I guess we’re in the midst of tornado season


June and July are the peak months for tornadoes in the upper midwest, and June was a bit of a bust, so I guess we can expect July to compensate. One ripped through Dalton the other day, which is less than an hour north of us.

Yikes. To put it in perspective, though, in the 20 years I’ve been here, I haven’t seen one, although they have come close, and I’ve seen the sky turn greenish.

I rather like the woman in the video who tells the yammering guy to STFU, at least.

Comments

  1. patricklinnen says

    Lived in Kansas when I was young. Saw green skys more than once for a couple of years. And, yes, they signled tornado weather

  2. blf says

    Don’t worry, hair furor bellows that if you stop issuing tornado warnings tornadoes don’t happen — tornadoes are caused by tornado warnings, just like Covid-19 is caused by testing, autism by vaccines, and his submarining poll ratings by FAKE NEWS!

  3. Mobius says

    I was raised in Oklahoma, so tornadoes are nothing new to me. I’d have to go to the shelter several times a year. But I was stationed in Idaho when I was in the Air Force. Right before I left an itty bitty F1 touched down, and the whole state freaked. You would have thought it was the end of the world.

    @2…LOL

  4. says

    We’re starting to get them here in Western Oregon. Never used to happen, now we get a few every year. Never used to happen. It’s almost as if the global CLIMATE is CHANGING… And storms are becoming more frequent and violent. Only a matter of time before Mother Nature drowns Florida like an unwanted puppy.

  5. whheydt says

    And people ask–in obvious astonishment–those of us living in California, “How can you stand to live where there are earthquakes?” At least ‘quakes don’t coming hunting for you and there’s a good chance you’ll have dry weather to do the recovery afterwards. Plus…you can build (or upgrade) to minimize structural damage. Short of an earth-sheltered ferro-cement geodesic dome, I don’t know of a good way to do that against tornadoes.

  6. says

    @6, no I never did, but I’ve heard of it. It’s teh one with that crazy RV/truck thing with the triple wheel drive train right?

  7. blf says

    @8, “How can you stand to live where there are earthquakes?”

    Stand!? No, wobble more like…

    (Long-time former resident of California here.)
    One of my earthquake stories: I was in an open-plan mall examining some clothes on a rack when one struck. Not a big one, but it noticeably rattled the floor-to-high-vaulted roof windows. Those windows were three-ish stories tall, in total. Most people did the sort of thing I did, just move to or stay in a safe place, but one woman ran down the aisle and went outside — directly below those windows…

    (Yes, I know the windows would be unlikely to break into fragments, especially in such a minor-ish quake, but I still think running outside of a quite safe building to stand directly below a scary-sounding potential sea of sharp knives was, well, not well-considered.)

  8. unclefrogy says

    I live in So.Cal.
    earthquakes are over in a few seconds not a lot to do when they hit get low, away from windows, hang on. The fun part is afterward which is a long list of preparations probably similar to ant post disaster prep.
    I saw with my own eyes 2 tornado type phenomena her in California. One was a gun metal grey “finger ” the poked itself out of a very dark cloudy sky a little ways then withdrew and vanished, it was off of the New Port freeway near Irvine the other one was a water spout way off in the distance very near Catalina island.
    I don’t care to see them again thank you I will take earthquakes.
    uncle frogy

  9. davidc1 says

    Believe it or not ,we get Earthquakes and Tornado’s over here in good old GB .
    There are not very strong Earthquakes ,or big Tornado’s .

  10. magistramarla says

    I grew up in Southern Illinois. I remember those sickening green skies very well. I saw enough tornadoes to make me want to leave the Midwest. When the Mississippi flooded in the spring, our basement often flooded,and I remember volunteering as a high school student to help fill sandbags as the men and boys tried to shore up the levies that protected our homes.
    Of course, the Air Force then stationed us in Oklahoma, so I saw quite a few more tornadoes there.
    In South Texas, we had the joys of hurricane warnings. We were far enough inland that we weren’t near the worst of it, but San Antonio would see lots of torrential rain, flooding in some areas and some high winds.
    Now we are happily settled in California. I agree with others here that earthquakes are less to worry about. And the ocean is amazing here. There’s a reason that it’s call the Pacific.

  11. JimB says

    @Unclefrogy
    I was in the Bay Area (still am actually) for the 89 Loma Prieta quake. I was working graveshift at the time, so I had just woken up, sat up and put my feet on the floor when it hit. Just a few seconds is what I was thinking as I sat there. And then I decided to get in the door jamb cause it just wasn’t ending.

    My (now ex) wife was in the kitchen when it hit. Just as I got in the door jamb she came running by. That’s the only time in my life I have seen blind panic. She had no idea of where she was going other than some place that wasn’t shaking.
    Grabbed her and we just huddled in that door jamb.

    Definitely the longest 15 seconds of my life!

  12. unclefrogy says

    @14
    I drove on that Nimitz freeway a couple of years before that quake. the single scariest stretch of road I have ever been on
    uncle frogy

  13. whheydt says

    Ah, yes, the Loma Prieta ‘quake… At the time, I was working for PacBell at their big building in San Ramon. When the ‘quake hit, I was walking between on wing of the building and an adjacent decorative pond. First I heard a bunch of car alarms go off. A bit after, the shaking started. I kept a eye on the building, figuring I’d rather get wet than have stuff fall on me. Afterwards, I realized that the car alarms were the primary wave hitting, and from the time between the alarms and the shaking, figured the epicenter was on the order of 50 to 75 miles away…which turned out to be a pretty close estimate.

    A couple of the windows on that side of that wing cracked, but not near me and no other damage was done to the building.

    During a ‘quake in the 80s, I was working in 1 Embarcadero in San Francisco (a 45 story building for those unfamiliar with it). I was in a meeting that was mostly managers in a conference room on the 14th floor. I got under the table. When the shaking stopped, one of the higher managers there asked what I was doing. To which I replied, “What you were supposed to do in an earthquake.” He conceded that I was, in fact correct and had followed published company procedure….and no one else in the room had done so.