Still the worst storms I've ever seen: 7-4-1969 Ohio "fireworks" derecho

Described via the link below are the worst storms that this long-time resident of (often) poor-weather regions has ever experienced. Even to date. That's having been through a couple of hurricanes in Connecticut, plus the blizzard of 1978, 1991's "Perfect" storm, 1993's "Storm of The Century", etc. (FWIW, the '78 blizzard could be a "tie", with its duration and snow/wind.) And also having been not too far south (luckily) of Xenia, OH, during the 1974 "super outbreak" of tornadoes. (All through the midwestern and southern U.S.).

This Michael Heaton story from the 7/2/09 Cleveland Plain Dealer describes the storm I was part of very well. Especially in the Lakewood (OH) park that lost many large trees, had fatalities, etc. It was July 4th, 1969 and many people were outside, gathering for fireworks, etc. Numerous pleasure craft were out on Lake Erie.

Here's a quick copy and a link to the NOAA (.gov) page that recounts the derecho (link to more information) which caused much destruction and flooding throughout northern Ohio and into western PA. (Click on the picture for more details) :


"This image is a work of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, taken or made during the course of an employee's official duties. As works of the U.S. federal government, all NOAA images are in the public domain."
I'll leave most of the rest to the Michael Heaton story. However, a little additional perspective for anyone interested: As indicated, there was little official warning. I was a kid in a suburb a couple of towns to the west of Lakewood. The northwestern sky quickly turned dark gray/black and you knew something unusually nasty was coming fast. The warm, humid air suddenly got cooler as the wind rapidly picked up.

My dad herded us disaffected youth (watching all of this unfold) inside, and we shortly proceeded to witness ten or so minutes of everything going to hell. Our house and neighborhood was a newly built subdivision, so (of course) many large trees had been removed. (Why do they always do that...denude an area for new houses?) But some mature trees remained, especially in our yard and our next-door neighbors'. Never seen by me before or since: Unbelievably fierce winds bent large, 40-50 foot deciduous trees over near the ground at moments. And, as often described, these prolonged gusts roared at times like a freight train. (Though it was subsequently determined that what occurred was not a tornado.) Our new house and windows shook. Sheets of rain; driven sideways.

Figure 2. Radar imagery (reflectivity) observed by the DECCA radar near Akron, Ohio at 8:30 PM EDT on July 4, 1969. (From Hamilton 1970)

A radar in Akron, Ohio observed a "bowed" echo about 35 miles northwest of the radar site at 8:30 PM on the evening of July 4th (Fig. 2). This bow echo was associated with the deadly derecho winds in the Cleveland area and was one of the first radar "bow echoes" to be documented.

(Reference......Hamilton, 1970; Storm Data for July 1969).

As noted, everything was over in about 10-15 minutes for us though you didn't know that immediately. (No power, plus no Weather Channel around anyway.) Almost all houses that had large trees on the streets around us lost at least one. We had two large, double-trunk trees crack and fall on top of other ones. (A neighbor actually ran outside to another house during the height of this to check on his daughter, and he said (later; having survived) that our trees cracking sounded like loud rifle shots.) After seeing them bent over, I remember being surprised that ALL of these trees weren't down. Though lightning still played in the dark sky for hours after, I remember everyone from all of the houses being outside afterward, and just kind of walking around the nearly dark streets looking at the damage. I think most were kind of stunned. It was surreal, especially with the lightning flashes all over the sky for quite a while. And it was still raining off and on, too.

Obviously we were fortunate that it wasn't worse (photo below). Derechos: Advanced weather technology is in place today, but you still never want to observe one of these racing your way. Or be part of one, if possible. It's one reason that I try to "do my part" today, as a Skywarn severe storm spotter.


(Xenia, OH 1974 tornado. As stated at http://www.weather.gov/disclaimer.php:"The information on government servers are in the public domain, unless specifically annotated otherwise, and may be used freely by the public....".)