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| The city's Forestry Division removes downed limbs from Windham Street Monday. (T&G Staff/RICK CINCLAIR) |
george.barnes@telegram.com
WORCESTER — Since Sunday's EF-0 tornado hit the city on Sunday, Michael Roescher has been hearing from friends asking him not to visit if there is bad weather.
Mr. Roescher, a weather spotter for the National Weather Service's SKYWARN Network, captured video of the tornado as it formed and passed two blocks from his home at 24 Cargill Ave.
The video, recorded by a camera mounted on the room of the three-story building where he lives, was used by the National Weather Service to help confirm that a tornado hit the city.
See video of tornado from Worcester's Vernon Hill.
And Mr. Roescher knows what a tornado looks like.
Before he moved to Worcester, Mr. Roescher had his home in Monson destroyed in 2011 when an EF-3 tornado tore through the area. It was that experience that led him to attend classes to learn how to be a weather spotter.
"It really sparked my interest in the tornado issue," he said.
And bad weather almost seems drawn to him or his family. Eight days before the tornado in Monson, his mother was two blocks away from the EF-5 tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011. He was also in Revere taking his cat to a veterinarian in July when an EF-2 tornado hit that city.
Mr. Roescher mounted a camera and microphone on his roof not really believing he would record another tornado, but thinking he would be able to get a good view of the city, see nice sunsets and occasionally capture photos of lightning.
"I couldn't imagine I would see another tornado," he said.
Mr. Roescher said he is not someone drawn to storm chasing. He is interested in weather and especially interested in why animals seem to sense storms before they hit, but he is happy to watch the storm from home.
"I've been hit by one tornado and that was enough," he said.
The camera on the roof is something of a safety net and proved to be an early warning system. He said he was watching his monitor, saw what was going on outside, and got everyone to the center of the house.
"The storm formed right in view of the lens over on Perry Avenue," he said.
On the video, especially an enhanced version, the tornado can clearly be seen developing. The wind speed at his house at the time was 50 miles per hour. The wind in the tornado was even stronger.
Mr. Roescher said the video was his only warning. He said he received the National Weather Service warning 4 minutes after the tornado passed. When his home was hit in Monson, he had only 10 seconds to get into the cellar, in part because he was watching Boston weather channels instead of the Springfield channels which were already reporting a tornado there.
Storm warnings are not taken lightly in Mr. Roescher's home. He said the loud wind from the storm Sunday was an indication something bad was happening. He said that in the absence of a warning, if people hear loud wind, that should be a cue to seek shelter. He said during the Worcester tornado, people were out on the street trying to figure out what the noise was all about. He said it was fortunate no one was hit by falling trees or branches.
Contact George Barnes at george.barnes@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgebarnesTG
It seems the new owners of the Worcester Telegram have decided that George has to work for his pay. I could not understand how anyone could get paid, for writing a column about themselves, but he did get away with it for a long time. George had a golden opportunity to write about the problems our town was having, but chose to keep his head in the sand and ignore the whole thing. George could have covered the town's problems by showing both sides, a hell of alot better than the Gardner News's one sided coverage, but he ignored that also. I guess sticking to the birds and the bees is safer, so for real news, people can read the blog. Pauly contributed more than anyone in the town's history by creating Pauly's Templeton Watch, but that is my opinion. Bev.
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