Tornado Debris Transport

The illustration above of the debris pattern from the famous Barneveld tornado and its 6 siblings on June 7-8, 1984 is redrafted and colorized here (from Anderson, 1985). Rheinlander and the North Temperate Lakes LTER is about 130 km north of Stevens Point. Tornadoes and potential piscatory tornadoes in Wisconsin tend to track from southwest to northeast. Fish would tend to fall in the light (<1 LB) to paper debris classes. Such light debris would also include bank pouches, empty when found, one of which was the property of Berneveld in the lower left black areas in the illustration and was found 86 miles to the northeast. It is possible the heftier fish (> LB) might make a lake-to-lake journey with debris-projectile-mates like boards, plywood, and aluminum siding.

Details of the debris type and pattern from the Barneveld tornadoes is detailed in Snow et al. (1995). Included here from Snow job is a selected historical review of tornado debris transport of items that would indicate that fish and fish fry might just be able to make a journey from lake to lake.

Alnderson, C. E. 1985. The fall-out pattern for debris for the Barneveld, WI tornado: an F-5 storm. Preprints. 14th Conf. on Severe Local Storms, Indianapolis, IN. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 264-266.

Snow, J. T., A. L. Wyatt, A. K. McCarthy, and E. K Bishop. 1995. Fallout of Debris from Torndic thunderstorms: a historical perspective and two examples from VORTEX. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 76(10):1777-1790.