Thunderstorms and Tornado Watches...

[ScreamingMeemie]

:scared:

...and rain fade on the satellite system. :( I hate dark mornings. When tornado watches happen in the middle of the night or the early morning, I am reminded of that scene in Twister with the old lady in her house. :scared:

[tjwmason]

1. Hello Mrs. G.

:hi:

May one ask what a tornado watch involves? It doesn't sound too good at all. :hug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. Hi tj! It means conditions are right for a tornado.

So they watch for them. When one is spotted forming, they change the watch to a warning and the sirens go off warning people to take cover. It is raining like gangbusters here and I've got to take my daughter to the busstop in about 20 minutes. :hug:

[tjwmason]

3. Not good.

:hug:

Do you have to wait for long at the 'bus stop? Waiting around in the rain is just plain nasty.

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. I have to drive her about 4 miles, and then the bus is usually there

waiting. She goes to school quite a ways away from us. Luckily, I won't have to wait long and the car is warm and dry. :) :hug:

[hfojvt]

20. when I grew up

it seemed like we were in a tornado watch almost every day. So I just figured that "conditions are right for a tornado" on a typical South Dakota summer day. But SD has fewer tornados than Kansas or Missouri and Xmas74 was getting hammered yesterday. I hope everybody's OK.

[xmas74]

27. We came out just fine

but there is extensive damage throughout the county. Search and Rescue was out in the country last night looking for missing persons d/t the tornadoes.

[billyskank]

5. I imagine it's extremely difficult to spot a tornado at night

:scared:

[hippywife]

6. It is!

You have to wait for lightning flashes to see the cloud formations. My husband and I are ham radio operators and storm spot sometimes for the National Weather Service. (We were out for a bit last night but the storms didn't spawn any tornados until they got way north of here.) I don't think I've ever done storm spotting in daylight, tho. It just seems to happen that way.

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. That's why I get a little scared.

I lost two of my classmates when I was a girl. They were 'walkers' who went home everyday for lunch and a tornado came up out of nowhere. It ripped the roof back on our school. I've been frightened of them ever since.

[billyskank]

10. That's the stuff nightmares are made of

:scared:

I can well understand why it is that, before tornadoes were understood, they seemed to people that it must be the wrath of God. The spontaneous random destruction they can wreak, how else could it be explained?

Strange thing I learned recently. Britain is apparently the most tornado-prone place on the planet, in terms of numbers of twisters per unit of land area. Very strange. I guess most of them must be pretty small though, because tornado damage is a very rarely heard about. There was one that went through Birmingham last year, which was remarkable enough to make the news.

[tjwmason]

17. Typical of the Yanks to get bigger tornadoes than we do.

They just have to have everything bigger.

;)

[xmas74]

30. You can have them!

I spent most of the evening and night, until midnight, in my basement and the fields are in really bad shape.

If you want the supercells, you can have them!

[XemaSab]

39. The problem with that measurement

"Britain is apparently the most tornado-prone place on the planet," is that there are HUGE swaths of the US that get no tornadoes or just teeny ones.

In California we have a few every year, and usually if there's any damage at all, it's someone losing a roof off a shed or a tree getting blown down.

Tornado alley in the southern Great Plains gets thousands of tornadoes a year. :shrug:

[Misunderestimator]

8. But yesterday was gorgeous wasn't it?

Glad this is happening on a Monday and not on the weekend. Yesterday felt like spring. Interesting weather here... never thought Michigan could be so temperamental. :)

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. I wish it were on the weekend. I'll be out measuring houses in it

today. :( Michigan's weather is a bit less tempermental than Wisconsin's but it can always throw you for a loop. :scared:

[Misunderestimator]

11. Yeah, that would suck.

I hope it clears up soon for you... I forget that you have to actually be out in this stuff :hug:

[1gobluedem]

18. Wait tell you see snow in late April!

Like last year. Or freezing temps in June. At one of the first outdoor music festivals I ever worked on, the temperature was 34 degrees the night of June 16. Koko Taylor was performing onstage under the lights. When she came offstage steam started rising from her sweaty arms. Incredible.

I have seen it snow in May. Welcome to Michigan!

[progmom]

21. hey

you'll scare her. :)

[Misunderestimator]

22. Nah... growing up in Texas.. nothing scares me more than that.

:D

[1gobluedem]

23. Attend one of our staff meetings

That would do it.

[Misunderestimator]

24. Fortunately that's not a Michigan-specific kind of thing.

:D And I've got staff meetings of my own. :bounce:

[BlueStorm]

25. Tell me about.. especially if you live almost close

to Lake Michigan.

Blu

[ScreamingMeemie]

34. I live on the shores of Lake St. Clair...a connector lake between

Huron and the Detroit River/Lake Erie. It's pretty scary out there right now. We had a few hours of sun, now the wind is whipping up and clouds are coming back. :(

[StaggerLee]

12. The rain has been keeping me up at night

when it normally comforts me. :shrug:

One good thing about my ground level apt is that it's on a hill so I just walk across the floor and *bam* I'm in the basement.

It's daylight now Mrs G - any better for ya?

:hi:

[LaurenG]

13. We are supposed to get some wicked weather here

between noon and three. I do hope it's over by bedtime otherwise I'll never hear the sirens and I'll end up in OZ (or dead) if it hits us. I do know the feeling. :hi:

[merh]

14. Take care MrsG

sending out good energies and cyber hugs to you and all in the tornado prone areas.

:hug: :hug: :loveya:

[Blue Diadem]

15. I was up watching through the night..after a 1:30 am lightening strike

Our dog was terrified and I ended up taking him downstairs so DH could sleep. When my granddaughter went to school this morning I saw where the lightening hit...a neighbor's tree down the road. It blew the bark at least a hundred feet. :scared: This morning I saw that high winds will be coming this afternoon..we're supposed to hit 70 degrees then be in the 30's by tomorrow.

Have a safe day Mrs Grumpy..I'll be sending good thoughts your way.
:hug:


:hi:

[Patiod]

16. I had no idea Michigan was the tornado magnet it was

until I was driving my rental car back to Detroit airport, and the sky turned green. Not blue-green, but GREEN. I don't know ANYTHING about tornados, but I knew this was Not good.

The Avis girl in the parking lot wouldn't let me fill out any paperwork, and risked her own safety (her co-workers were yelling for her to "get on the bus!!!!") to be sure *I* got safely on the bus before the deluge hit. Several tornadoes touched down in the area, but nothing right near the airport (I wrote to Avis about that employee's bravery).

Good luck Mrs G!

[RevCheesehead]

19. hell, we were under a tornado watch late last night.

It was nasty out... and it's still trying to decide what kind of day it's going to be today.

Be safe, Mrs. G. :hug:

[BlueStorm]

26. We were under one this morning

but now it is bright and sunny, but cool and really, really windy. It is so windy that when I drive I can actually feel it pushing onto my car.

Blu

[xmas74]

28. We had six warnings,

supercells all night long, numerous touchdowns(they think it was more than 20 at one point) and just overall nasty.

You must be getting our cells. They were heading northeast.

Good luck and check all your flashlights. You'll need them.

[ScreamingMeemie]

36. So far...lucky. The watch started at 2AM and was susposed to end

at 11 AM, but they extended it to 8 PM. Glad you made it through. MrG has our house hooked up for a generator that he bought after "The Great Blackout". We've got 10 tanks of gas. Hopefully we won't need them. :hi: Thanks!

[billyskank]

37. Hey MrsG!

:hug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

38. Hi billy!

:hug: :hi: :loveya:

[billyskank]

40. You made it!

:loveya:

[ScreamingMeemie]

41. ...and it actually got sunny for a little while!

:loveya:

[billyskank]

43. Hey, I'm glad the weather wasn't as bad

as it could have been for you. :hug:

[xmas74]

42. Some of the biggest ones have broken down a bit.

It does have a huge squall line at the end, which did produce straight line and tornadoes but most was minor compared to the rest of the day.

And they did repeatedly extend the warnings yesterday. Go to this link and click on Images from the Storm. http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/7959029/detail.html

The Sedalia and Knob Noster ones are close by me. They were particularly nasty.

[MissMillie]

29. Please stay safe!

:loveya:

[Broken_Hero]

31. Yep...

This past weekend, my wife and I were up in Lawrence Kansas to meet up with some old friends, and yesterday morning a tornado came through. It tore up the KU campus pretty good, and a ton of trees down, and a ton of cars, and countless other things crushed by the fallen trees. It was nuts. And when we came home last night(sw missouri), we had tornado watches, and warnings all round us, it was nuts. I believe a tornado touched down near, or in Monett, Missouri..it was just ONE HELL of a crazy day/night of severe weather...:(

[xmas74]

32. This is a brief summary.

http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/7959029/detail.html

We were in the path the whole time.

[Broken_Hero]

35. yeah

most of the storms were heading Northeast, when they passes lawrence..i believe some of the weather hit KC, but most of it, i believe hit northeast of KC...and kept on trucking on, and on...

[xmas74]

44. We got nailed from the west and from the south.

NWS shows five known touchdowns in my county and a few others that are suspected but not confirmed.

[Broken_Hero]

45. Its just crazy...

Stay safe, and what not...we did get some golf ball sized hail in Lawrence also...last night, in SW Missouri we got a ton of rain, to me, it looked like via the news chanell, that it was all above us, and below us...cutting through SE kansas/NE oklahoma, and below us, through NW Arkansas...

[no name no slogan]

33. I've been through a couple of "night tornados"

one of which knocked a tree over on me when I was two years old. They're one of my greatest fears.

[Laelth]

46. Gratuitous kick.

:evilgrin:

-Laelth