Tornadoes are so rare in Israel most people don’t believe they exist here. In fact, they are so rare, your average Israeli doesn’t know the difference between a tornado and a hurricane and they two are almost synonyms here.
So, when my brother-in-law from Kibbutz Ortal called us to say he was within tens of meters away from a real tornado, we couldn’t believe it at first. Turns out he was right. According to the Fujita scale, it was a genuine F2 Tornado. Short in duration, it touched the ground for what was probably under one minute, leaving a trail of under one kilometer of damage. Fortunately, it did not hit any major buildings, skipping the cow sheds by a couple of hundreds of meters.
I’ve been meaning to blog about it for a while, so far only mentioned it on Twitter when it happened. Better later than never! This happened in Kibbutz Ortal in the Golan Heights on November 1, 2009.
Here are pictures taken on the following day -
That is where the stables shed used to be – the only actual building hit. It was torn from the ground, with people inside, and carried across the area.
Machines and tractors overturned.
The fence, including some posts, were uprooted and carried in the air.
About a month later, we went to visit, to view the ground. We hiked along the tornado trail, outside the Kibbutz area, along the uprooted and broken trees:
I posted more pictures in a public album here – it’s available to all to see on the IsraeliMom Facebook Fan Page (join if you’re on Facebook!)
on Jan 4th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
along the 1 km path we followed (might be longer), there were over 80 trees cut or uprooted. There was an Iron fence pole that nailed a n aluminum container, and a heavy wood roof log that pierced a tin shad.
also, a big Tractor and a trolley (both much bigger than the ones in the pictures that were turned on their side.
some parts of the shad roof were flown about half a mile.
on Jan 6th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Really hard to believe that this is Israel.
Good thing this is very unusual and only happened in a tiny area.
Mostly the weather in Israel is hot and very expected , In fact the ratio of success of the weather forecast is over 90% correct in Israel!!
Mind you with 8 month of blue sky and guarantee for sun it is not that hard.
While many places in world now (uk) coverd with snow- In israel winter is about 15 cel degree (that is winter)- what is still not warm enough for many israelis that I know that escaping at Jan for a trip in the far east/ Australia or so.
Great and unusual photos, thank you
on Jan 13th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
are we in Kansas? who would have thought a tornado would touch down in Israel
on Jan 18th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Tornados are so frightening. I had no idea they affected Israel either.
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