Nearest A Tornado Has Been To You..

planespotterx · Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:31 pm

A few days ago I was at work, and here in the UK we've had our fair share of storms this month (one of which im sure must have been a supercell, and others have also agreed.)
But on Tuesday I learnt that there was a tornado touch-down at Matlock (which was just 19 miles from where I live.)
I couldnt believe it, 19 miles was all that seperated me from a Tornado, it wasnt a big one, a small F1 or 2, but It sure got my "attention" on the internet that night.
So im just wondering, has anyone in the UK/USA or anywhere else actually had a Tornado near them, or were you even lucky (maybe unlucky) to have seen one for yourself..

tbar220 · Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:45 pm

One of my hobbies is storm chasing, and I've been very close to one form of a tornado, a weak one though. Along the occlusion of both gust fronts of strong storms occasionally a weaker tornado will form called a gustnado. It was very short lived, lasting about one minute, but passed about 100 yards in the field in front of us. That was quite a thrill, although I didn't actually feel that worried or in danger. I was more worried that day about the lightning that was pounding all around.

pilot kaz · Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:53 pm

WAIT!

you say Tornado, in the UK? and there me thinking i was safe from them! ekkk

Alpha 1 · Fri Aug 27, 2004 9:54 pm

1965. The great Palm Sunday tornado, that swept through northeast Ohio, and ended up in west-central Pennsylvania, destroying, or partially destroying about 15 cities in it's path. It was 4 miles from where I live, and destroyed an entire villiage south of my town. The only thing left standing in that town was a Civil War Monument.

tbar220 · Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:01 pm

Pilotkaz,

Surprise! Tornados actually can form anywhere in the world, over land or water, over plains or even in mountains. They're obviously more common in some places than others, but if atmospheric conditions are right, they can form.

Alpha 1 · Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:06 pm

By the way, that Tornado was an F5. It ran for two hours, and over 100 miles. Not all of it at F-5 intensity, but it was an F5 when it hit near us.

electraBob · Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:27 pm

Quite a few years ago, I was at Michigan International Speedway (along with about 65,000 others) watching a 500 mile Indy car race. Very violent storms came through the area...I new something was quite wrong when the Goodyear Blimp got out of the sky REAL quick and landed in a field across from the speedway. The police were telling everyone that we all had to get back to our cars immediately...no large groups of people were allowed to stay under the grandstands. Little did we know, but a tornado was on the ground 4 1/2 miles from the speedway...for a while, it was heading right for the racetrack. It finally shifted to the south and missed the track. A large wooden platform that was constructed on top of the grandstands (for TV cameras) was blown into the seats, injuring some spectators.

Tornadoes and large groups of people attending sporting events, concerts etc...it is a scary thought. This past Memorial Day weekend, tornadoes were in the Indianapolis area and there were concerns that one would come very close to the Indianpolis Motor Speedway just as the Indy 500 was running it's final laps....that's over 300,000 people that could have been affected.

KYIPpilot · Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:34 pm

Apparently when I was about 3 years old, a very small tornado came within about 2-3 miles of our house. It came through at night, so we couldn't it. My parents said they could hear that freight-train like noise.

JeffM · Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:03 am

Less then three quarters of a mile. Happened last summer. One touched down in some new construction up the street. Matchsticks is the term to describe what it looked like.

It is fun to watch them at night during a lightning storm. The flashes "freeze" them like a still photo, I've seen more then a dozen funnels at one time at night. Very unique.

AIR757200 · Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:12 am

Many of the storms I've been through that had produced tornadoes took place back when I was in elementary school (Farmington Hills, MI).. In any case, my most vivid memory was that the black clouds were rolling and the infamous green tint to the sky formed; before we knew it, the tornado sirens went off and we all went scrambled for the hallways in the tornado position and all I could remember was leaning up and looking out the doors (the doors had blown open from the wind) and seeing the trees just bending over and horitzontal rain. A few hours later when they finally let school out - I learned guess there was a breif tornado only a mile or so away.

Based on the National Weather Service records; it must of been either one of these, I'm assuming the F1 tornado.

...CO. ..date.. ..time.. F-scale.
OAKLAND 09/14/90 12:10 PM Tornado 3
OAKLAND 09/14/90 12:15 PM Tornado 1

..I think my mom experienced an F-4 only a few miles away back in 1976... she said she remembered a really bad tornado before I was born (1980) and looking at NWS records.. I see an event in 1976 in West Bloomfield, where she lived... I'll have to recheck.

planespotterx · Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:25 am

Yes Kaz, Tornados can form virtually anywhere given the right weather "ingredients."
I too am intrested in meteorology and "chasing", I went on my first chase ever 4 weeks ago, chasing a big cell that had built over the peak-district.
Infact tornados seen this month have been in Italy (one in a bay in northern Sicily, and 2 seen near Venice), plus Britains had its fair share of Tornado reports this year (counted up to 16 so far), mostly in rural areas, but a few like the one near Uttoxeter (again the same cell that created the Matlock one later which was near me) hit a few houses and injured a woman.
Tornados are common in the UK, not only during storms, but also from cold-fronts and severe depressions that cross the country, one time up to 45 were recorded in one day from Wales to Norwich.
Just a few intresting details I thought id share with you all Big grin

[Edited 2004-08-27 17:28:28]

SSTjumbo · Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:54 am

1991, F0 passed through Lemont, IL. I saw the funnel cloud from my house then it moved on.

SWA TPA · Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:56 am

Wow! Neat topic!
Just last week as I was leaving the gym and driving down the road, I noticed a very small point sticking out of the clouds. I kept watching it thinking maybe it was just a ragged looking cloud but it kept its perfect form of a point.
Soon the point began to get longer and longer. At this point I knew it was a funnel cloud so I pulled over into a parking lot to watch it. The whole funnel began to turn horizontal and then the lower point continued to drop vertically. It stayed there hanging just over half way to the ground for a few minutes and then broke in half and disappeared. It was really interesting to a weather geek like myself who had never seen such a thing before!

Also as a child we had a tornado destroy half our neighborhood, jump over our street and touch down again two streets behind us. Talk about lucky!
I was in school at the time about 2 miles away from home and had no idea what happened until I got home and saw helicopters circling the area and debris all over the place.
Mom was home and was just finishing yard work at the time. She was in the garage when the garage door started to bow out and she said she heard a noise she thought was a jet flying over (we lived in the approach path) so she ran over and grabbed the garage door trying to stop it! Valiant effort on moms part! Little did she know the noise and the door trying to fly out was the point when the tornado was skipping over the house! Mom could have been sucked right out! Yikes!

SWA TPA

jcs17 · Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:16 am

Back in 1991 or 1992 there was an F1 tornado in Southeastern Connecticut (Wilton, Weston, and Westport, specifically). Supposedly it came within a mile of the house I was living in at the time. We had a bunch of giant trees knocked down and our deck was destroyed.

In April of 1997, there was an outbreak of tornados in the Atlanta area. It was Spring Break. The night that all the tornadoes touched down I was transiting Atlanta to Pensacola from St. Thomas, where my parents and I were vacationing, on my way to meet friends in Gulf Shores (aka Redneck Riviera). I had no idea that there was tornados in the area, all I knew is that the flight from ATL-PNS was scary as hell. A tornado touched down about a quarter of a mile from my house in Alpharetta, even today you can see places in Norcross and Duluth where the tornados hit.

redngold · Sat Aug 28, 2004 4:22 am

A few TENS of feet in 1991. Our town was hit by an F0, but it was still some scary sh!t. The funnel passed through my back yard. I am one of the very few people who recognized it as a tornado before it hit.

redngold

Superfly · Sat Aug 28, 2004 4:26 am

Years ago in Indiana, I saw a tornado come within a quarter of a mile from our house. I saw it rip out several houses. It scared the $h!t out of me. I was only four years old at the time.

Northwest717 · Sat Aug 28, 2004 4:32 am

A month or two ago two (F1s or 2s I think) came within a 1/2 mile of my house. Thats about it.

-Tim Smile/happy/getting dizzy

N312RC · Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:16 am

These are the three tornadoes that moved through Oakland County, MI during my youth. I only remember one of them, and that was in preschool. The Tornado went right down 10 Mile Road, destroying parts of the Novi Police Headquarters, City Hall, and caving in the roof of the Novi Public Library. The Tornado then crossed Taft Road and destroyed a home in a subdivision (completely), I remember we drove by to see the damage.

SEP 14, 1990 018 1210 0 0 F3 125
SEP 14, 1990 019 1215 0 0 F1 125
JLY 07, 1991 026 1900 0 0 F2 125

I have many memories of the green sky, the sky so dark that the streetlights go on at 130pm, etc.. I also remember the springtime dashes to the basement when the sirens went off, and the tornado drills in school. Yes, I have been trapped school bathrooms for long periods due to severe weather.. Not a fun thing.

UAL747 · Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:24 am

All I have to say is:

May 3rd 1999, 3 Miles away, F5+ Tornado wrecked through OKC having the highest ever recorded winds on Earth. There was a HUGE outbreak of Tornados throughout OK, and KS that day, but OKC got the mother of all storms. Made Twister look like kiddie Tornados.

UAL747

atrude777 · Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:28 am

Jeff M- It is fun to watch them at night during a lightning storm. The flashes "freeze" them like a still photo, I've seen more then a dozen funnels at one time at night. Very unique.

That is what scares me the most! It is so scary to watch at night and see the lightning form the shape of a tornado it brings fear to me.

By the way iv been maybe 1 mile away from a tornado. It hit the road a mile away from me and blew some debris and branches onot our yard but it happened while we were sleeping, yes folks we slept through it!! hahaha.

Alex

Rydel · Sat Aug 28, 2004 11:45 am

A tornado touched down about 1.5 miles from my house last July. I think it was an F1, all it did was knock over some trees, poles, and flattened a few houses.

prosa · Sat Aug 28, 2004 12:29 pm

I've been in reasonably close proximity to two tornados, both in Connecticut. One passed within about a mile of my house when I was a small child. The second one happened when I was around 30; in that case, I (inadvertently) drove through the area which the tornado struck about five minutes after it passed through, meaning I was probably around two miles away when it struck. Both were small ones that did little damage.
The closest I ever came to a really large one was in 1979, also in Connecticut. I was about ten miles away from the tornado that caused extensive damage in the towns of Suffield and Windsor Locks (it wrecked some outbuildings at BDL and came within a half-mile of the terminal).

vaman · Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:15 am

Sorry to revive this old topic but a tornado actually hit my house back in 1993 and the interesting thing was that it happened in november. The morning was about 80 degrees and it was apparent that something was wrong. MY mom came running down the stairs screaming because she saw the tornado coming over the lake that my house was on. We madeit to the basebment right as it it. The house to our left lost the second story and the house to my right whose occupunants were are church had two HUGE trees split it in half. Two the house across the small lake from us slid into the lake and the lady at the top of my street was paralyzed. F3 tornado. The lady across the street from me was running down the stairs naked cause she was in the shower and as the windows shattered the shards of glass went into her legs. Quite a scary ordeal which has since made me a little gittery aroudn the swirly monsters.

L

N766UA · Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:17 am

When I was little a tornado hit right across town from me. A few miles I'd say. A few years ago, though, a funnel cloud went right over my head. It was swirling around and kinda half hanging down. It finally touched down about 10 miles east.

planespotterx · Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:31 am

Jees Vaman, I bet you must have been crappin yourself (I would have literally)...its one thing to be "safely" observing them, but to be in its path must be pretty frightening and life-changing.
The closest ive ever been to a tornado or Hurricane like-winds was this year on August 18th, when a Supercell storm smashed through the village.
I cant believe just 5 minutes prior to the storm I was at the top of the field above my house thinking it was just a "normal" summer storm.
Im glad I legged it back to my house, as just 3 minutes later the sky exploded with lightning, lightning everywhere, literally every second there was a bolt striking around the area (nearest strike to me was 25 meters away-pretty loud bang.)
The rain was just horizontal (I figured this was the gust-fron moving over), For a few minutes it was like being in a Hurricane, winds swiping the trees (the trees literally bent under the strain of the wind), and the rain was just like being in a shower, the rain was so bad I couldnt see 1/2 mile away.
It was really scary, but exciting too (being a "chaser" it was awe-insipring), I was just looking for a twister every second, camera at the ready.
Unfortunately (for me) the storm slowly passed, with just the rumbles of thunder going on as the storm moved overhead, the rain eased, and there was this amazing outflow from the storm to the East, clouds vertical from 1000ft as high as I could tell, the storm itself took 15 minutes to pass, but the Anvil took 2 hours to move away.
The temperature changes were also apparent, warm as it passed, and cold in the outflow, I mean this was in the UK so what you get in the US must be 100 times worse.
Im "lucky" I was given a chance to see a Supercell pass directly over my area, as being in the UK its rare to get one on such a widespread scale (The cell was reported from Manchester to Sheffield, small on the US scale.)

nonrvsmdmf · Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:51 am

Ual747 I was living in Tulsa when that happened. I will never forget that
day with tornados everywhere. We got lucky, a big one hit right across
the river from me and for some reason it came over the top of my
apartment and then came back down a couple of miles away.

I also slept through one when I lived in Denver. It hit Broadway
a couple of blocks away and tore up a bunch of the neighborhood.
The sirens finally woke me up an hour later.

We used to watch the funnels from the airport in Tulsa every
season. I hate those damn tornado sirens.

KCmike · Sun Aug 29, 2004 2:07 pm

A few years ago a good sized tornado about F2 or F3 i believe took out some buildings right across the street from my house but all that i suffered was a cracked window. Talk about luck!

corocks · Mon Aug 30, 2004 3:07 pm

Actually got very close to one yesterday...yes yesterday. I was out deep sea fishing in the gulf of Mexico, about 90 miles from Galveston, Tx. We sat and watched the funnel cloud develop and slowly work its way down to the water. We were close enough to see the waves it was creating and the water being thrown up in the air. Over water, it is hard to tell distances, but I would guess it was about 1/2 mile away.

In college, we had one jump right over our building on the University of Houston campus. It only did some minor damage. It must have been in 1992 or 93.

ScarletHarlot · Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:08 am

I've never seen one in person - but they get pretty damned close in my nightmares. The thought still scares the bejeebers out of me.

JetService · Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:51 am

A couple years ago, we had one go over our street. The tornado touched down in a shopping mall a few miles from me and did a lot of damage including flipping over cars, damaging a Best-Buy and Kohls and destroying a Goodyear Tire shop and restaurant. It then did major damage to the grounds of a cemenary ripping up very large mature oak & cottonwood trees. It proceded northeast toward my neighborhood damaging a senior-citizens home on the way. When it reached my area, it did minor damage to a home in the neighborhood next to ours before it began to climb back in the sky. It went right over my buddies home (about 3 or 4 houses down the street from me). Had it been on the ground, it most certainly would've destroyed his house. I didn't even know it was coming and was standing on the porch watching the storm, which I love to do. When I began to see yellow debris swireling in the sky (which turned out to be insulation from senior home), I know exactly what I was looking at. As I swa a trampoline shoot straight into the sky, I decided to shit in my pants* and run inside to join my family in the basement.

*-figuratively, of course

Superfly · Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:56 am

JetService:
Did you here about that tornado that ripped a septic tank out of the ground and threw it 1 mile across town?
Amazing.

Demoose · Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:04 am

Well for me it was when I was on holiday in Orlando back in February 1997. They had a huge tornado rip through the Kissimee area if I remember correctly which was only a few miles from my hotel. I remember the night watching the storm from my window seeing the lightening hit loads of tall metal things like cranes. The Weather Channel on the tv warning people to get in the bathtub with a matress over them.

The next morning I woke up to see the devistation being broadcast on the tv news. Then when we were by the pool we saw the presedential hellicopter fly past taking Bill Clinton to the destruction zone. Oh and they closed the Twister ride at Universal Studios because of the tornado which had just happened.

Apart from that, we dont get many at all here in the UK, certainly not like you have in the US!

Mark

Luv767s · Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:24 am

I've been in several and nothing scares me more than a tornado. This first one I experienced was in Miami in May of 1997 when it hit downtown. I watched it from MIA in the Delta terminal. We were stuck for hours.

The next one was in Bowling Green, KY on April 16, 1998. It was the one that hit downtown Nashville, TN and blew out the windows on all the buildings. In Bowling Green we were hit with softball sized hail and the tornado went right over the building I was in. It was like Godzilla was trying to get into the building. So incredibly scary.

Another one was in January of 1999 in Clarksville, TN. I lived about a mile from the tornado that hit downtown Clarksville and made it look like a war-torn town. Very scary stuff.

Another one hit Columbus, OH in April 2002, that went right over our neighborhood. Very scary, but it wasn't real bad. I don't think it hit ground, so that was fortunate.

Tornados love me, but we haven't had any in California since I've been back.

JetService · Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:29 am

JetService:
Did you here about that tornado that ripped a septic tank out of the ground and threw it 1 mile across town?
Amazing.

No I didn't!!! Geez, good thing it didn't land in a baseball stadium or the shit would've really hit the fan. Big grin

Seriously, I didn't hear that. Was this during the tornado you descibed when you were 4?

Superfly · Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:37 am

JetService:
good thing it didn't land in a baseball stadium or the shit would've really hit the fan.

Oh gosh that was corny but still very funny! Laugh out loud

The flying septic tank was down in Mississippi (near MD-90) almost 10 years ago.
Your shiting in your pants comment reminded me of that story. Smile

cumulonimbus · Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:34 am

Lets just say two close for comfort..... Many times!!!!

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