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First of all, thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Joplin, MO where 122+ people died from a EF5 tornado. This has been one of the deadliest tornado years in history.
The central US states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas is widely known to lie on the famous 'tornado alley', where over 90% of tornadoes form in the United States. According to meteorologists this morning, a large tornado outbreak was expected in Oklahoma. Living in Oklahoma for the past 10 years, we are no strangers when it comes to tornadoes, so most people have taken it for granted since “the tornado probably won’t hit us.” So today really wasn’t any different. Fast forward to 3:30 PM, while watching the news, a large tornado hit the town of El Reno, OK, approximately 30 miles away from my residence. It is always heartbreaking to see live video of house after house get demolished by a tornado. Another hour and a half passed and another 2-3 tornadoes were spotted within a 25 mile radius of my house. A bit later, a circulation (radar spotted rotation in the clouds, with the possibility of forming a tornado) was spotted in a storm 45 miles SW of where I am living. Meteorologists projected that storm cluster to travel straight through my town of Norman, OK with my house in its path. Things started to get a little scary. A bit later, the tornado did form and every TV station nearby were showing it on air. The thought of watching THE tornado that could destroy my house was bit scary. In the next 30 minutes or so, the tornado sirens around town all went off and I was ready to hop into our tornado shelter at a moment’s notice. With that storm 10 minutes away from hitting us, the radar spotted two more circulations within a 10 mile radius of my house, both capable of forming tornadoes, and one projected to hit 1-2 miles south. The next 15 or so minutes were really tense, just watching and hoping the tornado would miss my house. Luckily, the first tornado took a path 5 miles north of us and dissipated. One of the circulations didn’t form into a tornado and the other one briefly touched down as a tornado 4 miles southeast of us. It only caused minor damages to a basketball arena.
![[image loading]](http://api.newson6.com/newsimages/slideshow/9338f374-5b0c-4fe8-a2e1-c461cfdb2832.jpg)
Most of the storms have passed central Oklahoma and is on path to wreck more havoc across Missouri, Arkansas, etc. So for all of you guys in Central US, stay safe out there and take proper precautions when necessary,
Various pictures of tornadoes and resulting damage from the Oklahoma City area:
+ Show Spoiler +
Edit: This was originally a blog post.
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I can vouch for this, the tornado sirens were just going off not 10 minutes ago here in the Dallas area. Seems to have calmed down a bit, but the light outside is still very weird
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On May 25 2011 10:00 Kon-Tiki wrote:
I can vouch for this, the tornado sirens were just going off not 10 minutes ago here in the Dallas area. Seems to have calmed down a bit, but the light outside is still very weird
what do you mean by the lights outside?
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A tornado rolled through my Minneapolis neighborhood yesterday. Two blocks away people lost their roofs, but my block was spared and I got internet back within 48 hours. Lucky, lucky...
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When its tornadic outside, the natural light outside becomes greenish and strange. I think its nature's way of telling us that a tornado is inbound. My point is, that even though the sirens have stopped, it still looks like there might be a tornado in store.
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As someone who lives in Kansas, it can be pretty scary.. But somehow the city I live in (Wichita) has managed to avoid tornadoes pretty well for the past 20 years. Hopefully it keeps up!
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I so want to visit tornado alley for a decent amount of time.
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Wow... major places in Texas are sporting up sirens.
Over five-thousand people in Dallas' local news chat room. Seems pretty scary for people who don't have as adequate areas to shelter themselves from a tornado than those of their neighboring states.
EDIT: Dallas/Fort Worth Weather Site
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On May 25 2011 10:16 Kon-Tiki wrote:
When its tornadic outside, the natural light outside becomes greenish and strange. I think its nature's way of telling us that a tornado is inbound. My point is, that even though the sirens have stopped, it still looks like there might be a tornado in store.
So when there's about to be a tornado a siren goes off? like a fire alarm?
this is all new to me, I live in CA
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On May 25 2011 10:59 danmooj1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2011 10:16 Kon-Tiki wrote:
When its tornadic outside, the natural light outside becomes greenish and strange. I think its nature's way of telling us that a tornado is inbound. My point is, that even though the sirens have stopped, it still looks like there might be a tornado in store. So when there's about to be a tornado a siren goes off? like a fire alarm? this is all new to me, I live in CA
Actually, maybe more like those tsunami warnings, or the ones they have on the gulf coast for hurricanes and stuff. Really loud, and designed to be heard over the elements.
Also, just wanna say that things in my area at least have calmed down, for the moment.
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On May 25 2011 10:59 danmooj1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2011 10:16 Kon-Tiki wrote:
When its tornadic outside, the natural light outside becomes greenish and strange. I think its nature's way of telling us that a tornado is inbound. My point is, that even though the sirens have stopped, it still looks like there might be a tornado in store. So when there's about to be a tornado a siren goes off? like a fire alarm? this is all new to me, I live in CA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKkpaAHeLHc
I've only heard them once in Oklahoma on a trip with my dad. I don't remember them sounding quite like the video. We could see three tornadoes off at the distance with the sirens blazing... really felt surreal and I don't think I've ever felt that scared before or since.
Regardless. Looks like a tornado touched down by Dallas and it might be heading into the city. This could be quite bad. ...differing sources saying different things.
Link for weather stuffs
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On May 25 2011 11:06 Sky wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2011 10:59 danmooj1 wrote:On May 25 2011 10:16 Kon-Tiki wrote:
When its tornadic outside, the natural light outside becomes greenish and strange. I think its nature's way of telling us that a tornado is inbound. My point is, that even though the sirens have stopped, it still looks like there might be a tornado in store. So when there's about to be a tornado a siren goes off? like a fire alarm? this is all new to me, I live in CA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKkpaAHeLHc I've only heard them once in Oklahoma on a trip with my dad. I don't remember them sounding quite like the video. We could see three tornadoes off at the distance with the sirens blazing... really felt surreal and I don't think I've ever felt that scared before or since. Regardless. Looks like a tornado touched down by Dallas and it might be heading into the city. This could be quite bad.
They're different city to city. The sirens in the city I live in are the different than the sirens in the city my old high school was in. Its certainly an eerie feeling
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Where I live is right in the middle of it, kinda interesting to see whats gonna happen.
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Yay, tornado watch/warning for the next few hours -_-.
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Lol tornados be springing up like no ones business, a few just dropped in kansas/missouri
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So many tornadoes this year, freaking nuts. I had a friend in Alabama when the really bad ones went through a while back, her shudders got torn off at 4am and a tornado touched down like right around the corner from her. Scary shit - I used to live down in AL as well as stayed in Lawton OK for a period of time...we even had a tornado touch down while I was in Lawton about 10 miles northwest of us.
Stay safe everyone... Hopefully they have some mercy on the east coast. It's been thunderstorming here in Virginia almost every night for like a straight week now. Getting worse and worse too.
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I have a question, I hope noone gets offended because I don't know anything about housing in US, just asking out of curiosity.
As far as I can see, those homes are really fragile, and not really build of strong concrete. So I am curious, why not build stronger homes which won't be demolished by tornadoes in an area where there are a lot of tornadoes happening every season?
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On May 26 2011 02:23 Bleak wrote:
I have a question, I hope noone gets offended because I don't know anything about housing in US, just asking out of curiosity.
As far as I can see, those homes are really fragile, and not really build of strong concrete. So I am curious, why not build stronger homes which won't be demolished by tornadoes in an area where there are a lot of tornadoes happening every season?
The biggest problem with 'stronger' homes is that the construction costs would be significantly higher, thus not attractive to potential homeowners.
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On May 26 2011 02:30 holy_war wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2011 02:23 Bleak wrote:
I have a question, I hope noone gets offended because I don't know anything about housing in US, just asking out of curiosity.
As far as I can see, those homes are really fragile, and not really build of strong concrete. So I am curious, why not build stronger homes which won't be demolished by tornadoes in an area where there are a lot of tornadoes happening every season? The biggest problem with 'stronger' homes is that the construction costs would be significantly higher, thus not attractive to potential homeowners.
It's one of those things that people don't want to shell out the money for less risk, I guess. It's not made a whole lot of sense to me, either.
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