Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: April 18, 2011 03:24PM

In just the past week a flurry of twisters have struck in the area we call Tornado Alley. The current tally is 45 dead and hundreds if not thousands homeless.

A major storm that was a big contributor to the damage came through here last week with winds and hail that had me very concerned it was going to knock out the windows in the casa. I was amazed to find no hail damage to my cars afterwards with the ferocity this storm hit with

You cats down under get massive cyclones which can be tracked and at least to some degree be prepared for. Tornadoes just appear above us with little if any warning prior to them hitting.

If you hear the sound of a train comin down the road and know there aren't any tracks near by, that's about the only warning you're likely to get and fast action in finding shelter is all you can do

woberto Report This Comment
Date: April 19, 2011 03:07AM

Nobody wishes a tornado on anyone, even their worst enemy. Indiscriminate carnage.
There have been 2 tornados down under in my memory, very rare and once thought impossible in the southern hemisphere.
Glad you're unscathed Kim.

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: April 19, 2011 03:19AM

We've had some very rare tornadoes along the west coast states and they seem to be a bit more frequent over the last decade. They certainly do cause a hell of a lot of damage and worse, loss of life. I'm glad Mister Kimster is ok too. I don't know how or why people can live in places like tornado alley. I wouldn't want to. My little sis lives in Florida but fortunately in a spot that hurricanes don't affect a lot. Still too close for me though.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: April 19, 2011 04:07AM

There's not really all that much danger of tornadoes here. I'm just within the bottom 100 miles or so of Tornado Alley. No one I know has ever been hurt by one ... 'course it just takes the once

I've never seen one in person, which is A-O-K by me. I have a buddy from Oklahoma who says he hopes he's seen all of 'em he will ever see though.

Here we usually just get hellish rain and wind and the rare monster hail storm. One hit Ft. Worth about 12-15yrs back with softball sized hail that wasted windows, cars, a cuppla buildings in down town and caught a buncha people outside at a Mayfest, which got pretty bad in a hurry for them, though I don't think anyone died. Millions of $$s worth of damage in less than 10 minutes with no more warning than that it just starts to rain hard.

The storm I mentioned here the other night had 60-80mph winds and we get thunderstorms with some lightening like you wouldn believe from time to time. It's pretty wild when a crack of thunder rolls across the sky for up to 30 seconds and ... seein lightenin go nearly completely across the horizon instead of just down is really trippy





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 19/04/2011 04:18AM by Mrkim.

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: April 19, 2011 04:15AM

We get that kind of weather here along the Oregon Coast region too.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: April 19, 2011 04:27AM

Hell Blah, you, Pro, 9er and Place all live up in that lush and lovely area sittin on toppa major fault lines and in close proximity to some of the biggest volcanoes in all of north america. I feel waaaay safer than that here

All we have here is wicked storms and every venomous/poisonous snake, lizard and insect on the continent. I'll take that over sittin on top of old Smokey anyday

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: April 19, 2011 11:41AM

Here in Arkansas we are considered tornado alley as well. I have seen 4 tornadoes up close and personal and for some reason never worried about them. The neighborhood my mother-in-law lives in was pretty much destroyed by tornado one year and left her alone. I watched a tornado moving on the ground about a mile from my backyard 4 years ago. My parents thought I was insane when one year during a thunderstorm where tornadoes were reported my mother found me on top of my father's 40 foot steel CB tower looking for the tornado. She called me every name in the book and I never thought my mother could cuss like a sailor but she did. To this day I still love spring time and the storms systems it brings. If I wasn't legally blind I would be a storm chaser and follow the storms. I can still be found out in the yard watching the storms, listening to the scanner tracking the action and letting my kids know when to take cover. They know by now that when I sound scared it is time to take cover. I can always expect calls from them during storms even when they are not in their homes. For some reason even when we are at the fleamarket on the weekends everybody there asks me what direction they are traveling.

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: April 19, 2011 08:50PM

You mean this soaking wet, moldy, fung-ass ridden shit-hole called the PNW? Yeah it's just great. The closest active volcano that's even burped in the last 200 years is St. Helens and that's over 200 miles away. The closest major fault is Juan de Fuca which appears to be well over 300 miles into the ocean. Are they threats? Hell yes. Do they fuck up peoples lives and property every year? Nope. Instead the assholes in D.C., Wall St. and Salem take care of that for us.

I like watching storms too. Nature is totally awesome and I ain't dead yet

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: April 20, 2011 10:45AM

Well we had another super night of mother nature at her best here in Arkansas. We had several reported tornadoes fortunately I don't think we had any deaths. We have had 40000+ households in nearby Little Rock without power. Haven't heard yet of the damage from them but where I am in Searcy not much occured, lot of lightning and thunder and some hail in parts but not much else. I'm with Blah on this, I love mother nature and all her diversity. We have been having small earthquakes but our fault line, the New Madrid Fault is overdue for a big one by over 50 years. Fortunately we don't have any volcanoes in our state.