STORM LOG OF EVENTS.

The storm that struck Rice and the Little Rock Lake area on Friday the 13^th was a terrain altering event. Tho there were no recorded injuries or major structure damage that I know of, trees, some of which were nearly a century old, are now gone from the skyline. It all happened in about fifteen minutes.

13 August 2010 (Friday)

1452 hrs Called from Sky Warn and went on alert.

1455 hrs Attempted to go to Benton Beach to warn campers. Unable to do so because of the quick arrival of the storm.

1458 hrs Intense wind. Eventually the wind was clocked at 81 mph on the wind gage. It quit when the tower that the wind cups were on was blown onto the roof of the house. This was a 40 foot steel tower. I would guess that the wind speed exceeded 81 mph. Wind blows from SW to NE. Visibility zero. Lot’s of noise. NO HAIL. It was just a white mass of rain and wind.

1500 hrs Power goes out.

1515 hrs Storm abates. Skies clear by 1530 hrs.

1530 hrs Ended the Sky Warn assignment, stood relieved.

1533 hrs Measured 1.49" of rain from the 20 min storm.

1540 hrs North Freedom Rd completely blocked by downed trees. One 7200 volt line broken. Power out to all buildings on North Freedom Rd.

1730 hrs Township opens up NFR with heavy equipment by Burski Construction.

14 August - 1900 hrs power from East Central Electric finally restored to North freedom Rd. Some folks still had no power as of 15 August.

AFTERMATH & OBSERVATIONS:

It appears that a funnel may have passed a couple of hundred yards to the north of our house, going thru a woods making a clearing right thru the woods. Trees measuring 22" in diameter were snapped off at the roots. Dozens of other trees uprooted. Major damage to docks and boats tied up there. My antenna tower (40") twisted on top of the roof. One ash tree 16" uprooted. One very large willow snapped off at the trunk. Almost without exception all downed trees were pointed in the same direction. (NE)

Sunday, 15 Aug I took a tour of the local area. It appeared that either funnels from a tornado or gusts of straight line winds caused major damage to select areas. A line of trees would be OK then a strip measuring 50 - 100 yards looked as if a giant lawn mower went thru and sheered off the trees. Some select areas a block or so square had lots of trees uprooted or just snapped off at the trunk. Clean up will be ongoing for a week or so.

Jim Hovda

Rice Weather Observer