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Thread: midwest tornadoes

  1. #1

    Default midwest tornadoes

    just wanting to say a prayer for all ti those ares,
    hope and pray alll here are well. as well as those they know.
    coyotes listen to them, like children of the night what music they make.


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    I saw a tornado once in IL when I was very young. Didn't come close to us but across the corn field it was scary. Dad took me to the museum soon after to look at what power a tornado had. All I remember was a small stick or piece of straw piercing a tree trunk. Give me a hurricane any day over a tornado.

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    Senior Member Old GI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by madmax View Post
    ... Give me a hurricane any day over a tornado.
    I dealt with both while in the Emergency Management business and a tornado scares me with no notice.
    When Wealth is Lost, Nothing is Lost;
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    I caught the same frontal system but not as bad. Rick probably did too. It was bad enough that I stayed up all night. There was no way one could sleep with all the wind, rain bucketing down, thunder and lightening. I turned off all the electronics to protect them from electrical surge.

    Woke up to discover that Mayfield was gone.

    I am about 300 miles from Mayfield but I know the area well, my grand parents spent the last years of their lives near there.

    I have lived with tornadoes al my life. Sudden and total disaster that is as unpredictable as it is deadly.

    You don't prep for a tornado, you pray through them. You don't pray that you live through it, you pray that it misses you!

    Tornadoes are one of the reasons there are fewer percentage of atheists in the US than in Europe. Europe does not have tornadoes.
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

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    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    God spared us from any damage at all. We had some high wind that lifted one shingle off the back side of my roof. I'll have my handyman swing by and slap some roofing tar down and stick it back on. I don't think a single limb got dropped around here. That said, All the trees were trimmed in two storms we had earlier this year which, in hindsight, might have been blessings. These winds were much higher. Prayers are out to those who lost loved ones.

    Working tornado cleanup sure shows you the strange power of Mother Nature. I'm sure Randy and others can attest to that. I've seen aluminum siding wrapped around poles like a candy cane and the list goes on. Never underestimate what might happen. It's always the same old story....They blow the siren and nothing ever happens....They pounded that ridge boys. This will be a piece of cake.....I don't wear my seat belt, what if I crash into a river?

    I think the smart ones know that answer to all those questions.

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    Super Moderator crashdive123's Avatar
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    Glad y'all came through it unscathed. Others were not as lucky. Prayers to all.
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    We have a few tornados down here but they just barely make the cut from dust devil to twister. Had one pull all the peaches off of a neighbor's tree, skip over the houses and destroy a shoddily constructed storage shed about 300 yards away. No other evidence of damage. Every now and then we will find a cornstalk out in the middle of the ranch miles from the nearest corn field. One will twist off a tree every now and then but once every hundred years or so we'll get one that will destroy a house. They will spin off of hurricanes but it's hard to tell the difference in the damage done.

    We get NOTHING like these f5 monsters that lay bare 300 ft swaths through whatever they hit. I can prepare for a Cat 5 hurricane but there is no prep for an f5 cyclonic monster except to have a nice deep hole dug and a lot of concrete over the top of it.

    For not having tornados we are very, very thankful...

    Lots of prayers to those in harms way.

    Alan

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    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    We are prone to tornados and rarer cyclones. Grandpa said you could always tell which hit by just walking out in the cornfield. If the stalks were twisted it was a tornado. If they were laid flat, it was a cyclone. We were hit with a cyclone here this spring about thirty feet up. Not a tree limb was twisted. They were all swept down or broke off in the same direction. Those old guys knew their stuff.

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    I always thought they were one and the same. Learned something new today.

    Alan

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    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    I think they are called downdrafts today but that's what they were called back then. He also told me if rocks on the ground were wet then it was probably raining and I should come inside. If just one rock was wet it might likely be something else.

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    Your Grandpa was a wise man trying to impart a small bit of that wisdom to his grandson despite his possible nagging concerns about his linage.....

    Alan
    Last edited by Alan R McDaniel Jr; 12-14-2021 at 01:58 PM.

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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Back flash to teacher mode again.

    There are a group of atmospheric features called "cyclonic systems" and they all have a rotation pattern, large our small.

    The large ones we call hurricanes or typhoons, depending on the ocean they are in; Atlantic for hurricanes and Pacific for typhoons. I understand that the thing we used to call a typhoon is now referred to as a "cyclone", which really does make it confusing when you listen to the weather forecast.

    The smaller features, which are actually more concentrated and intense, are called Tornadoes if on land and "water spouts" if in the sea.

    All of them are studied as cyclonic features in the atmosphere.

    BTW, the twist direction will be clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere. I suppose that means it is impossible to have a tornado on the equator.
    If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?

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    Quote Originally Posted by kyratshooter View Post
    ...

    BTW, the twist direction will be clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere. I suppose that means it is impossible to have a tornado on the equator.
    Possibly two that are constantly feeding each other. Sounds like something terrible enough for Anthony Fauci to invest our tax dollars in.... Disclaimer: that last statement wasn't political. It was "Scientific", .....

    Alan

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    Senior Member WolfVanZandt's Avatar
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    At times Alabama vies with the Midwest for tornadic activity. The reason you don't hear about that is that they kick up so much debris in Alabama that you can't see them from a distance and there are more uninhabited areas to drop down into, so they don't get reported as often.

    After the fronts dip their tails in the Gulf, they pick up energy and transfer it northward. Texas is a little too far west for the monsters. But this longitude is where they get started. In fact, if I walk to the top of the rise where I live and look east, that's where they start. East Denver has had a few small tornadoes. I25 is the dividing line.

    America has this distinction. Find a list of countries with their tally of tornadoes. Of course, it's not the wrath of God. It's just the way our continent is shaped. Our four father's were very surprised at the weather where they settled. They chose the northeast because it was about the same latitude as England and they figured the climate would be the same. That was a fatal mistake for many of them. The Native Americans actually did help them survive, after all, the Europeans we're not "savages"!
    True enough, my final home is still out there, but this is most certainly my home range and I love it. I love every rock I fall off and tree I trip over. Even when I am close to dying from exhaustion, a beautiful sunset doesn't lose it's power to refresh and inspire me and that, in itself, is enough to save me sometimes.

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