Weather karaoke: can tornadoes hit large cities?

In Beyoncé's debut country album, she sings about a tornado in her city-but do tornadoes even hit cities?

Transcript

00:00It means it's another edition here of our newest segment that I'm calling weather karaoke,

00:12where we dive deeper into the meteorological meaning behind popular song lyrics.

00:17Last week we started with Taylor Swift, so of course this week we had to do Beyonce.

00:20The lead single from Beyonce's debut country album offered several intriguing weather references,

00:26but there was a line it really caught my attention.

00:29Beyonce sang about a tornado hitting her city.

00:32So today in weather karaoke, we are asking, can tornadoes hit large cities?

00:38Let's take a look at some of the most recent tornadoes to move through the downtown areas

00:42of bigger metros.

00:44Back in August in Buffalo, we had an EF1 tornado that moved through.

00:48You may remember in Chicago back in July 15th, and even cities like Lake Charles and Tallahassee

00:54have recently seen tornadoes that one in early May in Tallahassee brought an EF2 tornado.

00:59Well, there's also been tornadoes in downtown Washington DC, Atlanta, and Nashville.

01:05Okay, back to a Beyonce, safe to assume she was referring to Houston, her hometown.

01:10You may remember this, that powerful line of storms that swept through Houston and the

01:14metro area in mid May.

01:16Well during that period, an EF1 tornado swept through Cyprus.

01:19We have some video of the damage here of Cyprus where the peak winds exceeded 100 miles per

01:26hour and the tornado uprooted large trees and tragically resulted in four fatalities.

01:31Well, this was the most recent tornado in Houston.

01:35There was a tornado back in the metro in 1993, a supercell tornado that produced an F1.

01:41So yes, Beyonce is correct.

01:43Tornadoes can hit large cities.