Weather babble...
Jun. 8th, 2008 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
littlelotteSo is it just me or do people in Michigan just not take tornadoes as seriously as people in places where they are really common? The whole thing is a little disconcerting to me. Two days ago Dan and I were watching Frasier DVDs and the tornado sirens started going off. Being the little girl from Oklahoma that I am I started gathering up the necessary things and searching for the kitty-cat to head down to the basement for a while (and lamenting the lack of necessary things--we don't have a flashlight, we don't have a small radio with batteries, etc...I made a note to pick these things up on my errands today). We have a basement right in the apartment now which is immensely satisfying to me in regards to weather safety, but it still amazes me after almost three years of living with him that he (and nearly everyone I've met in the state) just doesn't get the danger of them.
The May 1999 Moore/Oklahoma City F5 tornado that destroyed the homes of family friends of ours and had my mom and dad here in Michigan on the internet and phone for days on end trying to find their friends in the area:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4pbqGsS5iB4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zYdTLEBddPY
From a video camera set up inside a home during the above tornado (I think...and hope...that the people had set it up and left). Listening to this one brings back a lot of my childhood springs spent listening to the winds while hiding from tornadoes. It also makes me remember what my mom would always say once we finally got our storm shelter there (hardly anybody has basements or storm shelters in Oklahoma because the red clay ground makes it so difficult to dig and build as deeply as you have to for those things). We'd leave the top of the shelter open and we'd listen for the freight train/whistling wind sounds that always accompany them:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6mdf9R4nFMc
Really great piece on the May 1999 tornado from a TLC show including a satellite tornado attached to the main one:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XEW5UCIMyrQ
My favorite quote from the above piece:
"It came right up to the water tower, raised up over the water tower, came down on the other side of the water tower and then it came down the hill." Yup...that's about right...Tornado says, "Nah...I don't want to take the water tower out, but I'll destroy EVERYTHING ELSE IN A FIVE MILE RADIUS AT LEAST! NOT A FLOWER WILL BE LEFT STANDING!"
This is footage of a multi-vortex set of tornadoes. The thing that has always mesmerized me about tornadoes--it can be a beautiful and terrifying ballet of sorts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8NENOeKjaM&NR=1
I guess I've seen too much destruction, and I've lived through so many that I understand that you have to take them seriously. Dan teases me about how seriously I take the possible tornado-spawning storms, but I know that they aren't something to joke about.
The May 1999 Moore/Oklahoma City F5 tornado that destroyed the homes of family friends of ours and had my mom and dad here in Michigan on the internet and phone for days on end trying to find their friends in the area:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4pbqGsS5iB4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zYdTLEBddPY
From a video camera set up inside a home during the above tornado (I think...and hope...that the people had set it up and left). Listening to this one brings back a lot of my childhood springs spent listening to the winds while hiding from tornadoes. It also makes me remember what my mom would always say once we finally got our storm shelter there (hardly anybody has basements or storm shelters in Oklahoma because the red clay ground makes it so difficult to dig and build as deeply as you have to for those things). We'd leave the top of the shelter open and we'd listen for the freight train/whistling wind sounds that always accompany them:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6mdf9R4nFMc
Really great piece on the May 1999 tornado from a TLC show including a satellite tornado attached to the main one:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XEW5UCIMyrQ
My favorite quote from the above piece:
"It came right up to the water tower, raised up over the water tower, came down on the other side of the water tower and then it came down the hill." Yup...that's about right...Tornado says, "Nah...I don't want to take the water tower out, but I'll destroy EVERYTHING ELSE IN A FIVE MILE RADIUS AT LEAST! NOT A FLOWER WILL BE LEFT STANDING!"
This is footage of a multi-vortex set of tornadoes. The thing that has always mesmerized me about tornadoes--it can be a beautiful and terrifying ballet of sorts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8NENOeKjaM&NR=1
I guess I've seen too much destruction, and I've lived through so many that I understand that you have to take them seriously. Dan teases me about how seriously I take the possible tornado-spawning storms, but I know that they aren't something to joke about.
