Tornado Season

[vegas1369]

US averages around 1,100 twisters a year, most of which will be in a 3 month period starting now.

We saw the first real damaging one today in Illinois... http://news.yahoo.com/hail-high-wind...062910553.html

Personally I've always been fascinated with tornado's. I actually saw a small one in Delaware when I was a kid and it's kind of stuck with me ever since. Ripped out a tree and took out a fence right across the street from where I lived and narrowly missed my house.

I've always wondered what amount of stress it causes to live in areas of the country known as Tornado Alley. I've always tried to live in areas that don't have many natural disasters. Granted, Nevada is a very seismic state, but in reality the chance of a natural disaster here is pretty slim. Funny though, cause at the same time I lived in an area (south of Philly) most of my life with the highest cancer rate in the country due to all the chemical and oil companies most likely, and then I move to a part of the country that's known for higher amounts of radiation. So I guess it's kind of a give and take.

That said, I don't think I could live in an area where there is a decent chance I could be hit by a tornado while I sleep, or anytime for that matter. I think the warning system has gotten better over the course of the last 20-30 years, but it's still not without its flaws including not enough warning time, which is obv a big problem. When I drove across country a few years ago I went through Oklahoma during a major storm with constant tornado warnings, where you couldn't see more than 50 yards ahead of you. It was fucking brutal. White knuckled and majorly stressed the entire time.

How do you mid westerners handle it? Not really much thought of it, just par for the course in your neck of the woods? Is it fairly common to know someone whose life was affected by one of these things?

[chinamaniac]

Tony is NOT going to be a happy camper when he sees this thread

[jsearles22]

Par for the course. Honestly no one really reacts. You are just used to it. A tornado warning could flash across the TV right now and I wouldn't even move out of my chair.

I will say most houses now have storm rooms built into them when the house is constructed. My new house will have an 8' x 8x steel reinforced concrete box in the far basement corner. According to my contractor, no known tornado on record could affect us in there. The wife and kids liked the idea, and really it doesn't cost that much more when designed in during construction.

Also you touched on the "chances" of getting hit. Honestly they are extremely low if you know much about tornados. They typically follow low lying areas (I.e river bottoms, low fields, etc). Sure you hear about cities being hit each year, but 99% of tornadoes cause no damage at all except out in pastures. And most tornados that do cause damage cause very minor damage to 1 or 2 houses. The news only talks about the once every 5 year catastrophes. And even in those the death toll is usually pretty low all things considered.

[vegas1369]

Par for the course. Honestly no one really reacts. You are just used to it. A tornado warning could flash across the TV right now and I wouldn't even move out of my chair.

I will say most houses now have storm rooms built into them when the house is constructed. My new house will have an 8' x 8x steel reinforced concrete box in the far basement corner. According to my contractor, no known tornado on record could affect us in there. The wife and kids liked the idea, and really it doesn't cost that much more when designed in during construction.

Also you touched on the "chances" of getting hit. Honestly they are extremely low if you know much about tornados. They typically follow low lying areas (I.e river bottoms, low fields, etc). Sure you hear about cities being hit each year, but 99% of tornadoes cause no damage at all except out in pastures. And most tornados that do cause damage cause very minor damage to 1 or 2 houses. The news only talks about the once every 5 year catastrophes. And even in those the death toll is usually pretty low all things considered.

Plus now you have somewhere to go during the Zombie Apocalypse.

Ever seen one? A tornado that is, not a zombie.

[vegas1369]

And it's all well and good when you can afford to live somewhere with a storm cellar, but how about all those poor saps out there living in trailer parks. Fuck that!!! You couldn't pay me to stay in one of those places this time of year.

[Krypt]

LOL Tornados, not a problem here.

[jsearles22]

Par for the course. Honestly no one really reacts. You are just used to it. A tornado warning could flash across the TV right now and I wouldn't even move out of my chair.

I will say most houses now have storm rooms built into them when the house is constructed. My new house will have an 8' x 8x steel reinforced concrete box in the far basement corner. According to my contractor, no known tornado on record could affect us in there. The wife and kids liked the idea, and really it doesn't cost that much more when designed in during construction.

Also you touched on the "chances" of getting hit. Honestly they are extremely low if you know much about tornados. They typically follow low lying areas (I.e river bottoms, low fields, etc). Sure you hear about cities being hit each year, but 99% of tornadoes cause no damage at all except out in pastures. And most tornados that do cause damage cause very minor damage to 1 or 2 houses. The news only talks about the once every 5 year catastrophes. And even in those the death toll is usually pretty low all things considered.

Plus now you have somewhere to go during the Zombie Apocalypse.

Ever seen one? A tornado that is, not a zombie.

I see them every year, lol. My office sits on the top floor of a tall building, overlooking the flat barren Kansas wasteland. There are always tornados; I watch them out the window. They aren't jumping the Missouri River. I can see probably 10+ miles out into Kansas from the Missouri side.

But I've experienced 3 in my lifetime. Only once was I actually scared. Standing on football practice field in high school. Sky looks wicked, sirens go off, you can see tornado to the south, moving north. We all run into the basement locker room which doubled as the school storm shelter. One car in parking lot was flipped on it's side. Lots of hail/debris damage.
The other 2 were close enough to see, but not close enough to even run inside

[herbertstemple]

Have a thunderstorm watch till 1 am. Its around 80 degrees and humid as hell so we might get a good storm before the night is over.

A tornado came through just south of here in 2006. Killed 24 people. One was a girl I'd gone to HS with and her 2 year old grand daughter.

Found this video on youtube.

[WillieMcFML]

big hail storm a couple days and if i know anything, it's that hail means a tornado is coming so i started recording

don't know how to internet very well and embed, but here's a link

http://tinypic.com/r/wssl03/8

[Muck Ficon]

Plus now you have somewhere to go during the Zombie Apocalypse.

Ever seen one? A tornado that is, not a zombie.

I see them every year, lol. My office sits on the top floor of a tall building, overlooking the flat barren Kansas wasteland. There are always tornados; I watch them out the window. They aren't jumping the Missouri River. I can see probably 10+ miles out into Kansas from the Missouri side.

But I've experienced 3 in my lifetime. Only once was I actually scared. Standing on football practice field in high school. Sky looks wicked, sirens go off, you can see tornado to the south, moving north. We all run into the basement locker room which doubled as the school storm shelter. One car in parking lot was flipped on it's side. Lots of hail/debris damage.
The other 2 were close enough to see, but not close enough to even run inside

[Sheesfaced]

LOL Tornados, not a problem here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...BAyE_blog.html

Liar

[jsearles22]

I see them every year, lol. My office sits on the top floor of a tall building, overlooking the flat barren Kansas wasteland. There are always tornados; I watch them out the window. They aren't jumping the Missouri River. I can see probably 10+ miles out into Kansas from the Missouri side.

But I've experienced 3 in my lifetime. Only once was I actually scared. Standing on football practice field in high school. Sky looks wicked, sirens go off, you can see tornado to the south, moving north. We all run into the basement locker room which doubled as the school storm shelter. One car in parking lot was flipped on it's side. Lots of hail/debris damage.
The other 2 were close enough to see, but not close enough to even run inside

Come on Muck, you can troll better than that. Surely you realize that seeing a tornado 5+ miles off in the distance and actually "experiencing" one within .5 to 1 mile are two completely different things? Im pretty sure everyone who read this post comprehended exactly what it meant except you

[abrown83]

Come on Muck, you can troll better than that. Surely you realize that seeing a tornado 5+ miles off in the distance and actually "experiencing" one within .5 to 1 mile are two completely different things? Im pretty sure everyone who read this post comprehended exactly what it meant except you

Yea Sizzle I think this is something that people who don't live in the heart of tornado country don't understand.

I have seen lots of tornados but only been in two total oh shit moments.

1. I was a camp counselor (like 16 years old) and we were outside at camp and two small side by side twisters dropped out of the sky. Probably less than a 1000 feet away. Hid the campers in a ditch because the camp is out in the middle of no where.

2. I was at a wedding and walked out to the car in pouring down rain and the rain let up for a minute and I was like that's odd. Talking to this guy and his face goes pale and I am like what the fuck? Turn around and there is a tornado on the ground like 50 feet from the reception building and 25-30 feet away from me. It was just a little guy but scared the shit out of me. With in a couple seconds it was gone down the country road like it knew where it was going and maybe about 1/4 mile down ventured off into a corn field.


I literally go outside to see if I can see them when the tornado sirens go off.

General tornado advice: when you hear a train run like hell!

[DRK Star]

tornado hit about 45 minutes west of me last night. Wiped out the town. several towns wrecked in north central IL.

I was in one in Plainfield in 1990...its truly sad. Lives destroyed everywhere. People very lucky to have made it into storm cellars at last seconds.

[Ryback_feed_me_more]

LOL Tornados, not a problem here.

Hmm lets see there was the outbreak several yrs back did significant damage from Western Fairfax County (had to call out Fairfax TF1 Urban Search and Rescue because it flattened like 3 or 4 homes in Centreville) and hopscotched a pair across the Potomac which merged and then hit with F4 nearly F5 force right near HWY 301 in La Plata, MD tracking East before dying at the Bay.. Yeah nope never had tornado issues in DC Metro ever.. (same report quoted below Maryland was #3 behind only Florida and Oklahoma)

On a side note the second most tornado prone place outside of the Alley is actually Florida itself.. They have some wicked storms as people already know with the worst lightening in the country. But Florida as a per capita actually is #1 based on a recent report (stats from 1991-2010) I think in actually touchdowns every year mostly F0 and F1s however so they never make the news. Usually overturn some trash cans and such as homes are built to withstand hurricanes up to a certain strength a low end tornado wouldn't do much damage other othen maybe break some windows and such..

[Dan Druff]

Being from the west, I admit that I would be freaked out if I were visiting somewhere in tornado country and saw one, whether in the distance or not.

At the same time, I am used to earthquakes and don't get scared by them unless they are doing an unusual amount of shaking.

I once posted a story on NWP how I felt an earthquake happening, and calmly took my laptop into a doorway and then kept posting while it was shaking.

[Muck Ficon]

Come on Muck, you can troll better than that. Surely you realize that seeing a tornado 5+ miles off in the distance and actually "experiencing" one within .5 to 1 mile are two completely different things? Im pretty sure everyone who read this post comprehended exactly what it meant except you

I understand what you meant. You said you see them every year. I doubt that.

[Sloppy Joe]

Tornadoes shared the ever living shit out of me as a kid.

I was in like 5th or 6th grade living in Ohio and we had just finished a unit on tornadoes, watching both "Twister" and some low budget shit called "Night of the Tornadoes" or something.

Shortly thereafter, we were in a tornado warning and my parents had us huddled in the basement. The power had gone out as the meteorologist was telling everyone to do this. I was petrified.

Only earthquakes scare me now. A few happened when I lived in Nepal, one kind of big, killing I think 6-7 people nearby. Everyone stayed up that night because of the impending aftershock.

[jsearles22]

LOL Tornados, not a problem here.

Hmm lets see there was the outbreak several yrs back did significant damage from Western Fairfax County (had to call out Fairfax TF1 Urban Search and Rescue because it flattened like 3 or 4 homes in Centreville) and hopscotched a pair across the Potomac which merged and then hit with F4 nearly F5 force right near HWY 301 in La Plata, MD tracking East before dying at the Bay.. Yeah nope never had tornado issues in DC Metro ever.. (same report quoted below Maryland was #3 behind only Florida and Oklahoma)

On a side note the second most tornado prone place outside of the Alley is actually Florida itself.. They have some wicked storms as people already know with the worst lightening in the country. But Florida as a per capita actually is #1 based on a recent report (stats from 1991-2010) I think in actually touchdowns every year mostly F0 and F1s however so they never make the news. Usually overturn some trash cans and such as homes are built to withstand hurricanes up to a certain strength a low end tornado wouldn't do much damage other othen maybe break some windows and such..

Have you watched the Buccaneers play? Ain't no way Florida ranks #1 in touchdowns

[4Dragons]

Being from the west, I admit that I would be freaked out if I were visiting somewhere in tornado country and saw one, whether in the distance or not.

At the same time, I am used to earthquakes and don't get scared by them unless they are doing an unusual amount of shaking.

I once posted a story on NWP how I felt an earthquake happening, and calmly took my laptop into a doorway and then kept posting while it was shaking.

I've seen 4. Not cool. Today was a bunch of straight line winds that screwed with everybody, but no twisters as far as I can tell.