Tornados in the Disney Parks

[Larry Mondello]

I remember in 1998 when I was in Florida I was staying at Orange Lake Resort in a ground level one story villa and a tornado destroyed a campground and flattened out the RV's across the Lake Orange Lake is located at. It might of also destroyed some homes. Another quarter to half a mile out car would have been scrap, the villa is made of cinder blocks but then you never know.

Yes the one in 1998 proves that it could happen again.

This is the tornado that prompted Universal to delay the opening of "Twister" for a couple months.

1998 Kissimmee tornado outbreak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1998 Central Florida tornado outbreak of February 22–23, 1998, was the deadliest tornado event in Florida history. Forty-two people were killed and 260 were injured; seven tornadoes were involved in the event. The previous record for the highest tornado death toll in Florida history was 17 on March 31, 1962.
The first tornado of the outbreak came at around 11:40 pm in Lake County, Florida. Three were killed in this tornado. The most notable tornado of the night was an F3 that hit in Kissimmee, where twenty five were killed. Another F3 hit in Seminole County, Florida, near Sanford and Volusia County, Florida, killing 13. The last tornado of the night hit in Brevard County, Florida.

 

[Club Cooloholic]

I was there for the one in 98! I remember my father and I driving back from going somewhere and we could see the storm going down, and we pulled over, I think we might have hung out in DTD for awhile to wait it out. When we were driving back to the Poly we could see all the downed trees and damage. If I recall right though, Disney went into overdrive and the next day you could not even tell anything had happened.

 

[The Mom]

While Florida ranks fourth nationally in tornado frequency, large, violent tornadoes are fairly rare in the Sunshine State. Most Florida tornados are of F1 intensity, winds of 73-112 mph and short duration.

Read more: http://www.wpbf.com/weather/2396864/detail.html#ixzz1Qoy6JUPr :wave:

But they are still tornadoes.
And one of the "big" ones did hit within 20 miles (or less) of WDW, with lots of damage and loss of life, so I wouldn't pooh-pooh the original question. There was some minor damage at WDW, but it might have been wind damage from the same severe storm that spawned the tornado, not the actual funnel cloud itself. Many of our severe storms do cause tornado like damage, but very locally, and usually without loss of life and causing only minor property damage, usually limited to a few homes. I've experienced the local meteorologists having disagreements over whether something was or was not an actual tornado.

But I think we agree that it's not something to worry about when planning a trip to WDW.

 

[marni1971]

I witnessed one over Epcot from the CBR in 2001. Later learnt they evaced into the park shelters.

Try a thread search. We dicussed this and the ways the parks protect themselves and their guests :wave:

 

[E102_Gamma]

I have never seen a tornado in Florida, but sometimes FL's weather can be alittle weird :drevil:

When I was staying at Fort Wilderness in the summer a couple of years back, I had a storm form right above us, and about a few mins later when I look up to see it, it started to Hail :lookaroun and theses were about half of a golf ball! :brick: Went on for about a half an hour I believe.

Most of the time, I believe Disney has to worry about flooding in their parks than Tornados xD Like this >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e5KaUpNO_w

 

[mp2bill]

I go to School in Boston but for the Summer live in Western Massachusetts. June 1st we had a tornado that destroyed quite a few homes. I second that there are no rules for tornados and they can pretty much happen anywhere.

Yeah, there are no rules, per se, but they're far less likely to happen in MA or FL than they are from TX to ND and OH to GA.

Wasn't the rarity of extended (key word) severe thunderstorms one of the reasons that Walt chose central FL?

 

[lbrad]

I feel that a better discussion would be the damage/effect of hurricanes from the past.

Micro cells. They have become more common the past 5 years and we were pelted two months ago with one. None of the shipyards in the area with their state of the art warning systems had more than 3 minutes warning. Some gusts topped 100mph and blew cranes down the track with one death resulting (it takes a few minutes to chock a crane and with no warning it was impossible.)

Actually here is an image of it coming in at Va Beach.

WOW >>>AWESOME photography
Scarey!!!

 

[mergatroid]

Saw a tornado off Route 27 about 10 years ago and was fascinated and terrified at the same time. It only lasted about a minute and just threw up bits of plants from the ground but made a lot of traffic stop including myself. I must say I always get excited when driving in Florida and there's an electrical storm in the distance, especially at night. Truly spectacular

 

[chrisps]

I have been to the Disney world resort in sever weather alot of times but never seen a tornado at the Disney world resort. My state had 16 tornadoes this year and they were F1 and some strong F2 tornadoes I did not seen any tornadoes in my area but they have been alot of torando warnings this year in the spring but no torando in Lancaster pa but it was close to having a tornado here in Lancaster pa a coble of times this year. Tornadoes can happen anywhere in this country at any time this year there were over 750 tornadoes this year in this country most of them in the south of this country in Texas and other states in the south this year weather has been really bad this year. I don't get tornadoes here in Lancaster pa very often but when they happen they are the F0 tornadoes and not not really big tornadoes there was an F3 tornado that hit in the country north of were I live in 2004 but it did not stay on the ground really long but it damaged alot of new homes in a new area. I have also had alot of really bad thunderstorms this year last week at 2am I had a relly sever thunder storm that had alot of cloud to ground lighting and hail and I had 1 inch hail stones in Lancaster and York Pa this year in the spring and that does not happen every year. I am ready for winter to come and for it to snow again this year I am tried of all of the torando warnings in my state and in Lancaster pa this year I hope that the tornadoes here in Lancaster pa are done for this year. There was a big tornado that hit the area near Boston before the end of May this year that did alot of damage to the town so tornadoes and damaging tornadoes can happen anywhere in this country not just torando ally.

 

[mrksmpsn]

Twister Pathy by BCV?

After the three hurricanes that hit Orlando in September 2004? it looked like there was a very small tornado path by the Beach Club Villas. The tree damage is consistent with a tornado rather than winds from a hurricane. The path would be behind the Living Seas side of Epcot.

I have heard that hurricanes often produce small tornadoes on the EF scale as opposed to the big ones we have seen around the US this spring. The tree damage seems consistent with a small scale twister. I was fascinated by this damage path since I had just taken an espotter course from the NWS.

They are terrifying yet fascinating to see, even the small ones. You have to take them seriously because the debris they toss about could seriously and permanently disable you if not kill you. I was surprised to learn how many people lose limbs to tornadoes--usually you just think people get either some injuries or die from collapsing structures, but loss of limbs from being hit by debris happens to. I think that is true for folks who don't take hurricanes seriously--they put themselves at risk from debris you can't see until it is too late.

 

[JIMINYCR]

That freaked me the heck out.

I'm in Maine...Stuff like that isn't supposed to happen up here - poisonous animals, earthquakes, tornadoes.

I'm from Maine, more northern to where you are, and always say how lucky I am to live where I'm not affected by those... But I know people who go up into northern Maine to hunt or work in the woods. They say they will be moving through the woods and suddenly come to a spot where the trees are all torn up and debris all around, where tornados have set down. Since it's in the middle of no where, no personal destruction happened, no one thinks about or reports them.... I guess I'll be fine to put up with a bit of a longer winter, shorter summer and avoid those other things people South of us have to deal with every season.

 

[DisneyDebNJ]

I remember one year, we had booked a surprise spring week in 1996, at the Royal Plaza Hotel (one of the few times we didn't stay inside the parks), and Hurricane Fran made her way down International Drive. We just happened to call and try to upgrade our reservation, and found, the hotel was closed, due to the roof being torn away. The guest service rep told us a tornado had done alot of damage. Several other hotels on International Drive had alot of damage. Strangely, nothing much happened in Downtown Disney

 

[RobVanDam]

This is actually pretty spooky.

The night of the OP (June 30th) I had a dream I was on the monorail during a storm and saw Cinderella Castle get torn to shreds by a tornado. I haven't been on the boards in a while and didn't see this thread until today.

Weird.

 

[Jakester]

i actually don't think the hat is that bad.lol but then again that's just my opinion

I dont mind it either (Since ive only been to DHS with the Hat). I wouldnt mind if it got torn down/relocated/stayed.