Whether or not you were among the Independence Day masses panicking and running calmly evacuating in an orderly fashion to shelter during yesterday’s thunderstorm warning and tornado watch, you might be interested to see NOAA’s history of tornadoes in the District.

Northwest and the Downtown and National Mall core have had a fair share of tornado hits, including one in 1814 which killed several British soldiers around the time of The Burning of Washington. An F2 in 1888 touched down in Southwest and went up Maryland Ave, damaging the National Museum (today’s dormant Arts and Industries Building) and the old Botanical Gardens, before the funnel lifted up just short of Capitoll Hill.

Read about more historic DC tornadoes here. (Also, I seem to recall a really bad disaster TV movie a couple of years ago which featured anomalous weather causing a tornado which destroyed the White House. But the name escapes me. It wasn’t The Day After Tomorrow. It was worse.)

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Paulo Ordoveza

Roving Asian mendicant, can occasionally be seen wandering the streets of downtown Washington, muttering unintelligible gibberish to passers-by while pushing a “bag lady” shopping cart full of old blankets, American flags, soda cans, and healthy secondhand snacks from organic food shop dumpsters. Used to live in a cardboard box at 16th and K but the rent was too expensive.