a dark abyss ending with a watery manure splat.
1955 in front of side porch of the farm house: Lillian #5 with her hands around Liz #8, Mom behind the screen door, Leone #7, and Gary #2 holding Walt #9
All of a sudden someone comes running into the barn screaming that a tornado is coming!
We all immediately run out to look for it, but it is just a joke. After a little more continued talk on the subject, some of the kids come running in again exclaiming that a tornado is REALLY COMING. Of course, no one believes it, but with them acting so hysterical, we all walk out to take a look.
It is shocking! Everything is unnaturally quiet. The sky is black over the woods to the southwest of us and there it is, looming right toward us like an incredible monster. I turn and RUN for my life toward the house. It is suddenly windy and sand is in the air. I glance back and see Frankie running some distance behind me between the barn and the granary.
1955 on the front lawn of the farm home: Our first cousin Katherine (rear) with Lillian #5 holding Walt #9, Liz #8, Leone #7 & Frankie #6.
I shoot into the house and tell everyone a tornado is coming. I have never been so frightened.
But in the house all is calm and no one seems to pay attention to me. All of these old people are sipping coffee after having finished eating pie.
The wind begins to roar and Mom exclaims that the shade trees lining the driveway are bending to the ground. Rain is being driven in sheets vertically. I worriedly keep looking toward the woodshed to see if Frankie is coming.
The wind awakens Walter from his nap and he is crying at the top of the stairs, dressed only in a diaper.
The adults are remarking about how the north dining room window is bowing inward. I clearly remember Dad getting up and standing with his arms out and his back against the window to prevent it from shattering. Mom gives him cookie sheets to put behind his arms. Dad is smiling and I remember him saying the kids are fine and that they know how to take care of themselves. Poor Frankie #6 ā I think for sure he must have been sucked up into the tornado and is dead by now.
Suddenly it is over. All is sunny and normal again. The kids are all alive, even Frankie #6!
šŖļø 3. Liz's Tornado ā The Big Monster ā
āMmmm, smell good,ā me think. āMommy take bread out oven. Two cherry pie in little oven. Yum. Ouch. Ear hurt. Man on radio talk loud.ā
āToday, we are going to have a record breaking July Sunday in Traverse City, MI. In fact, it may end up being the hottest day in 1956!ā
āSunday?ā me wonder. āYippee. Mommy make chicken on Sunday.ā
"Me watch Mommy tie two chicken on stick. Chicken turn round and round. Mommy put butter on chicken. Juice drip off. Fall on bottom. Mommy tap me."
12/27/55: Mom in a newspaper photo baking chicken during a cooking contest
āElizabeth, cousin Charlieās parents are coming from Wisconsin today.ā
āWisconsin? What that?ā me wonder.
Charlie live in our house in summer. He almost big like Barbara. Barbara 15-year old. Me big girl now. No more diapers. Me 4-1/2.
āTime to eat,ā Mommy calls.
Kids fill table. No room for grown-ups. Mommy put food on plate.
āYeah, wishbone!ā I scream. āYum yum. My favorite chicken.ā
Me grab wishbone. Mommy put on mashed potatoes. Make hole. Pour gravy in hole.
āOh no, string bean fall in gravy. Yuck!ā
Big kids pass food around. Take lots. Big Gary stares out window. Eyes open wide.
āLook how pink and eerie the sky is!ā he shouts. āIt looks just like last April when the tornado hit those farms five miles from here!ā
āTornado? What is tornado?ā me wonder.
Lillian cries, āWhat are we going to do if a tornado hits when we are playing in the barn?ā
āWhat is tornado? What is tornado?ā me ask.
Barbara stand up. Her hand on hip.
āSince I am the oldest and wisest one here, I know what to do. The barn is the WORST place to be. So, I am going to run outside and hide in the nearby gully.ā
āGully? What is gully?ā me wonder.
āNo, thatās not a good idea,ā cousin Charlie says. āI learned about tornados in Boy Scouts. I am going to run into the straw barn, and jump down the 10-foot hole into the cow barn in the basement.ā
āOh no, not hole in barn!ā me worry. āCharlie might fall on cow. Cow step on him.ā
āI disagree with both of you,ā Frankie says. āI will head straight for the house.ā
āFrankie little,ā me think, āhe smart. Me run to house too. Ouch, stomach hurt. No more eat.ā
Kids run outside. Me go too. Mommy stop me.
āElizabeth, you canāt go to the barn with the big kids. You have to take a nap. Iāll let you stay up just a little bit longer. First, Iāll take Walter upstairs to Aunt Claraās room for a nap.ā
Mommy carry baby Walter. Grown-ups eat. They talk and laugh. Too loud. Leone run into house. Leone skinny. Leone two year older me. She run fast.
āA tornado is coming! A TORNADO IS COMING!ā Leone screams.
āWhat is tornado? What is tornado?ā
āWhy nobody answer?ā me wonder.
Grown-ups jump up. Leave table. Run, run, run fast. Too many legs. Too many knees. Me not see. āWHOOSH! BANG!ā Ouch, head hurt. Me afraid. Mommy look out window.
āThe maple shade trees that line our driveway are bending to the ground! The rain is coming down in sheets!ā Mommy says.
āBOOM! BANG! BOOM!ā
āWhat that noise?ā me wonder. "Maybe thunder. It loud. Ears hurt. Me cover ears. Stop! Stop! Why it so dark? Me scared. Heart hurt. Rain hit window. Too loud. Me shut eyes. Make it go away. Make it go away. Me open eyes. See Daddy. His back push on window. Daddy look at me. Daddy smile.ā
āEverything will be okay, Elizabeth,ā Daddy says.
āWhat about the kids playing in the barn?ā Aunt Clara cries.
āThey will be safe in the barn,ā Daddy says.
āWHOOSH!ā Noise loud. Wind blow hard. Ears hurt. Window bend. āBANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!ā Stones hit window. No, not stones, it rain. Window crack. Daddy put hands on window!"
āBring me some pans, FAST!ā Daddy yells.
Mommy give Daddy jelly roll pan and cookie sheet. Daddy hold pans on window. Hands move all over window. Crack big. Look like spider web come out Daddy hands. Me afraid.
āElizabeth! Get away from the window!ā Mommy yells.
Me hear Walter cry. Me look upstairs. Walter stand on top step. Walter in diapers and T-shirt. Mommy grab Walter. Mommy pick me up. Mommy run into kitchen. Push me in corner. Me hide behind Mommy. Me grab apron. Apron wet. It dark. Me not see. āBANG, CRASH, BOOOOOM!ā Too much noise. Stop! Make it stop! Noise stop. Mommy step away. I see sunshine.
āLetās have dessert,ā Daddy says.
Grown-ups eat cherry pie. Drink coffee. Talk and laugh. Barbara run into house. Other big kids run in too.
Barbara talks loud, āWhy are you just sitting there eating and laughing, like nothing happened? Werenāt you worried about us?ā
1955: Barbara #1Ā atĀ the dining table
āWhy Barbara so mad?ā me wonder.
āI knew you kids had sense enough to jump down below to safety,ā Daddy says.
Elaine speaks, āWhile the other kids played chase in the barn, I went outside. The sky was black. So, I ran back into the barn, and yelled, āA tornado is coming! A tornado is coming!ā I wanted to scare them because we were talking about a tornado earlier. When they ran outside to look, I laughed, and told them that I was just kidding. Ha ha.ā
Mary jump in front. She got yellow hair. Mary younger Elaine. Mary says, āI looked outside the barn right after Elaine told us that the tornado is coming. I saw the cows lining up, and high-tailing it from the field to the barn. I never saw the cows do that before. Cows donāt run like that unless they are chasing us!ā
Me climb bench. Me look out window. āWhere cows?ā me wonder.
Lillian talks. She love all animals. āFrankie and I ran to the corncrib to check on our pet rabbits. The rabbits were okay, so we ran back to the barn. Itās a good thing that we did, because the tornado hit right after Frankie and I reached the barn.ā
āTornado? Tornado? What is tornado?ā me wonder.
Big Gary talk loud. āI ran outside with Mary and cousin Charlie. I saw the tornado over the woods to the southwest of our barn, heading straight for us. We all ran back into the barn at the same time screaming, āThere really IS a tornado coming. THERE IS A TORNADO! ITāS COMING STRAIGHT FOR THE BARN RIGHT NOW!āā
āTornado? What is tornado?ā me wonder.
Leone talk, āThose kids were yelling like they meant it, so I ran outside and looked towards the woods. The sky was black. I couldnāt hear a sound, not even a bird. And then I saw it. It was big and black. It looked like a giant monster! I was so afraid of jumping down the hole in the barn that I turned and ran for my life towards the house. When I was close to the house, I looked back, and saw Frankie running way behind me. He was between the barn and the granary. Then I ran into the house, but Frankie never came in. I was afraid that he got sucked up into the tornado, and was dead.ā
āDead? What is dead? Where is Frankie?ā me worry. āOh, there. Frankie squeeze between Gary legs.ā
August 1956 on Mackinac Island in front of the statue of PĆØre Marquette:
āI tried to run to the house,ā Frankie says, ābut I only got to the granary when the force of the wind and rain pushed me backwards. So, I ran back into the barn, and headed straight for the straw hole.ā
āPoor Frankie,ā me think.
āI was on the opposite side of the barn,ā Barbara says, āwhen the kids were acting hysterical about the tornado coming. I was looking at the orchard out the open doorway. Instantly, every tree was flat on the ground. The rain hit like a million bullets, and the wind sounded like a freight train on top of us. My first thought was to run and jump into the ditch, but the rain and wind were so fierce that I decided I would rather die than venture out. My next thought was to head for the straw hole, like Charlie suggested. The whole barn was shaking and swaying above us. Boards were cracking and falling all around me. I was halfway to the straw hole when I was sure that the barn would fall on top of me before I could reach it. I stopped, looked up at the rafters, and yelled out, āHurry up and get it over with.ā I remember my whole life flashing through my mind in color snapshots. I was not afraid of dying.ā
āDying? What is dying?ā me wonder.
āWhen the barn didnāt fall,ā Barbara talk again, āI thought that maybe there was time to make it to the straw hole after all. When I got to the hole, several younger kids were all gathered around it looking down afraid to jump. I yelled out as loud as I could, āJUMP!ā but they couldnāt hear me. They just looked up at me with dumb expressions on their faces. I pushed them out of the way, and jumped myself. Everyone jumped after me, except cousin Charlie. In a panic, we tried to figure out where the southwest corner was, as well as make sure that we were away from windows, like we were taught to do during a tornado. Then Charlie showed up above us, and jumped through the straw hole.ā
Cousin Charlie step in front. Blood on head by eye. Big bump on head. He shake.
āAHHH, what happened, Charlie?ā his mother asks.
āI went to the back of the barn to see if the shed had fallen,ā Charlie says. āA board fell on my head. I looked up, and boards were flying everywhere. I ran straight for the straw hole, and jumped below. I looked around and saw everyone staring at me. Cows were all around us. All of a sudden, the storm stopped. We decided to wait five minutes before coming to the house.ā
Daddy jump up. Run outside. Uncle Charlie go too. They come back.
āThe tornado blew down the corncrib,ā Daddy says. āFrankie and Lillianās pet rabbits are wild now.ā
āWild? What is wild?ā me wonder.
āThe chicken coop has disappeared,ā Daddy says. āTwo dozen chickens have vanished! No chicken wire, no pens, no boardsā¦ nothing! The barn is crooked. A third of the cherry trees are split at the crotch. The trees canāt survive that kind of damage.ā
āTie the branches together with wire,ā Uncle Charlie tells Daddy, āand hold up the larger branches with lumber until they fuse back together.ā
āThis is the worst damage a tornado has ever done to this area,ā Daddy says.
āOH, I know what tornado is!ā me think. āIt break tree. It crash building. It make things disappear. It big, black monster that go BANG, CRASH, BOOM, WHOOSH.ā
Liz's Footnote:
Although we have a basement, we didnāt think to use it. In those days, tornadoes were rare in our area, and people didnāt know how to protect themselves against them.
We ended up losing close to 200 cherry trees that day. My family spent three weeks propping up the trees that fell.
The insurance adjusters said that the rafters had shifted, and were within inches of collapsing the whole barn. The roof lifted off the barn, and moved 2-3 feet. The 1-foot-square rafters were lifted out of their seating 2-3 inches.
The silo lost several 1-foot-square tiles, and shingles off the roof. The straw barn was askew from the rest of the barn. A crew of carpenters realigned the straw barn with the hay barn. Dad bolted in several large braces to stabilize the beams.
The chicken coop and corn crib were destroyed. We never raised chickens and rabbits again.
The picture window, which was weakened by a BB gun hole, remained intact during the storm, despite all the cracks. Dad successfully kept it from imploding in on us, and shattering into a thousand pieces.
šŖļø Epilogue ā
ā¢ This was the closest that I came to death until I was in my early 30's during my Glory Years (1970-1975).
šŖļø Had that funnel not hopped over our farm buildings, I doubt very much whether you would be reading this or any of my life stories!
ā¢ No one else was aware of it, but I felt so much shame for several months after the day of the tornado because I had pushed everyone away from the straw hole and jumped first. I felt that I should have somehow helped my younger and smaller siblings down below before I saved myself. I finally decided that my jumping broke their spell and allowed them all to jump soon after I did ā it had to have been the most effective way to get all of us out of danger.
šŖļø Postscript - The Tornado of April 3, 1956 ā
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been tracking tornadoes for decades.
This image of Michigan shows all the tornadoes that have hit the state since 1951.
This map, which contains data from 1950 to 2022, pinpoints where the largest tornados touched down near our farm west of Traverse City, Michigan, and traces their paths of destruction.
The dates that each tornado struck and its strength from F1-F5* is indicated by each of the tornado tracks.
* The Enhanced Fujita Scale describes the strength of the tornado based on the amount and type of damage caused by the tornado. The F-scale of damage will vary in the destruction area; therefore, the highest value of the F-scale is recorded for each event.
F0 ā Light Damage (40 ā 72 mph)
F1 ā Moderate Damage (73 ā 112 mph)
F2 ā Significant damage (113 ā 157 mph)
F3 ā Severe Damage (158 ā 206 mph)
F4 ā Devastating Damage (207 ā 260 mph)
F5 ā Incredible Damage (261 ā 318 mph)
The only tornado recorded by NOAA (or any other source I can find) in the area near our farm prior to 1969 is the one on April 3, 1956.
I have been unable to find any reference to the tornado that struck our farm in June 1956 anywhere on the Internet.
I found several references to the one that passed near our home two months earlier on April 3, 1956. Its path is the long bright-red line on the map above and its strength was F4, its length was 60 miles, its width was 400 yards, and it caused 25 injuries and 1 death.
I suspect that the reason the tornado that struck our farm is not on the records is because It was very short-lived. As far as we could tell, the funnel created a path through our small woods and then skipped over our farm, taking out the barn on the neighborās farm a half mile away. The total distance of the tornado track was less than a mile. Also, the damage was minimal compared to other tornados on record.
Below is an excerpt from an article on the upnorthlive.com web site, which reported in depth about the tornado on April 3, 1956. The communities that are referred to are labeled in red with an * on the map above.
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One of Michigan's strongest tornadoes in history
reaches 60 year anniversary
April 4th 2016
On April 3, 1956, one of the strongest tornadoes in Michigan history swept across northern Michigan, killing one person and injuring several others.
The tornado began near Bear Lake in Manistee County. According to the National Weather Service, the tornado started around 7:50 p.m. on US-31 and moved into Benzie County near Walker Road.
The tornado killed one person and injured three others on Cinder Road in Benzie County as the people were blown apart by the tornado.
The tornado then crossed US-31, two miles east of Honor. Summer cottages along Lake Ann were torn apart by the tornado, and some of them were tossed onto the ice-covered lake, NWS says.
The tornado injured several people as it wiped out the small settlement of Cedar Run, which is about nine miles west of Traverse City, NWS says.
As the tornado moved from Solon to south of Suttons Bay in Leelanau County, the tornado hit several farms, NWS says.
NWS says the tornado moved off land and over Grand Traverse Bay. People then began the recovery process.
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