LARGEST TORNADO EVER!!!

[yuiyoshida]

[petronius]

1. Great find! Thanks for posting!

Storm chasers and reptile aficionados...

[NBachers]

2. Wow- Amazing- as I watched it on the big screen, I could almost smell the wet fields and pastures.

[SheilaT]

3. Thanks.

I have lived in the Midwest and while I've never personally experienced a tornado, I'm well aware of the destruction they cause.

Laura Ingalls Wilder in one of her books, I think it's Little Town On the Prairie, describes a summer of particularly fierce tornadoes. And this was when the population of that part of the country (she lived in DeSmet, SD) was rather minimal, and still she records a lot of destruction.

Greensburg, Kansas, was destroyed by a tornado on May 4, 2007 that was wider than the town itself. Only one building wasn't destroyed or substantially damaged. I happened to drive through Greensburg about two months after the tornado, and it looked as if the tornado had happened two days before.

Tornadoes and earthquakes are two incredible forces of nature, and neither one can be completely predicted. At least with tornadoes there's usually some warning, and if you live where you have tornado sirens, you usually have time to seek shelter.

In the Kansas City area they test those sirens on the first Tuesday of every month during tornado season. But if on that day the weather is iffy, they do not test for fear people will think it's the real thing.

[2naSalit]

4. Talking about

Greensburg, KS... I was a relief worker during the first week after. I have seen tornado damage having lived in IL and WI for several years but Greensburg was another thing altogether. Most of the trees looked like some giant, crude pencil sharpener had descended upon them, totally stripped of bark to the ground. The workers' camp had shrapnel all through it so heavy hiking or works boot were necessary while it was in the mid 90s every day with high humidity... ugh! A week I will never be able to forget. Every time I see tornado damage or news of tornadoes, it makes me reflect on that week and the memorial services held in a pavilion at the workers' camp because it was the only place where there was a relatively clear patch of ground. I spent some of my off hours visiting with the pets at the HS recovery shelter on the campus, never had any chance to meet residents/victims. There was a looong convoy of dump trucks every day that you could see stretching down the road as far as the eye could see, hundreds of them.

I was so thankful that I had a home to go back to, 28 hrs away.

[cascadiance]

7. I almost drove in to one on my way in to work in Iowa many years back...

I was coming up on an exit that the radio had just announced was the site of a tornado warning, and on the other side of the overpass I was driving towards the sky was very dark, but I could see the wind blowing branches and a lot of debris sideways on the other side of it. The only vehicle I saw on the freeway ahead of me was a semi that was tipping pretty much like this picture shows here...



I slowed down to a stop in my Honda Accord then, as I knew that it would be blown around like a top if I continued to drive in to it. I could feel the wind starting to lift my car off the ground then. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been here today if I'd continued driving. Not sure if that was the most scary disaster moment in my life or the Loma Prieta earthquake in California. I'd also was around some heavy fires down in San Diego, but wasn't that close to them when they went through.

Yeah, seeing footage like this still gives me the creeps many years later.

[Laffy Kat]

5. Gosh, I could watch these things all day.

Wonder why they are so fascinating to us--more than earthquakes and volcanoes (which are also cool to see)? I usually remember at least one or two dreams a week about tornadoes. I totally appreciate the destruction and tragedy they leave behind, but--still. Damn.

[drgonzosghost]

6. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

[JohnnyRingo]

8. Best footage I've seen.

I saw other storm chaser's film back when it happened, but these guys were at a perfect angle to the funnel. Frightening. I live in Ohio, and we've seen a few bad ones since I was young, so I can at least imagine the helplessness those people felt.

Oh yeah... those guys should be the subjects of a psychiatric study to figure out why they do that. Not here, but in Austria where those kind of specialist doctors live. LOL


As an aside, why does spell check flag "LOL". Maybe it's because no ever really laughs out loud at the joke and it's trying to be polite.

[BlueEye]

12. I was living in Cincinnati back in 1999.

I will never forget the F-4 that rolled into the east side of town that year in April. My family was spared any harm, but I witnessed some of the destruction first hand, it was unreal. 100 year old trees plucked from the ground like weeds.

[Tess49]

9. This tornado was on track to hit my city (Norman) and turned to the Northeast a bit.

I was hiding in the hospital basement where I worked at the time -- in the radiology dept where the walls are a couple of feet thick. People from all over town were streaming in for shelter. The traffic was so jammed that many were stuck on the roads in this storm. Luckily we did not get hit. Very scary evening. Remember, Moore, okla had just been wiped clean by another F-5 a few days earlier. Moore is 7 miles from my home.

[BlueEye]

13. I know the National Weather Services has its Storm Prediction Center in Norman.

I've always wondered if they have a contingency plan for if their facilities were damaged or destroyed. If they were knocked out on day one of a multi-day tornado outbreak (which isn't uncommon), the rest of the region could be in big trouble without their advanced prediction capabilities.

[Tess49]

15. The 5 story building on the OU campus houses the National severe storm lab, NOAA, the National

Weather Center, and the OU School of Meteorology. I hope they have all of their computers in the basement or some place safe. Video of the place shows everybody running up to the roof observation area when severe weather is approaching. When I was a child, the building was a small structure on the North Campus that didn't appear safe at all.

[RandySF]

10. I got too close for comfort with a tornado years ago in Michigan.

I was driving along I-94 near Jackson, MI when it all went to hell around me. I pulled over and thought my windshield was going to be smashed by hail or flying branches. I later learned that I was not much more than a mile away from a twister. Even now ten years later I break into cold sweat when I think about it.

[defacto7]

11. I seem to be a tornado magnet.

I was very near the Xenia Ohio tornado in 1974, I was near Centerville. This tornado is arguably the largest tornado in history but since the radar could only reach 60,000 feet, they weren't able to find out how high it was. At 60,000 feet the cloud was still going strait up without signs of dissipation. It's rated 4th or 5th in size/wind-speed F4 to F5 now, but has also been estimated at well into F5 just because they didn't have the tech to measure it. I ducked into a McDonald's and the hail was about the size of softballs and the turf all around the area looked like it was being hit by meteors with the mud splattering up around craters. My car roof was destroyed by the hail as were every other car and house roof within probably 75 miles.

I was also working in Oklahoma City during that big one in 1999. I have ridden by 2 tornadoes while riding my motorcycle in the late 70's once near Indianapolis and the other somewhere in Missouri. Both times hiding under a highway viaduct with one of them roaring right over the top of the bridge... that was the craziest one. I tucked myself way up in the upper crevice and watched the wind blow in front of me one direction, then stopping and turning the opposite direction. Both times, my Harley was tossed out from under the bridge and into a ditch but afterward it started right up and I rode away.

I kind of like those things and I think they like me too.

[DhhD]

14. More Tornado Videos

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0SO80CR34lTOj0AP0NXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGJjawNibGpyZm5kOW9qbjRzJTI2YiUzRDMlMjZzJTNEaWEEZnIDeWZwLXQtNDMxLXMEZ3ByaWQDOFhlbVNxMWJTT2F1N2ZvU3E0OGE1QQRtdGVzdGlkA0FEMDElM0RTTUU1MTElMjZBRFNSUCUzRFNNRTI1NiUyNkFTU1QlM0RRSTAzNyUyNk1TRlQlM0RBQ0JZMDMlMjZSQU1QJTNEUk1QMDIlMjZVSTAxJTNEVklQNDQyJTI2VU5JJTNEVU5JQzElMjZVTkkyJTNEUkNGMDQ3BG5fcnNsdAMxMARuX3N1Z2cDMTAEb3JpZ2luA3NlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzEEcHFzdHIDdG9ybmFkbyB2aWUEcHFzdHJsAzExBHFzdHJsAzE0BHF1ZXJ5A3Rvcm5hZG8gdmlkZW9zBHRfc3RtcAMxNDAxNTQ0NjI1NTY5BHZ0ZXN0aWQDVklQNDQy?gprid=8XemSq1bSOau7foSq48a5A&pvid=VpMWKjIwOC66z2.7U4ncnATVNzEuOVOJ35H_tA34&p=tornado+videos&fr2=sa-gp&fr=yfp-t-431-s