April 10, 2023 will mark the 44th anniversary of among the worst natural disasters in Texas. On Tuesday, April 10, 1979 the city of Wichita Falls was struck by a tornado that leveled much of the southern part of the city.

It's a day I won't ever forget. I was the primary meteorologist for the CBS affiliate, KAUZ-TV. I had the duty of reporting on a tornado that would ride into history for the deaths and destruction it left.

A warm front lifted north bringing in warm, damp, and unstable air. A cold front with an involved location of low pressure was moving out of the Texas South Plains towards Wichita Falls. Unstable and warm air ahead of an approaching cold front helped sustain the tornado break out

Our Monday, April 9 forecast signaled viewers that strong storms with a probability of tornadoes were possible. We urged individuals to have a strategy.

You need to remember this was 1979. In a market as little as ours we did not have color radar. When utilized in an Air Force aircraft, Ours was the old black and white system. We also did not have weather condition apps, a station devoted to relaying just weather condition details, or any of the technological advancements that we have in 2023.

We got our information on this day from both the National Weather Service and the Ham Radio network.

The day was ugly with a partially to mostly cloudy sky and obnoxious humidity. When one walked outside they got struck with all that wetness, that abovementioned warm front brought massive amounts of wetness from the Gulf so that. That's what assisted develop the instability in the atmosphere.

There were two twisters in the KAUZ viewing location that day. The tornado ripped through Vernon. That supercell crossed the Red River into southwest Oklahoma where another tornado was spawned resulting in another casualty in Lawton.

As if this wasn't enough, the worst was still to come.

The 2nd supercell formed in Baylor County near the city of Seymour before 5:00 where a tornado was reported however, luckily, without any casualties. The storm then crossed into northwest Archer County.

Fifteen miles southwest of Wichita Falls is the neighborhood of Holliday. At 5:50 a tornado touched down 3 miles east-northeast of Holliday.

After a quick lifting, the big twister touched down in southwest Wichita Falls near the community of Ponderosa Estates. That's where it was when our newscast began at 5:58 p.m. We will give the location and what individuals need to do when, a minute later on, we got knocked off the air when a transformer was struck.

The tornado would cause substantial damage at the city's football field, Memorial Stadium before doing damage at McNiel Junior High School. With no additional broadcasting possible we went to the back entrance to watch as this big black beast of a storm struck the city's shopping mall, Sikes Senter. After creating chaos there, the tornado crossed Southwest Parkway and continued its rampage in the city's eastern area.

As soon as the tornado left Wichita Falls a spooky calm was left. It was the next day, Wednesday, April 11, 1979 when we saw the true degree of what this thing did.

The twister travelled through eight miles of the city and was 1.5 miles wide. The intense damage was about.25 to.50 miles wide.

Statistics from a terrible twister in Wichita Falls, Texas

It took awhile for the final numbers to be reported. This tornado eliminated 42 people. Around 1,700 were injured. But it was the emotional injuries that would pester people for several years.

More than 3 thousand houses were damaged together with more than one thousand apartment units and almost 100 mobile houses. In today's dollars $1.93 BILLION of damage was triggered.

Staggering numbers for the Wichita Falls twister

The twister was initially given an F4 on the original Fujita scale of tornado strength. It was reclassified as an EF5 when the Enhanced Fujita scale was embraced in February, 2007.

All we could do then was talk to the individuals who did have power and attempt our best to be as comforting as possible. We did whatever we could to let individuals know where they could get assistance.

It was positively gut-wrenching to see what the tornado did to our city and our residents.

An anniversary to forget.