Shoutout to Hippywife ....... you guys okay????

[Stinky The Clown]

Check in! I'm watching the tornadoes in your area ........

[Lucinda]

1. Eek. Hope they are safe!

[Tab]

2. It does look nasty, but looks like eastern Arkansas will get hit worst

She's in the path (because it's a wide path, covering multiple states), but from looking at the sat tracking, it looks like eastern Arkansas is going to get the brunt of it.

She won't be spared the storm, and there's a tornado watch where she is.

Hope she's okay, plus also anyone else in the path there.

[Tab]

3. And as a further comment....

I find tornadoes some of the scariest weather events. Hurricanes at least have some lead time. Tornadoes can plop down anywhere (if you're in the appropriate region), and at night you can't even see them, and they can wreak tremendous damage.

You get no warning with earthquakes either - zero warning, effectively - but as a rule the truly damaging ones are few and far between for any given area. That's not to say that SF (for instance) won't get a devastating one - when a bad one happens, it's really bad - but they don't happen often, thankfully. Tornadoes, on the other hand, rarely does a year go by without some town getting wiped out, and unlike earthquakes there's no fault line - just "the midwest".

Interestingly, too - I have a friend who lives in Minnesota. Apparently they get a fair number of tornadoes. I would have thought they'd be excluded, between all the lakes and being up near the Canadian border (about the same latitude that I am) but she says they do. I live in northern New England, and once in a rare while we get a tornado or an earthquake, but not very darn often, and the tornadoes are pretty small and far between (like years). Usually they just knock down a couple of trees, although one year they flipped a car. The earthquakes so far (and I've only been through one here that I actually felt) are also rare, although I understand we live in a potentially active fault line. In fact, they're so rare, the one time it happened that it was strong enough to feel it, I thought it was just a really strong wind shaking the house. In retrospect, that was silly, since at that time I had a brick house. But you're just not in the "earthquake mentality", so the immediate reaction is to attribute it to the more common cause, that of wind, although a wind that can shake a brick house would have to be a hell of a wind, but that's just not how you think. Once when I was in San Francisco there was an earthquake powerful enough to make it very hard to walk down the corridor of the hotel, but at least then I figured out pretty quickly "San Francisco = earthquake".

But the midwest, my goodness - they get some nasty tornadoes plowing through. Minnesota too, apparently.

[livetohike]

4. I lived in MN for two years and CA for 14

I was terrified of the tornado sirens :scared:. We had some good shakers while living in so Cal, but tornadoes will always scare me.

[hippywife]

13. You get a fair amount of warning

with tornados, too, if you know what to pay attention to. We are both ham radio operators and used to go out storm spotting for the National Weather Service here. We've been to their storm spotter training several times.

Actually, having been through it so many times, there's also a fair amount of Oklahomans that can tell you what to look for in the cloud formations, too. You'd really be surprised when they do they man/woman on the street interviews on the news at what people say they saw and the terms they use.

If there's ever a hook echo bearing our direction, we usually hop in the truck and drive out of it's path, no matter the time of night. And it usually is night. :eyes:

[Tab]

5. Tornadoes strike central Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY – Severe storms knocked down power lines and damaged structures Tuesday afternoon in central Oklahoma.

Tornado sirens were activated, and television news video appeared to show a tornado and debris in the air in a rural area. School children were being kept in locked-down schools until the storm passed.

An intersection in northwest Oklahoma City was closed as power lines were down and debris, including glass, was in the road. People who were driving in the area were told to stay in their cars until crews could clear the power lines.

Fire Chief Brian Stanaland says there are reports of damage to a restaurant in northwest Oklahoma City. Television showed what looked like a collapsed wall.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090210/ap_on_re_us/severe_weather

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Yeah .... I was watching this live on MSNBC

That's what prompted this post. MSNBC had live, real time video from a copper following what appeared to be an active (and big) rain wrapped tornado.

[NMDemDist2]

7. I was thinking of her too, but she's in the Tulsa area I think

:scared:

[Tab]

8. I didn't want to say

because it's up to her to say, but yes - south of Tulsa.

[NMDemDist2]

9. you didn't have to confirm it

:rofl:


:spank:

I was just sorta remembering.... no solid info

:hide:

[Tab]

12. True

My bad.

[hippywife]

14. You both crack me up!

:rofl:

I'm starting to hear thunder off in the distance. And, of course, it's dark. Hard to read a cloud formation when you can't see it except through lightning flashes. Gonna have to trust radar.

[Tab]

16. Interestingly enough, if you don't have cable

Try this (courtesy of The Straight Dope)

How to detect tornados using your TV

Tornados create an electrical disturbance somewhere in the 55 megahertz range, close to the frequency band assigned to channel 2. With this phenomenon in mind, Newton Weller, an electronics technician, has devised the following method for using your TV set as a tornado warning device.

Tune to channel 13 and turn the brightness control down to the point where the image is nearly--not completely--black. Then turn to channel 2. Lightning will register as horizontal streaks on the screen. When the picture becomes bright enough to be seen, or when the screen glows with an even light, there's a tornado within 20 miles, and it's time to find Toto and head for the basement.

[hippywife]

17. I'll run that by the

expert homebrew Elmer upstairs and see what he says. We don't have cable. Thanx! :hug:

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Whew!

Now that you mentioned that, I also knew she was in Tulsa .....

Stinky <---increasingly old and feeble minded.

[hippywife]

11. We're fine for the moment.

The storms haven't reached us yet. Our little house sits due south of Tulsa about 35 miles from downtown. The tornado that struck just a couple of hours ago was near OKC.

Keep us in your thoughts tonight. Sazemisery, too! We're sitting on the moderate/slight threat tornado prediction line. :scared:

Oh, and thanks for caring. :loveya: :hug:

[Stinky The Clown]

15. :smooooch:

:hug:

[hippywife]

18. Well, now

I feel complete. :rofl:

[hippywife]

19. Looks like it might be safe

to put the jammies on and head upstairs now. But sazemisery isn't outta the woods yet so hold a good thought for them for a little while longer. You all have a great night! :hi: