Flashback: 6 tornadoes raked the Twin Cities in 1965

This is the day Twin Cities residents of a certain age will never forget.

Six tornadoes ripped across the western Twin Cities on May 6, 1965. The twisters tore through fields and neighborhoods for about three hours. Civil defense sirens wailed for the first time during severe weather. The tornado outbreak still stands as the biggest outbreak in Twin Cities history.

The numbers for the 1965 Twin Cities tornado outbreak are still eye-opening.

• 6 tornadoes touched down in about 3 hours

• 4 tornadoes were rated F4 (Fujita Scale) (winds 207 mph+)

• 1 tornado was F3 (winds 158 mph+)

• 1 tornado was F2 (winds 113 mph+)

• 13 killed, 500 injured, 51-million in damage

• 1st use of civil defense sirens for severe weather

The tornado tracks that evening are pretty close to a meteorologist's worst nightmare. The fact many tornadoes touched down in still relatively unpopulated areas just west of the Twin Cities core probably saved dozens of lives.

Fridley: Two F4 tornadoes 

Fridley was the hardest hit area in the 1965 tornado outbreak. Cars were tossed around like toys amongst shattered homes.

It's still incredible to realize that not one, but two separate F4 tornadoes with 200+ mph winds struck the Fridley area. The track maps show the same area was hit by two different tornadoes at about 7:08 and 8:30 pm.

Birth of a weather career

The 1965 tornadoes are my first living memory. I was a young boy in Deephaven just east of the F4 tornado track. My siblings and I were outside with football helmets on picking up hailstones as big as our fists under an eerie green sky when the back door flew open and my mom came out and yelled;

"You kids get inside and get to the basement! Your father called and he said there's a tornado coming!"

My father worked at the Minneapolis courthouse. He was following police radio chatter as the tornadoes tore through Chanhassen. I watched the green sky swirl from the basement window as huge trees danced in the violent winds that day. The east edge of the F4 tornado passed just a few blocks west of our house.

Our home was not damaged, but here's what our neighbors in Cottagewood on the shores of Lake Minnetonka saw.

This was the boat works near my elementary school in Deephaven. Ironically, I keep my boat on this shore today.

My memory of that day is as clear as the day it happened. If you could Netflix my memory banks, it would make a great mini-documentary.

Still #1

The 1965 tornado outbreak still stands as the most devastating in Twin Cities history. I hope I never see another radar image with multiple discrete tornadic supercells with nasty tornado-bearing hook echoes like this one.

Many of us in the Twin Cities meteorological community feel the data suggests we're overdue for another big Twin Cities tornado outbreak.

Let's hope it's not this year.