On June 20th 1957, a powerful F5 tornado tore through northern Fargo North Dakota, killing 12. While a somewhat rare occurrence for a violent tornado at that northerly latitude, it was photographed and filmed by dozens of onlookers, resulting in the most well-documented violent tornado of its era. Although often overlooked in the history of violent American tornadoes, it played an important role in the development of the Fujita scale, and was critical in providing empirical evidence of mesocyclone structure, of which features like wall and tail clouds had yet to be officially named. Today we will examine the conditions that caused this tornado, the lives that it affected in Fargo and beyond, and pour over Dr. Fujita’s fantastic detailed analysis of the event that was, quite frankly, way ahead of its time.
Sources and Further Reading
https://controlc.com/d0d816e0
Corrections (as they’re discovered):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQrophqPbqbHN7G1sbUTuc6wvKWWmaeIAp5DuIpROz_QSUJR0jFGYQbjxQsxP6ZeC4AINjgBfhiFeax/pub
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:07 1950s Tornado Forecasting
5:14 The weather setup on 6/20/57
9:45 CORN???
11:10 The storms approach
14:12 The tornado’s path
18:11 Munson family
19:27 Recovery efforts
19:47 Dr. Fujita’s research
The Fargo F5 Tornado of 1957 – The Science Behind the Slow-Moving Monster
source
Hey everyone! It's inevitable that after I put out a video, I find out I've gotten a few things wrong. People way smarter than me often email me with incredible information and details I had not previously known, so I decided to create a corrections document for this and future videos which will be linked in the description below the sources. The document will be updated whenever I receive emails/messages with great information that I can then pass on to viewers. Thanks guys!
20:35 "some didn't even know what Japan was"
Dude, I know this is pre-mass media but still, how the hell you could not know the bloody war that ended in two nukes just a decade before?
I know this is a minor detail, but I love how you match your hairstyle and outfit to the era you're discussing. A minor detail that makes my particular inner history nerd giggle every time.
dr fujita man, he was something else…
10 million dollar dent in the defense budget?
DOD has no dents, it has unlimited funding. They spend Ten million on stickers for their Surface to Air missiles!
Rolling fork f4 when a rare 2 high risk has issued
Its probably an f4 because it moved 10 miles per hour. It had not as high mph winds but stayed in an area for long enough to completely wipe it out
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Great video, would have been cool if you had used the theme music from the movie Fargo 😂
Are you saying corn helped cause a tornado???
Well, I learned something new today. I had no idea corn fields could contribute enough moisture to shift the weather. (The short film clip of the guy at the very end was a nice addition, heh!)
Dude your shit is sooo on point! you do fantastic research and presentations, so please don’t ever stop- it’s wonderful content!!!
where is the photo at 13:41? i can't seem to find it anywhere. great vid as always!
It would be interesting to see coverage of the 1984 tornado in Barneveld Wisconsin
I cannot wait for you to cover the June 1953 outbreak. The Worcester, Massachusetts tornado was an F3 or F4 I believe.
would love to see a video about the laplata, maryland tornado of 2002!!
So it was a cornado?
I was messing around with the SPC severe weather event database page to find analogs for this event. Of course, there will never be a situation that's exactly like this series of events. I tried to look for severe weather reports near Fargo with a 300mb jet and 500mb wind max to the north of North Dakota, without any northwest flow. Also, I tried to look for ones without a distinctive southwest flow at 500mb. July 17, 2001, July 31, 2002, May 19, 2004, June 6, 2004, June 25, 2013, June 21, 2014, July 4, 2017 July 8 2019, June 7, 2021
Wow. What a fantastic video! Thanks for sharing!
That picture was heartbreaking but I'm so glad you put it in. It's easy to get fascinated by these storms and forget the human cost. I have a 4.5 y/o daughter so that hit hard. Love your videos but this one was out of the park.
I have been studying and learning about the Fargo tornado for awhile now and how did u find all this info on the weather stations and what they did that night ? I live in Fargo and have heard and have researched it extensively since I heard about it back in high school in history class and how did u find some of these pictures of the aftermath
Someone just shared this video with me because they know my special interest is tornadoes, and I've never been happier. This video was awesome, and I'm so excited to have another weather YouTube channel to binge!
Those graphics and pictures used to show the lifecycle of the tornado were really cool. 🤩
As for events to cover next, you should do the Terrible Tuesday tornado that impacted Wichita Falls, TX in April 1979. That was also a well documented tornado hitting a populated area.
What I am more thankful about is that “NORTH DAKOTA HAS NOT HAD A REPEAT OF FARGO; ND SINCE THAT DARK DAY IN 1957”
We have come “CLOSE” but “THANKFULLY” “GOD HAS SPARED US A MONSTER IN ANY OF OUR MAJOR CITIES”
Closest we came again “TO A BIG ONE” was Bismarck in 2005 but
“THANKFULLY NOTHING DROPED FROM THE ROTATING WALL CLOUD”!!!!
That thing was scary……
As A 12 year old eye witness to 1957 tornado. I can remember every moment of that terrible day. The olsen photo is taken on 21st Street So.. Two blocks from my house. The ditch was A big area known as the Slew to us. A playground for us kids. And is now a park. It is A water tower on Main Avenue, not the air traffic tower two miles north of it.
So totally interesting. My parents lived in a small town south of this and has mentioned in on many occasions. i never knew the entire track or history made but did know he had friends in the 12th Ave N area that were affected. Thank you for the history.
Another excellent video! I really enjoy it when you go so far back in the history of meteorology. It looks like the dark ages compared to today's technology. But human nature hasn't changed a bit. People today still run outside to see the tornado despite all the warnings. And I had NO idea that evapotranspiration could add so much moisture to the air! Wow. And the closing of the vid was hilarious. I'll bet hammers were one of the leading causes of radio breakage in coastal areas at that time.
I've never seen this much on the Andover Kansas tornado what was it 92 93. That guy had an awfully good report. Especially considering how early that tornado happened. Does you tube get much better than this report. Or any corpirate TV fir that matter. I don't think it does.
Great information, learnt a lot thankyou.
the men that lost their lives were probably just hanging around afraid to admit to fear, you can see some just standing there dumb founded filming it.
Now that I have learned that corn sweat is a factor, I can better understand how the 1990 Plainfield, Illinois tornado was able to become so ferocious. Excellent channel and glad the algorithm finally set it in front of me.
Oh God, I can hear the environuts screaming that we need to stop farming because it attracts tornadoes.💀
I mean they already claim cow farts are killing the planet.🙄
I was wondering if you could cover the 1997 Detroit F2 tornado. It happened only a month after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup and did massive damage to Detroit's West Side and the suburbs of Hamtramck and Grosse Pointe Farms. It's a very interesting storm to read about.
Also the 1976 West Bloomfield, Michigan tornado – the last time Metro Detroit was hit by a tornado stronger than an F3/EF3.
Love this channel. The technical breakdowns of the atmospheric condition and of course the historical tidbits are great. If/when you decide to to a hurricane video I'd love to see Hurricane Harvey. A truly unique and obviously devastating storm setup.
i have two good picks for you. April 27th 1991, Andover tornado. besides the fact of the get under the girders overpass lesson. it nearly hit the flight line of b1 bombers on McConnell with possible nukes still on them. and of course as a bonus the recent april 29th that hit andover. as for the second good pick. terrible tuesday, wichita falls tornado.
excellent video, thanks
3:01
God: not unbelievable, I am just helping you out by setting up the exact same laboratory conditions