Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This color 16mm film taken by airman Jon Gardey on Perrin Air Force Base in North Texas on April 19, 1957 documents a near-complete life cycle of a tornado and was one of the earliest films to showcase such. Other tornado life cycles also documented on film at Dallas and Fargo, North Dakota in 1957 aided early understanding on tornado development, but was not formally published into scientific literature until the Union City, Oklahoma tornado of May 23, 1973.
Despite the high quality [for the era] documentation of this tornado, it is not listed in any official NOAA/NWS database. The film would be repurposed in dozens of educational films and documentary programs about tornadoes for the next four decades of the 20th century.
16mm film to video, color, silent.
Photographer: Jon Gardey, Perrin AFB, Texas.
Additional history on Perrin Air Force Base can be located here:
northtexasregionalairport.com/history-perrin-afb
This color 16mm film taken by airman Jon Gardey on Perrin Air Force Base in North Texas on April 19, 1957 documents a near-complete life cycle of a tornado and was one of the earliest films to showcase such. Other tornado life cycles also documented on film at Dallas and Fargo, North Dakota in 1957 aided early understanding on tornado development, but was not formally published into scientific literature until the Union City, Oklahoma tornado of May 23, 1973.
Despite the high quality [for the era] documentation of this tornado, it is not listed in any official NOAA/NWS database. The film would be repurposed in dozens of educational films and documentary programs about tornadoes for the next four decades of the 20th century.
16mm film to video, color, silent.
Photographer: Jon Gardey, Perrin AFB, Texas.
Additional history on Perrin Air Force Base can be located here:
northtexasregionalairport.com/history-perrin-afb
![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.")
