Truckers: How To Prepare for a Tornado?

Think I was in same 1. I ran to lebanon TN said 2 hit round Nashville and 1 round where I was. Spent 45 minutes standing by their freezer so if it did happen my fat a+@ would be 1st in! Lol this was back in 09.

 

I seen some1 said most of us are listening to XM and I do but if you're around larger cities flip to the wx channels or roaddog.

 

Here's a good read. http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/

 

That's a "Arcus" cloud, (Shelf Cloud)

Here is a link about them ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcus_cloud

 

the local rescue squad reported it as a wall cloud.

 

I just thinking about asking the same question as the OP, when something like this happens I always wonder what the truckers do.

 

You require a truck that isn't governed for the specific reason of out running tornados? Interesting! I bet I could out run a tornado in my 62 mph truck. Tornados don't move too quick.

 

Some of you all are ate up. Talking about ungoverned trucks so you can outrun it, driving through it because you drive a flatbed. It just shows that you guys have absolutely 0 concept of weather or tornadoes. The only option you really have is to find a ditch and hope for the best. It's better than sitting in your truck.

 

If it was me I would find out which direction it headed check my insurance park truck in path run like hello wait til it over run back to truck climb in and wait. Problem solved

 

I always go to weather.com to review weather as part of my pretrip planning. If I suspect there is a moderate or high risk of tornados or violent thunderstorms I will reroute and try to get northwest of the area. Tornados move SW to NE, so getting a few hundred miles northwest of the convergence zone of cool air and warm are that typically collides over Oklahoma City means abandoning the I-40 to I-44 connections and getting north onto the 54 or 56 up through Kansas to the I-70.

Once I'm stuck in the danger zone (like last month waiting to unload in St. Louis) I monitor news channels, CB, and listen for sirens if I'm in a populated area. The sirens went off when we were waiting and we immediately ran through a downpour to get inside the warehouse. We were hit by a violent thunderstorm that made a flood zone inside the warehouse from all the rain getting pushed under the closed warehouse doors. Truck was fine, operations returned to normal in a couple of hours, and we got out of there 6 hours after our appointment.

If there is heavy hail, golf ball size and larger, then staying in the truck may be the best option if you can't find shelter elsewhere.

Best bet is to avoid the area altogether if you can. If not then have a swivel neck looking at the clouds.