Unlucky date or town? What do you think!!

[HURAKAN]

Codell, Kansas

Codell is a town in Osborne County, Kansas, United States.

The town is notable for its exceptional tornado history. On May 20 in 1916, 1917, and 1918, Codell was hit by a tornado. The 1918 tornado was the most destructive, killing 10 people and damaging a large part of the town.
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This is pretty interesting. To get hit by a tornado on the same date, three years in a row??? Sounds almost crazy.

[george_r_1961]

Sounds spooky indeed. But May is the heart of the tornado season and its no more than a coincidence that they got hit 3 years in a row on the same date.

And no I would not visit that town on May 20

[tropicana]

that really is spooky. Def. wont be visiting there on May 20 ever.

[senorpepr]

FWIW, yeah, it's Tornado Alley in May, but the chances of this happening are amazing. Growing up in the alley, I had never been within 50mi of a tornado. Yeah, tornadoes happen frequently here, but given the size and frequency of a tornado compared to the size of Tornado Alley, the chances of seeing a tornado in a specific town are VERY low. Accomplish that feat three years in a row... holy cow.


To explain my point, compare the size of Codell, KS, to the size of Tornado Alley. Of course, the definition of "Tornado Alley" is vague, but the approximate size based on the average of definitions is somewhere around 600,000 sq mi. Meanwhile, Codell is around 1/5 sq mi. This makes Codell about 0.00003% of Tornado Alley.

For a tornado to strike the same three-hundred thousandths of a percent of an area... on the same day... for three consecutive years... is impressive.