Hook Echo
Natural disasters read off the instruments that saw them: NEXRAD radar, satellite and the damage survey.
Mayflower-Vilonia Tornado: Debris on Radar for an Hour
On 27 April 2014, a tornado crossed 41 miles of central Arkansas, through Mayflower and Vilonia, and killed 16 people, the deadliest single tornado in the state since 1968. The Wea...
Hurricane Helene: The River Gauge That Beat 1916
Hurricane Helene came ashore near Perry, Florida, on the night of 26 September 2024, a Category 4. Its worst flooding came almost 400 miles away, in the mountains of western North ...
EF Scale: Why No Tornado Was Rated EF5 for 12 Years
From Moore, Oklahoma, on 20 May 2013, to Enderlin, North Dakota, on 20 June 2025, no tornado in the United States was rated EF5: 12.1 years, the longest gap since records began in ...
1906 San Francisco Earthquake: A Road Moved 20 Feet
The San Francisco earthquake of 18 April 1906 offset a road near Point Reyes Station by 20 feet. A year later, the Coast and Geodetic Survey re-measured its network of hilltop stat...
Hurricane Andrew: Category 5, Ten Years Late
Hurricane Andrew crossed South Florida at 5:05 AM EDT on 24 August 1992 and was rated a Category 4 for ten years. In August 2002 the National Hurricane Center raised it to a Catego...
Tuscaloosa 2011: 13 Minutes Missing From the Radar
On 27 April 2011 an EF4 tornado crossed Tuscaloosa and the edge of Birmingham, Alabama, on the ground for 80.68 miles; the National Weather Service counts 65 dead. The one radar th...
Hurricane Camille: The Record From a Home Barometer
Hurricane Camille came ashore near Waveland, Mississippi, at about 11 PM on 17 August 1969, one of only four Category 5 hurricanes on record to hit the U.S. mainland. For 45 years ...
Rolling Fork Tornado: What the Radar Saw in the Dark
On the night of 24 March 2023, a tornado crossed Rolling Fork, Mississippi, at 8:03 PM, 45 minutes after sunset. The final survey estimated its peak wind at 195 mph, and the Storm ...
Hurricane Harvey 2017: The Gauge That Caught 60 Inches
Hurricane Harvey came ashore near Rockport, Texas, as a category 4 on 25 August 2017, and then stalled over the Texas coast for four days. Near Nederland, a rain gauge run by a cou...
Alaska 1964 Earthquake: The Coastline That Rose 38 Feet
On Good Friday, 27 March 1964, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake, the largest ever recorded in the United States, shook south-central Alaska for as long as four and a half minutes. Along ...
Mayfield 2021: The Tornado That Stayed Down 165 Miles
On the night of 10 December 2021 one tornado crossed western Kentucky for about 165 miles, in the dark, at about 60 miles an hour. At about the minute it reached Mayfield, the Nati...
Katrina 2005: The Record Surge No Gauge Recorded
On 29 August 2005 the sea rose about 25 feet over Waveland and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The NOAA tide gauge at Waveland sent its last reading at 4:12 in the morning: eight feet....
Hook Echo: What the Tornado Shape on Radar Really Means
A security camera at Chickamauga Lock, Tennessee, filmed an EF2 tornado crossing the yard on 26 October 2010 -- and the radar 84 km away drew no hook at all. The hook echo, the sha...
Joplin 2011: The Tornado Warning 17 Minutes Early
On 22 May 2011 the National Weather Service warned all of Joplin, Missouri, 17 minutes before a tornado touched down -- more than the national average. It still became the deadlies...
Hurricane Michael 2018: The Data Made It a Category 5
Hurricane Michael came ashore at Mexico Beach, Florida, on 10 October 2018, announced as a Category 4. Six months later the National Hurricane Center made it a Category 5 -- by thr...
Kilauea 2018: The Volcano That Fell In On Itself
In 2018 the summit of Kilauea, Hawaii, collapsed 62 times in three months while lava poured out of Leilani Estates, 40 km away. USGS footage shows both ends. We downloaded the raw ...
Moore 2013: The Day Radar Saw the Debris
On 20 May 2013 a mile-wide EF5 tornado crossed Newcastle and Moore, Oklahoma. National Guard footage shows what it left. The Oklahoma City radar, upgraded to dual polarization 225 ...
Bridge Creek-Moore 1999: How Radar Clocked 301 MPH
On 3 May 1999 a truck-mounted Doppler radar measured winds of about 301 mph, give or take 20, inside the tornado that crossed Bridge Creek and Moore, Oklahoma. In 2021 the same sca...