The National Weather Service office in Wichita is using social media to recreate the timeline of a deadly tornado outbreak 25 years ago.
An F5 tornado ravaged McConnell Air Force Base and then dropped on top of a populated area in Andover on April 26, 1991.
There were seventeen deaths and more than 200 people were injured.
Meteorologist Eric Metzger says the weather office used Twitter Tuesday to re-enact the atmospheric conditions and events that led to the tornado.
"One is to commemorate what happened and then the timeline because it was not a short 20-minute deal," Metzger says. "This was something that built through the day."
Back then, Doppler Radar was relatively new, and forecasters say it had only been used in Wichita about four years. Metzger says the advancements in radar technology, better weather information and social media help get warnings out faster.
"A lot of times it’s very difficult to, even with today’s technology depending on how strong the rotation is and the system, to get lead time on a tornado that hasn’t dropped," he says. "But we are able to do it better than we have been in the past."
Metzger says they included the 1991 date at the top every tweet, about 60 in all, to avoid any confusion with current conditions.
The office wanted to do this special Twitter feed last week, on the actual anniversary of the tornado, but postponed the plan when the forecast called for severe weather.
The National Weather Service says April and May are the peak months for tornadoes in the Central Plains region. A total of 55 tornadoes developed throughout the day and night on April 26, 1991, from east Texas as far north as the Iowa/Minnesota border.
Follow the live tweet below:
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