For years April 3 was a haunted date for me. I was 6 and I noticed it was a bit windy... not unusual for spring, of course. My parents went out and we had a babysitter. We called her the "mean babysitter" because she liked to tease us. Bad weather began, we lost electricity, went to the basement. In my mind it went on forever. The babysitter teased us by telling us tornadoes sounded like freight trains and she could hear one coming. I suppose she might have been trying to lighten the mood... Her father eventually came over to check on us and then called my parents to let them know we were OK. And eventually my parents came home, probably it was something like 9 pm, but for me it seemed to have lasted all night. We were lucky. This was the 1974 Super Outbreak which spawned hundreds of tornadoes across the south and Midwest and killed over a hundred people. For years afterwards I was terrified of thunderstorms. It took moving away from Kentucky and the knowledge I was out of tornado country to relieve it. #weather #superoutbreak1974 #tornadoes

On this 50th anniversary of #SuperOutbreak1974, here’s a reflectivity loop from the Covington, KY WSR-57 radar, showing tornadic supercells impacting Cincinnati and Xenia, OH. Though blurry, these images were used to save lives. 16 mm digital transfer from Dr. Ernie Agee’s archives.