Tornado warnings for IL, IN, MO, WI, KY

Well I had a clearance light on the cab busted out from hail the size of golf balls to tennis ball size !!! Bents on the wife's car and I haven't seen the trailer yet

 

I've been lucky. I've passed through the area before everything went to crap. Tornado went through West Paducah a half hour after I passed through.

 

was just outside of Bloomington trying to get off the rd when this passed. A line of cars stopped under a bridge stopped shoulder to shoulder blocking the entire interstate sticking me out in the open. I've had a lot of 'Oh this is gonna suck moments' but this was my first 'So, this is it ?' moment. Went through Joplin right after that disaster and also Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, and was in Dallas when a Shneider truck was being tossed about like a toy, those were the only images running through my mind.

Also Have a question, at what point do you bail and try to run for cover, say under the bridge in this instance? The wind rain and hail was insane but at no point would it be possible to see a funnel cloud so In reality I didn't know how much or little danger I was in. I was kinda worried the moment I realized i was in fatal danger would be the moment my truck left the ground. Made it fine this time but what about next time?

On the bright side a have a bunch of clean spots on my truck now where the hail punctured the layer of dirt and grime.

 

You don't want to be under a bridge actually. That's old false info. The wind will be worse. Similar to squeezing a water hose to creat higher pressure. Best thing is to find lowest spot like a ditch if possible and lay down, cover your head.

 

I say stay in your truck and get on the opposite side of where the wind is blowing and hunker against the wall, in sleeper, away from the front glass ... unless you can actually see a tornado and can positively determine it is actually likely to run over your fixed location, then move the truck or exit the truck, one. I've chased for several years and have withstood 90+ MPH inflow winds mixed with immense rain and quarter size hail, mixed with a few golf and tennis ball size hail, broadside in a heavier 4wd Yukon, parked because visibility was zero with no glass breakage, only heavily beaten up on one side.

In the immediate vicinity of a tornado, flying debris is the biggest concern, next to actually getting run over by a tornado. Straight-line winds from a large bowing mcs system gust front, and tornado inflow and down-draft winds are hard to tell them apart if you're not abreast of the real-time weather goings ons , especially when it is particularly dark or visibility is obscured with heavy rain/hail. But tornadoes are rarely associated with fully developed bowing mcs systems.