Tornados and the severe thunderstorms

Everytime I think about taking shelter in a walk in cooler I think about that video from Joplin. Now as far as that situation goes when they were unloading your truck, at least one brave person should've came out and said get in here now........or got on the radio and told you. I am glad you made it inside though. And if I am at truck stop I am looking for a hallway or a shower room or something that's in the inside of the building and not by an outside wall.

 

skywarn weather watcher for home here.

Imagine getting a call from the net controller with a concern of a tornado in your area and the address he gives is the HOUSE YOU ARE SITTING AT.

 

Actually ,lying in a ditch is a last resort,and you can only hope the wind won't pick you up. To say a two hundred plus mile per hour wind will not pick you up is ridiculous .

 

I was there too. From the time I left Memphis, I was running from tornadoes. They were setting down all around me. Hit tupelo and thought I caught a break. Got almost to the point to where the controlled access part of US78 ends and there was a county Mountie there on the radio warning everyone to take cover from the 1.5 mile wide twister. Hammered through the wind and debris minutes before the tornado hit. Made it to 20 and put the pedal down.

The radio stations will tell you almost exactly where they are. If a disaster is ahead of you, you stop, full stop. If its behind you, you go, full go. Same thing goes with hurricanes and freaky snow storms,

 

Tornados are bad enough, but if you ever find yourself near a tornado or in a well structured stormy, tornado environment, there are many other winds that can damage buildings, topple loaded trucks, rip tin off of barns and roofs and send it wherever it decides to send it at great velocity.

Near tornados, besides the tornado itself, there are inflow winds ahead of it, rear flank and forward flank downdrafts and micro-bursts ... all of these easily topping 75 MPH. Also, be aware of the QLCS (Quasi Linear Convective System) and squall lines. These are capable of causing damage and toppling trucks. But they move quick but it's not a bad idea to park momentarily to let it pass or run like crazy to stay in front of it (never try and run with with a squall line, right in the worst of it. If you can only drive 40-45 MPH, chances are you will be hard pressed to safely punch through it). Be aware of the weather, what it's doing, and what direction the storms are moving.

Wherever you see large bowing segments, these will push wicked winds out in front of them ..

 

As a storm chaser and avid weather fan, I'm never without access to radar and the weather goings on and I take it for granted others are to. If you have a smartphone and drive a truck for a living, it's in your best interest to download a decent radar app and use it when it's apparent severe weather is approaching or if you're about to intercept a sever weather frontal system from behind. And pay particular attention to the Hazardous Weather Alerts that are usually posted in RED hyperlinks or buttons when you're viewing a particular city's weather information.

 

Duplicate - DELETE

 

We live below Tuscaloosa where the tornado hit in April of 2011 that some of you were avoiding. There were a record number of tornadoes all across that year. Ringold, GA had about 50 % of it's business's destroyed, and it continued on.

We are in a different weather band here below usually, if it hits Aliceville, AL on a storm front it usually is heading toward Tuscaloosa.

We had some straight line winds in our area about 3 wks ago. It was a unusually windy week and that day there were a lot of gusts. It took out a row of trees along the highway, some around a pond going toward town. It looked like it just twisted the tops of the cedar trees about 6 feet down and sailed them up the road. It is amazing what straightline winds can do strengthwise.

It does seem like some states are more prone to having them also, look at OK.

When it was on the news about the Schneider trucks being picked up like that it was really astounding to see a whole truck picked up in the air like that and it stay in a straightline.

The weather channel app now has where you can save a lot of different cities so you can pull them up if you know you'll be in the area and see if the have any severe weather postings. In some occasions it lists gusting winds,

 

I have this app on my phone.

I recommend anyone use it.

It's called Raindar

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghvandoorn.Raindar&hl=en