Uploaded July 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This well known piece of video was featured worldwide in the weeks after the April 26, 1991 Central Plains tornado outbreak. One of the many dramatic videotapes from that day, a USAF airman recorded these pictures with his 8mm camcorder as an F5 tornado approached and tore through McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita. Afterwards the tornado would intensify further and produce F5 damage and cause fatalities in nearby Andover.
The airman who recorded this video was court marshaled for the release of this footage to news media. Since that time it has been used in dozens of educational documentaries and programs about tornadoes worldwide.
This particular video is only a partial copy of the "dramatic" video as the tornado struck the base, narrowly missing a line of B1 bombers. Audio is not edited and contains some strong language, of which was appropriate for the situation!
More information on the April 26, 1991 tornado outbreak:
weather.gov/oun/events-19910426
Video © USAF, All Rights Reserved.
Remastered from a 3/4" videotape copy.
Please do not remix or multicast this video.
This well known piece of video was featured worldwide in the weeks after the April 26, 1991 Central Plains tornado outbreak. One of the many dramatic videotapes from that day, a USAF airman recorded these pictures with his 8mm camcorder as an F5 tornado approached and tore through McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita. Afterwards the tornado would intensify further and produce F5 damage and cause fatalities in nearby Andover.
The airman who recorded this video was court marshaled for the release of this footage to news media. Since that time it has been used in dozens of educational documentaries and programs about tornadoes worldwide.
This particular video is only a partial copy of the "dramatic" video as the tornado struck the base, narrowly missing a line of B1 bombers. Audio is not edited and contains some strong language, of which was appropriate for the situation!
More information on the April 26, 1991 tornado outbreak:
weather.gov/oun/events-19910426
Video © USAF, All Rights Reserved.
Remastered from a 3/4" videotape copy.
Please do not remix or multicast this video.
![Tornado Alley... Wichita Falls, Texas 1964 [KAUZ-TV Documentary]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TOkB0lQlnwo/mqdefault.jpg "Tornado Alley... Wichita Falls, Texas 1964 [KAUZ-TV Documentary]
A destructive tornado was broadcast live on KAUZ television on April 3, 1964 as it moved through the northern portion of Wichita Falls, Texas. Seven lives were lost and over 100 people sustained serious injury. Sheppard Air Force Base, as well as the nearby residential neighborhood of Sunset Terrace sustained significant F5 damage.
Historically this tornado is often cited as the first ever broadcast live on television anywhere in the world. KAUZ-TV was indeed the first TV station to broadcast a tornado, but that event transpired on April 2, 1958 when a deadly F3 tornado struck the city. The news anchor in the 1964 broadcast makes mention of this misquotes the date as 1959. To my knowledge the 1958 live transmission was not preserved or saved. It was common practice in the early age of broadcast video to recycle and re-record over quadraplex videotape to save money. Fortunately six years later, engineers at KAUZ-TV did record and save the 1964 live broadcast, the bulk of it presented in this station documentary made soon after the tornado.
Additional film and news coverage of the April 3, 1964 Wichita Falls, Texas tornado is available via the Texas Archive of the Moving Image: https://texasarchive.org/2012_00678
Video © KAUZ-TV.")
