Eyes on the skies: Veteran storm watcher shares tales from 4 decades in the field

Lawrence resident Floyd Craig has been volunteering as a Douglas County storm watcher for the last 42 years. Craig is pictured on Tuesday in East Lawrence.

Veteran storm watcher Floyd Craig knows every severe thunderstorm has a distinct personality.

“All storms are not alike,” he said. “They all have their own characteristics. One may have a rope tornado, and the other might have an EF-5. You could get golfball-sized hail on one side of town and pea-sized on the other side.”

Those are the kind of insights you develop with 42 years of watching troubled skies over Douglas County as a volunteer storm watcher. The retired University of Kansas employee of 25 years also has developed a certain calmness from being out alone in nature ready to relay news of a squall line, wall cloud, cloud rotation or even a funnel to the National Weather Service office in Topeka.

He wasn’t always that at ease with the thunderstorms that roll through northeast Kansas in the spring and early summer. He admits his first real experience with a tornado left him considerably shaken.

“June 12, 1964, got me into tornadoes,” the 67-year-old Lawrence resident said. “We lived out west of town on Trail Riders Road. It was long time ago. My dad had just got home from the hospital. We had a tornado that damaged some of our trees. What was worse was the people to the east of us. They got their houses torn up. The tornado got to the end of a dirt road and destroyed a barn. They lost their cows and all but one chicken. A neighbor to the north of them said the house went up in the air, turned around three times and exploded. They had a cow end up in the basement with them.”

His father died shortly after that tornado, but he, his mother, his sister and an aunt remained at the homestead concerned about every storm, Craig said.

“We were a little gun-shy,” he said. “It always seemed like we were going to get another tornado.”

He came to grips with that fear, eventually responding to a call for volunteer storm spotters in 1975, when he was 25. C.W. McCall’s novelty song “Convoy” with its CB radio theme was a big hit, and CBs were how Craig and his fellow spotters communicated.

“The farthest we could go was the west edge of the city,” he said, laughing. “They didn’t transmit very good in a storm with all the static.”

Craig refined his storm-watching eye responding to early activations, chasing storms on one night from Shawnee County east to near Johnson County and then south to near the Franklin County line. He learned to distinguish actual wall clouds, which can produce funnels, from low-hanging scud clouds aping their appearance or harmless “beaver tails,” and to look for rotation in the clouds, estimate wind speeds and note the direction of the storm.

Spotters see a lot of weather, but it may be of some comfort that sighting actual funnels is rare, even for those looking for them.

“If it doesn’t have rotation, it’s not a funnel,” he said. “It’s not classified as a tornado until it hits the ground and starts kicking up debris.”

Tornadoes aren’t the only hazard associated with severe storms. There’s hail that can grow as large as softballs, flooding and lightning. The trusty 2000 Dodge Caravan he drives when activated has a few scars from hail, Craig said, but so far has avoided a lightning strike.

“I’ve been within 100 yards of lightning,” he said. “My wife was with me on 450 Road when it struck. It got pretty blue. We both jumped, but it didn’t hit us. You can tell when lightning is going to strike because your hair stands up on your arms and neck. I don’t have much hair on top left to stand up”

Craig said he spotted his first funnel about 15 years into his storm-watching career.

“I saw one at Clinton Lake,” he said. “It wasn’t there long. It was a rope. It came down and went back up quick. In March or April 1992, there was one out by Big Springs I followed all the way to McLouth to give warning. It took the steeple off a church in McLouth and knocked out power lines. When I crossed the railroad in Perry, there weren’t any lights at the tracks.”

Six years into his spotter career, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time to witness the June 19, 1981, tornado that killed a Kansas University student in a Kmart store near 31st and Iowa streets and damaged a mobile home park near the current Menards store.

“When that tornado started I was in North Lawrence,” he said. “I don’t know how, but I heard a roar. I jumped up and left. When I hit Louisiana Street, softball-sized hail hit my window. I got lucky. It didn’t break my windshield. When I got there, the tornado had already left and raised up.”

The tornado traveled southeast, rather than the usual northeastern direction, Craig said.

Twenty-two years later while on duty, Craig spotted the May, 8, 2003, tornado that damaged the Aberdeen Apartments in southwest Lawrence as it churned its way toward the city.

“I was sitting out south of town by the old Zarco, just north and a little west,” he said. “I watched it cross (Route) 460, headed for Lawrence.”

He can stay calm now in such situations because of training, Craig said. He’s always aware of the situation and always plots an escape route, he said.

“Douglas County has the best training for weather spotters or Community Emergency Response Teams,” he said. “I have trained with CERT in other counties. They just aren’t as good.”

The admiration goes both ways, said Teri Smith, Douglas County Emergency Management director. Craig is always willing to help with the various events her agency hosts, but his biggest asset is the veteran eye he brings to storm watching, she said.

“He’s always willing to go when it’s time and doesn’t care about the time of day,” she said. “The new storm watchers are energetic and that’s great, but those who have been around a long time have seen more and experienced more. We love having experience with our storm spotters.”

He has given thought to giving up his severe weather duties, but he will add another year and more activations to the 300 to 400 he’s had in more than four decades as a storm watcher.

“I’ve been going to retire, but the ladies down there at emergency management won’t let me,” he said. “I like them, so I’ll hang in there just to give them a hard time.”