It was a tornado, about 4 or 5 blocks (narrow end) wide here. Next block toward the center trees were mostly OK.
Last year (or year before) there was an unusual tornado with temperatures in the 50s or 60s that was about a short block wide. It did a good job of taking down trees (little damage to houses unless they were hit by a tree), and was headed for downtown and pretty near before it lifted.
A cast iron bathtub - without the lid you mention - is a pretty good shelter for random neighborhood gunfire.
Depending on where you live, gunfire may be more prevalent than tornadoes, e.g., Chicago vs. Kansas.
"Ralph Mowery" wrote in news:npadnfMOK8MI8onTnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
most people make their "safe room" part of their closet,thus not needing a second exit route. I doubt they sleep in there,though.
Who can sleep thought a tornado? A tornado sounds like a freight train. Hurricanes,you have days of advance notice.
Well, I sleep through the freight train most nights. ;-)
If you're even there, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Years ago I had a friend that lived less than 100 feet from a main train track. I spent the night there once and slep all night. That was in a single wide mobile home so I doubt it was very sound proof. Not sure if any trains cam through that night, but I am sure they come by there on many nights.
I have never been near a tornado, so how long do you have before you hear it and it gets to you ?
A small one came within 1000 feet of my house severl years ago while I was at work. It took some siding off a building, but did not do too much damage. That is not the normal thing for this area. There are not usually any very big ones in North Carolina.
It would depend where it forms, how long it stays on the ground, how wide a path....good reason for taking shelter if there is a warning. I lived in northern Indiana after the Palm Sunday t. that killed a lot of people. At that time, it seemed we had a lot more violent thunderstorms than we do now (in the region)...lived near RR tracks, too, and if there was a train goin' by during bad storm, it was a tad more scary. The P.S. tornado left a wide path and it can still be seen where it went through woods like a mower.
We saw aftermath of a smallish t. that tore up friend's egg farm...crossed both long egg-laying buildings, ripped those apart and spread insulation and building parts for a couple of miles. Nat'l. Guard was out helping with clean-up. I was about 5 mi. from the path of that storm, in the basement due to t. warning, power out and loud, violent thunder/lightening.
Depends on what you're used to.
Visitors or recent immigrants to the Gulf Coast have a completely different conception of hurricanes. Generally, when a storm enters the Gulf, these new arrivals look down and say: "Feet, make tracks!"*
The rest of us stock up on strawberry pop-tarts and beer, then plan our block parties.
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On 7/6/2011 9:30 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote: ...
...
You may never hear it until it's already there (and probably won't hear it specifically until it's likely too late to take effective action if were relying on sound alone).
They're generally spawned in severe thunderstorms and can be occluded by rain and heavy cloud cover or after dark. Some, of course, are classic photo shots of the funnel clearly visible...the pattern is there is no pattern you can rely upon other than extreme vigilance in the area.
Doppler radar has really improved the odds as the areas of high rotation show up as adjacent measurements of approaching and departing wind velocities in near conjunction to each other. The can pinpoint that to within a few miles at distances of 100-200 miles from the radar sites.
From anecdotal experience, there was a sizable one that did fair amount of damage in town 3-4 miles west of the house that went across HV transmission line (the very large 2-pole wood post variety line) and broke off a half-dozen of those poles that were nearly 24" diameter at the west end of the west section 1-1/2 miles from the house. It remained nearly calm at the house all through the event; w/o weather radio would have had no clue anything was happening other than a decent t-storm going on west of us that finally did produce some rain and some inflow winds but nothing approaching severe t-storm levels that near the actual funnel itself.
The key is if there's a warning for the area you're in, take protective measures then and don't go out trying to catch it on the video or cell phone; you may just walk right into it w/o knowing it until it's too late.
While in general there is a SW to NE movement, you can't count on that, either. I stood out and watched a small funnel about 5-7 mi S form from some SLCs and then head off _towards_ the SW a couple of summers ago...fortunately it is open country down that way and it dissipated before it reached the small town area...
Greensburg, KS, even of (I think '05, lost track of which year for certain now) was a granddaddy, the first recorded EF-5 (w/ the "E" enhanced scale factors). It was a monster supercell that had at least one EF3 or greater on the ground for over 6 hours that evening/night that had total track lengths probably approaching or exceeding 100 miles; the biggie was 30-some and nearly 2 mi in width at max.
There not something to mess with thinking you're somehow different...
--
I agree with the whole post. I couldn't hear "train" from the tornado that came through here inside the house. (The closest windows to me were closed.)
If you want a warning get a weather radio with SAME. You can put some of them in your pocket.
My understanding is the EF scale is substantially the same as E. It is all based on damage. There is a much more detailed guideline in EF. Different strength is required to lift the roof off of a 150 year old farm house vs my house vs G's house in "hurricane alley". The EF scale takes into account the differences, and has more levels of damage. And the wind speeds have generally been lowered. Wind speed is a secondary factoid - it is virtually never measured. Associated wind speeds are general guesses. EF and F are both based on damage. There used to be an F6 (and higher). There may have been an an actual F6. EF only goes to 5. The thinking is you can't tell the difference once it gets to EF5.
" snipped-for-privacy@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Ah,I went through three hurricanes in a month and a half in 2004. Charlie was the first and worst. (Orlando area,not near a coast) In an apartment.(on the 2nd of 3 floors.) No real damage to building,me or my stuff. No power for 7 days,in 90plus weather.
there really wasn't anywhere TO go to avoid the hurricane,it came right up the length of Florida.You could end up worse off then if you stayed home,unless you live near the coast. I suppose I could have gone to one of the school shelters....YUK.
When I evacuated from water-front on channel to Gulf, went inland (and higher elevation) about 5 mi. Our neighbor went all the way to east of Tampa and got smashed .. Hurricane Charlie?
The thought of any major relocation, such as the terr'ists nuking a city, is really, really scary. There'd be lots more of "us" killing "us" than terr'ists killing us. Only have to shop for bread and milk during a blizzard warning to figure that one out :o)
clipped
Was it Charlie that took a hard right turn and didn't go where it was expected? We only went about 5 mi from coast, higher elevation, first floor of motel (in case the roof came off), quart of Jack Daniels. Hubby wouldn't evacuate, and that kind of took the edge off trying to save much of my "stuff"...girlfriend, terrified of hurricanes, supplied the refreshments. Learned during that storm who, of my neighbors, were all balls and no brains :o) Since I'd seen stuff blowing around at 70 mph, I didn't want to wait around for 15' (or more) storm surges with
100 mph wind...hubby wanted to save his boat, and I didn't want to watch him get crushed to death or drown. 15' storm surge where I lived would flood the upstairs neighbor. 20' waves? Why do some people need to have ya' draw a picture?
:)
Sorta', yeah... :)
In my defense... :) --
I was speaking of the case where you don't know/can't see but there's an active warning in the area in that covers your location--better take precautions.
On the other hand, in that instance I saw it form and could tell it was moving away from us and was sufficiently distant as to not present an imminent threat to us. It was, in fact, only partly cloudy locally at the time the sun was still out on us.
On 7/7/2011 11:27 AM, bud-- wrote: ...
Yes, I only pointed out the assessment was done w/ the enhanced rating system in the assessment of damage. I tried but wasn't able to find the particular radar image I had seen once; it was large enough and close enough to the NWS radar site the eye was clearly visible for quite a while--that's pretty unusual if not unique.
Bread and milk?
Disaster food consists of strawberry poptarts and beer.
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