First tornado account predates Weather Channel!

“The first known mention of a tornado in pre-colonial America was in the diary of a member of the 1586 Roanoke landing party. On June 23, he recounts, as the fleet of Sir Francis Drake stood at anchor off the North Carolina coast, there arose a tempest characterized by awesome spouts — the manifestation of a tornado over water — of such violence as to cause all the ships to break loose from their anchors.”

— From “The winds of ruin” by C. W. Gusewelle in American Heritage, June/July 1978