Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

kevin.myatt
@roanoke.com
981-3341

Weather with Kevin Myatt

Recent columns

• We got graupel, but not on official record
• Moisture could get caught up in cold blast
• Forecast for Weather Journal: Partly print, with frequent Internet
• Column archive

Read the Weather Journal blog

• For now, it looks like a quiet, mostly mild week ahead for SW Virginia
• Coldest morning of winter so far likely across much of Southwest Virginia; Tuesday precipitation looking doubtful
• UPDATE 8:45 AM, 2/11: Blustery winds for all, snowflakes for most, white ground for many, multiple inches for few
• Weather Journal blog

#swvawx on Twitter

@KevinMyattWx

• Follow Kevin on Twitter at @KevinMyattWx

Tornadoes can't ______.

Tornadoes don't ______.

Tornadoes never ______.

There are lots of things people fill those blanks with and then confidently state as if it's undeniable fact, often in an effort to assure themselves of their own protection from tornadoes wherever they happen to live.

But the truth is, almost every one of those statements is false. Tornadoes do cross rivers. Tornadoes can go over mountains. Tornadoes sometimes even skip over trailer parks.

The much-repeated statement that "Tornadoes don't hit the downtown areas of major cities" was dealt yet another blow Friday night when a tornado with winds estimated at 111-135 mph ripped through the heart of Atlanta.

Frighteningly, Friday's tornado struck the Georgia Dome packed with more than 30,000 people as a Southeastern Conference men's college basketball game was occurring.

A major tornado hitting a packed sports venue has long been a nightmare that emergency managers and weather experts hope never comes true. I don't even want to think what could have happened if this tornado had been a couple of notches higher on the intensity scale.

The idea that tornadoes don't hit close to the skyscrapers of major cities was proven false many years ago.

Between 1997 and 2000, five U.S. metropolitan areas had tornadoes rip through their city's central business district.

The one that should have settled this question for all time was Salt Lake City in 1999. That's Utah, mind you, a state that averages only about two reported tornadoes a year.

On Aug. 11, 1999, a tornado tore through the center of Salt Lake City, killing one person, only the second tornado fatality in Utah's history. It caused $170 million in property damage, including heavy damage to a blessedly empty NBA basketball arena.

Many of you have seen the video of the broad, fierce circulation blowing through downtown Nashville, Tenn., in 1998, and the long, thin funnel snaking through Miami in 1997.

I was living in Arkansas in January 1999 when a nighttime tornado killed three people in downtown Little Rock, narrowly missing the state's governor's mansion during Gov. Mike Huckabee's tenure. A treehouse built in the back yard many years before for Chelsea Clinton got swept away.

The tornado that hit Little Rock was part of a prolific outbreak: More than 50 tornadoes touched down in Arkansas within just a few hours.

Atlanta's tornado on Friday was not. In fact, it was the only tornado reported in the entire United States that day.

That's all the more remarkable because Friday's storm system produced hundreds of reports of hail and high winds across the South. There was lots of severe weather, but only one reported tornado.

What are the chances: Only one tornado in the U.S. all day, and it hits CNN and the Georgia Dome?

Except for an especially violent minority, tornadoes cover areas no more than a quarter-mile wide and can disintegrate from a ferocious frenzy to a wisp of vapor in seconds. So anytime an individual person or small parcel of property is directly affected, it is odds-defying, even in a major outbreak.

So you can always say that it is against the odds that your family or property will be affected by a tornado, even on the most volatile severe weather days.

But you can never, ever, say never.