tornado!!

They just let the sirens go. I'm not frightened, but I do not like the sirens.

Shit. Where are you? Tornadoes are one of the few things that scare hell out of me. Sirens suck too though.

are you at work ai lien? i posted this on the southern thread from a little while ago

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5917/tornadoesdz0.jpg

!!!

Downtown Little Rock. The sirens have stopped and we've been given the all clear -- for now. I've been told to expect this all day. I go home for lunch, so I may make a mad dash. I may not come back to work, though.

S.S., yeah, I'm @ work. Too, I'm the only one here, so I'm kinda making up policies that involve me staying at home for the rest of the day, so that if I have to go thru a storm, I will do so with my cat, the dog, oh, and Andrew.

That picture is SCARY.

Train vs. Tornado. Guess who wins!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azV5bC2br-Q

Oh my!

WOW

What a surreal piece of video.

I was in a tornado once.

I think there's a board rule that that's the kind of thing you can't post without followup details.

Specifically, I was in this one. I was on the computer and the lights when out. I walked into the kitchen and it really just looked like it was all mud in the air. My father came into the kitchen and suggested that we go sit in an interior closet, which we did. It ended up hitting our house and garage. Totally blowing the garage away and blowing the entire front wall out of the house. I suppose that it wasn't too bad, but the house did have to be rebuilt because of all the structural damage. Several cars were flipped over. Plus we found things that were in our house miles away for the next several weeks, pictures, articles of clothing, etc. Good times.

one of my coworkers grew up in oklahoma. he tells me some terrifying tornado stories like the time he crashed at a friends place and was woken by his friends mom screaming 'CMON GET UP NOW'. He looked out the window and saw a tree that had half the branches bent and blowing in one direction and the other half in the opposite direction. not cool.

Hate these fucking things

Power out, maybe for several days. No access to news but my parents said smithville, next town north of us,destroyed, many dead. Sirens all day

jesus dude, glad you and yours are alright

Yipes WmC, glad you're okay. Food and water situation for you alright?

Yeah we're set ok. TVA transmission station was in the town that got erased. Somehow these heroes are actually managing to get the power back on here and there in th county. It's back on at my parents house already.

And the local free wifi is actually being robust enough for me to check the news...wish I hadn't.

Lots of my Alabammy friends were in close proximity to tornadoes, but none of them were in their paths. Seen a lot of photos of damage, though, and it looks bad. Plus I was watching the Weather Channel when the HUGE tornado was just north of Birmingham. Shit was a mile or more wide!

Yeah I saw some pics on NYT, quite a mess :(

Biggest one I ever saw,yeah

To see what used to be smithville check nems360.com, the local papers website. Apologies for criminally bad site design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcM4--k5c_w

This is what it looked like about a half hour or so before it got to Birmingham.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohIVzIZLuQ

TVA is a hero for getting the power rerouted and back on at 2 a.m. here, considering the transfer station is in pieces all over NE MS.

All family and friends accounted for. My sister has a tree in her garage instead of a car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y90DIU6tMPs&feature=player_embedded#at=49

so scary.

Federal government aid coming for Alabama(although their Republican governor will likely in a bit return to politics as usual and badmouth the federal government)

http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=14192

does ILM hate the south? i'm sure if 250 people died in NY there would be 2000 posts by now ...

This is what it looked like about a half hour or so before it got to Birmingham.

http://www.youtube.com/v/5ohIVzIZLuQ&fs=1&hl=en

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, April 27, 2011 11:54 PM (Yesterday)

^what the fuck is wrong with this person??

does ILM hate the south?

lol dude you've been here how many years and you're asking this question?

geir got to everyone.

glad wmc is ok. this is terrible

i know i checked everybody on my facebook who lives nearby to make sure they were accounted for. i'm glad Wmc is okay. i've been following online. i dunno, maybe its disaster weariness. its definitely sad. don't know what else to say. i would never want to go through anything like that. obviously.

Um (feeling defensive), my post about the Republican governor in Alabama wasn't meant to suggest an indifference to the loss of life in the South, just addressing a different aspect of what happened.

I posted on the Chitlin Circuit soul thread a little while ago about the tornado that destroyed Malaco Records buildings in Jackson, Mississippi but thankfully resulted in no loss of life.

the person in the video johnny fever posted is literally insane

i dunno, maybe its disaster weariness.

could be -- I know I've got it!

The Krogers down the street from my sister-in-law in TN was destroyed but her place was okay.

damn!! i'm down in Tampa so i missed all of this. just talked to my dad in Batesville. no real damage over there, looks like it was mostly you guys on the NE side (and Alabama, obv). glad you're alright WmC.

Glad your Sis-in-law made it through the storms ok, Dan.

I had to get up and get busy with work at 5 this morning because I lost all of yesterday to weather crisis...now that I'm at a stopping point, I'm just now realizing how much worse Alabama got it than everybody else. Need to check on my niece and nephew in B'ham. I know they're uninjured, but I wonder about prop. damage.

thx Will, and thx everybody else who sent good vibes

I think last night was the first night in awhile where I didn't hear sirens blaring.

I haven't mentioned this publicly because maybe it's "too soon," but we had two fatalities north of us from a tornado on Monday.

They were in a mobile home, heard the tornado and sought shelter in the empty trailer of an 18-wheeler.

The tornado promptly picked it up and tossed it into a pond. No one's sure if they died from the fall or if they drowned.

Now, I know that mobile homes are pretty susceptible to tornadoes, but the empty trailer of an 18-wheeler. Ever followed one of those down the interstate and watched as it blew from one lane to another because of a sudden gust of wind? It's a traveling tent made of sheet metal.

So, I was trying to think of safer places to seek refuge from a tornado in besides the empty trailer of an 18-wheeler. Here's what I have so far:

1. Inside an inflatable children's "Moon Walk" castle.
2. Underneath a trampoline
3. Tethering yourself to a May Pole
4. Grabbing hold of a hang glider and hoping for the best.
5. A ditch! Even a fucking ditch!
6. A bicycle with a basket on the front.
7. The inside of a volcano.
8. Higher ground.
9. Lower ground.
10. The Superdome.

Any other suggestions?

11. the surface of Mercury
12. Marianas trench

13. inside of a refrigerator

Woah! (From TN)

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/229143_1650364907730_1495213667_1258930_8256131_n.jpg

jesus h, did the photographer survive that?

That's from Iowa, three years ago: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/mississippi_floodwaters_in_iow.html

tornados in aberystwyth and shropshire

shropshire's minor by big tornado standards (84 mph) but damage (trees, windows) recorded abt a mile from where mum and dad lived

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/tornadoes/?ex_cid=538twitter

i was just reading this article about this town in oklahoma that gets slammed by huge tornadoes all the time

the story here: a storm chaser attempted to get some video while he rode parallel to the El Reno Tornado on May 31, 2013, which grew in size to 2.6 miles across. He expected it to keep going east/slightly southeast and....it did not.

Why did you choose the route you did? Were you trying to get close?

I was not trying to get close. I knew from how the tornado first appeared that it would be very large, violent and dangerous. My goal was simply to remain in a good position for photography and video, which I felt would be best with the tornado backlit by the bright skies to the southwest. I wanted to be just close enough to have a high-contrast view.

My plan was to roughly parallel the tornado to its north as it moved east, while staying slightly ahead of it (to its northeast). I moved the additional mile south (closer to it) at Choctaw because of the tornado's initial rapid movement southward away from me. I expected the tornado to either continue moving east-southeast or eastward, which is why I kept going east on Reuter Road (NW 10th). I saw no reason to go north at Highway 81 because I didn't yet realize the tornado had turned.

I didn't recognize the dramatic change in its track until it was nearly upon me on Reuter west of Highway 81. This is because while the tornado was making its drastic north turn and widening at Highway 81, it was completely wrapped in heavy rain, masking from my vantage point what it was really doing. It is common for a relatively benign area of precipitation to wrap around a tornado when it becomes "rain wrapped", so the proximity of this area of rain itself was not initially a major concern. As I realized later, this area of rain *was* the tornado itself - IE, the outer boundary of tornadic wind speeds completely encompassed the rain. As the area of rain approached Reuter, I could finally begin to see how fast the rain curtains were moving and realized they were embedded in tornadic winds. This area of rain rapidly condensed into the large wedge tornado visible in my rear-facing camera once I cleared Evans Road.

Below is a map I put together that shows my path, the tornado's path, and what I *thought* the tornado was doing and was going to do in the future. As you can see, if the tornado had moved like I expected (more easterly), I would have remained at a safe viewing angle on Reuter Road. (Click on this map to view a larger version):

http://stormhighway.com/may312013/elrenotrack2015.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxgU1QcFMJM

what is not seen in the video is that there were three storm chasers trailing behind this guy going on the same road who were killed by the tornado at an intersection he passed through on this video (at Radio Rd) immediately after.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_El_Reno_tornado

damn

This was a nasty one. Missed our house by a mile or so but you could hear it and see it just to the north.

destructive tornados seem to keep moving further east over time, vv far from the traditional tornado alley.

I lived in tornado alley for like 7 years, and I always hated this time of year.

For whatever reason tornados seem to skip big cities. I think some have hypothesized it might be due to the heat they put off? Anyway, when was that last big one that hit Nashville? Late '90s?

Speaking of which, a few years ago we drove down to Nashville, and on the way we passed the site of a big downstate Illinois tornado that had touched down I want to say several months earlier. It was really remarkable, seeing what looked like a huge tear ripped into the side of the road for about a mile, like a giant bulldozer had just plowed through. Scary stuff.

You can drop the little google maps guy just about anywhere in Joplin and feel your heart break as you switch from 2007 to present day.

1998 was the last one in Nashville

Utah appears on this list twice - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_tornadoes_and_tornado_outbreaks - with one of them being in 1999 when an F2 hit downtown SLC, killing one and causing $172 million in damage.

⁦@ryanvaughan⁩ Raybourn road pic.twitter.com/Bt4N7lmFJW

— cade wayne greeno (@gohogs223) April 9, 2020

Good luck today, PP & Sunny, Crüt, Tipsy, everyone else in the path.

I mean, not a bad year to cancel Easter services anyway.

Temps in the low 60s vs low 80s makes me feel somewhat better but that radar is ugly.

We're fine. Wouldn't want to be in Vicksburg right now. (For many reasons.)

Gosh, Rock. After all the warnings, I guess today's weather was only soso.

Our rain suddenly stopped and the skies cleared about 8 p.m. so I thought we were out of the woods, but a massive straight line wind, the cold air following in the wake of the storm, blew through at 11:30 and took a few shingles. Surprised this morning that it wasn't worse -- it sounded like the house was trying to turn inside-out.

Not so soso for everyone -- https://apnews.com/a7b924a128d7d0847784b75d8da98db1

A lot changed after my dumb joke!

In fact, many lots. Perhaps a few townships!

Oh, I just got the joke. I'd never heard of that town before!

😬

But that's not the way to Bentonville!

https://i.imgur.com/mOAZmOP.png

The owners at the bar just gave everyone scheduled for this evening the option to stay home or come in, whichever they prefer. The bar is probably safer, but fuck going out in the weather that's predicted for 4:30. And if something happens here I'd rather know about it à la minute. Even if it's only 4 blocks away.

Debris from Mayfield Kentucky lofted almost 30k feet into the atmosphere. Just shocking right now of what that town just experienced. #kywx pic.twitter.com/0e1arvCfCW

— Bob Waszak (@nilwxreports) December 11, 2021

very much a nightmare fuel of a visual when you think people could be amongst that airborne debris field 30k up in the sky

If you can ignore all the yahoos yelling, this is the best footage I've ever seen. Animal/animist metaphors are everywhere w.r.t. tornados (it's a beast that ate this or that, etc.), but this really looks like an alien wraith

Major #tornado intercept southwest of Kimball, Nebraska! pic.twitter.com/xiJ5E8BYdm

— Reed Timmer, PhD (@ReedTimmerAccu) June 29, 2023

That's incredible.

wow

Holy shit.

Nope 2

I gather Kimball, Nebraska doesn't get a lot of thrills

I've been to Kimball (eclipse chasing, not storm chasing) and can confirm that, though they do have an adorable movie theater.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTGHQphn_Ys

Tornadoes are still something that feels like an abstract and underestimated threat, usually you see videos from afar and photos of the aftermath and hardly ever this kind of thing. I feel like this would be a good one to show in schools to get the kids into the basement shelter quick next time there's a warning.

That's insane.

a friend in Bloomington Indiana just had her house totaled by a tree today, stay safe y'all

Whoa.

Tornados are entertainment in Nebraska.

I lived on the 2nd floor of a Victorian when a funnel cloud had been spotted two miles away. I grabbed flashlight, blanket and radio & headed to the basement.

On the way down I had to pass the front porch. The neighbors were outside with coolers and lawn chairs. They asked me why I was going to the basement and offered me a beer.

NO FUCKING WAY.

My mom made us all go to the SW corner under dad's desk (we're city people). One time he went outside "to look at it" and she wailed like he wasn't going to come back down to the basement alive.

Also all the sirens went off in my town recently, which was SCARY but after the storm cleared we were treated to a very realistic DICK CLOUD: better than a total eclipse.

Hello from the basement

Sounded like southeast WI was in for it tonight

Yup, right now! Another 15 mins or so and it should pass us.

Everyone in town got their car windows busted by hail tonight (tennis to baseball sized).

Hello from the basement

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Tuesday, April 14, 2026 10:11 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This is something I do not miss from growing up in the midwest. Do they use phone warnings now instead of air raid sirens?

We get both now

Fuckin here we are again

Stay safe folks.

Turns out it was in the far western part of the county but all the alarms go off all the same, we're back up.

The siren went off again! This is some crying wolf shit now.

on my family group text they're on a continual warning on, to the basement, warning off, upstairs, repeat cycle.