Wow, That Was Close, but No Monster Twister for Me

Glad your family is safe ketsuko.


a reply to: KansasGirl

Growing up, I would start getting pit-of-the-stomach nervous every spring

I was terrified growing up living in Central Texas. Every spring there was no shortage of warnings with those lovely sirens. The sirens that I suspect some brain specialist helped make the tone for so it hijacks the primal part of our brain to go "GET TO COVER OR WE'RE F-ED". And the storms surrounding it are feroucious, so with the high winds and then a power outage, you just don't know how close you are to the real action..... But you know it's bad if everything goes calm for a second.

As an adult I've been guilty at trying to sneak a peek when it's going on, though they're not as dangerous here in VA.

The one thing that always got me is how indiscriminate they are. You can see a house with a few shingles missing less than a hundred feet to one that left it's foundation. So odd to see those next to each other but both still in the scar left on earth.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

It was sort of weird.

I said we were at son's practice? So, the practice facility has a basement, and early on a lady comes over telling everyone to take shelter. So the instructor adjourns everyone to the basement. I've got my phone and earbuds because I know there's bad stuff out there, and I get a livestream going. I can't figure out what she's one about because the storm is still out there but well SW of us. We aren't even in a warning yet.

So after a brief pow-wow and the announcement that people are free to stay or leave, practice continues in the basement with an eye on the weather. My little livestream becomes important, and it goes right up to the wire with people dropping as they feel they need to. We adjourn, and as soon as everyone gets upstairs, all the cellphones start screaming with the extreme tornado emergency warning. That was eerie. Then the outside sirens start going, and we drive past a spotter sitting in a parking lot on our way back home which takes us around 10 min or so. We figured we had time since we prepped to hit the basement before leaving.

a reply to: seeker1963

Celina, Brookville, Trotwood, Beavercreak...close enough to me as well since I am in the wilds of Preble County now. Five of them determined so far, three were EF 3’s. But the salt in the wounds of those effected is the rains yesterday and today. It was quite heavy in Celina yesterday.

a reply to: ketsuko

Well it's good that people are vigilant and watching out for each other. This time of year in the Midwest it's good to keep an eye on things every day. Sometimes those warnings don't come with much notice, a severe storm that was just thought to bring high wind starts to form a wall or rotate. Even with all the technology today, sometimes it's just ten or fifteen minutes, which for some may not be enough.

Either way, we've already seen a good amount of activity across a good portion of the Midwest. It's already been very hot this spring and it doesn't look like it's letting up. Unfortunately these are the types of conditions that set the trend for an active weather season.

a reply to: Ahabstar

I saw a very creepy video on Reddit of someone filming one of the tornadoes in Ohio the other day... They're lucky to be alive as they were just feet from windows.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

When I was a kid in Kansas, they said these things go in cycles. You get 7 or so hot years and then it calms down for 10 or 15. I was a teen through the 7 hot years, so we're about due and the last couple of years have been really, really quiet.

Got to looking at the track of rotation in that storm and the center of circulation actually passed not a mile north of our house. It's a good thing that sucker bounced up when it did or we'd have some problems this morning. It wouldn't have been a direct hit, but as large as that thing was, we would likely have some damage and debris to deal with.

I lived in Central Texas in the late nineties. It was a time in numerous tornado outbreaks. The two I remember the most are 97' and 99'.

We had an F-5 that moved from us to Jerald TX and decimated the community. I was in elementary school until five that day taking cover.

Really interesting concept for children to experience the reality of fragility in life depending on where you live. Something Americans sometimes forget.