Well those storms that produced tornadoes in the Midwest reached us at a bad time. It was during my baseball game sometime in the 5th inning where dark black clouds rolled in and I already knew it was going to be bad. As the clouds approached, I saw what appeared to be a rotating updraft. heard a small rumble of thunder and saw the first flash of lightning, the umpire didn't see it until the second lightning flash and we made a run for the dugout, on our way up the hill, the wind picked up and I mean A LOT! We were practically in a tornado yet to form, trees were swaying and small dust devils were blowing sand into my eyes. We were losing 11-2 but I wish we were able to finish the game as it was our last for this season.

Cree, that Sh*tstorm is supposed ot hit us tonight in west mo, anyone in the area keep weary as i am doign and keep light incase you need it.

I've been checking out some of those tornado-warned storms on radar this afternoon/evening.
I'd love to be there in person videoing one!

I also checked out (on radar) the various storms in Colorado last weekend. If any woulda been within reasonable distance of me, I would have been very tempted to go after them...but all were just too far out.

I've been checking out some of those tornado-warned storms on radar this afternoon/evening.
I'd love to be there in person videoing one!

I also checked out (on radar) the various storms in Colorado last weekend. If any woulda been within reasonable distance of me, I would have been very tempted to go after them...but all were just too far out.

I'd love to see a severe storm/ tornado in person, at a safe distance of course.

Here in California we don’t get any severe weather, however I have been to other states like Florida and seen some crazy stuff.

I used to have a fascination with tornados when I was younger, and since there aren’t any here is CA, I watch videos like this:

https://youtu.be/5ZLVlsh57WA

...on my free time.

Near the south border between Czech republic and Slovakia, we had at least F3 (some say it may have been even F5 on some places, but thethas to be verified; definitely the strongest ever recorded here in more than a century) tornado. Damage stripe was 25km long and 500m wide, about 10km around no power service, on many affected areas the estimate is there would be no power for 4..5 weeks (the infrastructure here is not ready for that, so the damaged parts can not be isolated locally)...
In a country where these phenomenons are virtually nonexistent (maximum one F0 or F1 per 2..3 years and with tgose many argue if that should be classified as a tornado at all), you may imagine what chaos could an F3 or stronger cause.
So obviosly nobody was ready for anything like that, most people did not know what to do, which made the situation even worse.
Known 5 causalities, few dozens injured in hospitals (which wont be that bad, given what damage was caused and how unprepared everybody was for that - many houses opened up with people in them).

Currently here a thunderstorm just kicked off, everyone is downstairs and i am just listening to the sounds in my room. The radar says we will probably be in this for awhile, i will be here on lg i guess.

@Medved:
I saw some posts about that on one of the weather sites I visit.
They say up to 150 injured.
Kinda surprising to hear about a strong tornado like that there!

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@Bulbman256:
Just had a thunderstorm move through my area as well. Not severe, but did get a nice rain out of it.

@xmaslights It's pretty much over now, but it started with a good bang and it was pretty intense, alotta heavy rain was dropped.

We got a 2nd one! Again not severe more decent rain.
Parts of the area are now under a flood advisory.
Pretty rare here...

I saw some posts about that on one of the weather sites I visit.
They say up to 150 injured.

Yep, it seems to settle somewhere there. But from the damage, I was rather surprised it was "just" that. Practically all houses are "brick and mortar" here, yet on many places everything but the perimeter walls were gone, somewhere even these were destroyed, all that happening while people were inside, in the rooms that suddenly lost literally the ceiling above their heads.

For someone used to many tornados in the area each year it may seem to be way higher numbers than they are used to given the affectead area, but the people in the "Tornado alley" know what to do and what not to do, a warning system is in place, most tornados start on fields or sea so it takes time till they reach some inhabitated area, so people are able to cover. Plus they tend to rage for way longer time, so most of that they are watched, so the affected areas could be warned way more accurately and in time. So there you have to be really unlucky or doing really dumb things (for what you should have known living there) to become the fatality.

Here the whole South Moravia "looked the same" from meteorological perspective, at just a random time and place a single tornado formed within a few minutes, was raging barely half of an hour and then it was all over.

Kinda surprising to hear about a strong tornado like that there!

It is clearly a matter of statistics: It is very extremely rare, but definitely not impossible.

@Medved:
Thing is, even a basic brick (or cinderblock, or similar) wall by itself isn't all that strong, and can easily be demolished by a strong tornado. If you do reinforced 'brick' walls, the strength can be greatly increased. Ofcourse the cost is also then increased & its a bit more complex to build. (And ofcourse stuff like the roof which is still usually a wood or thin-steal structure is the weakest point on a brick building.)

And yep in "tornado alley" people know what to do and in many towns there is a warning system (and particularly these days with all the internet & radar/weather/etc apps out there, people can have easy warning that a storm is on the).

There is the Supercell Thunderstorm, which is ofcourse the most common/likely producer of tornadoes, those storms can be watched/tracked fairly easily(but not 100%) the rotation within those storms gives a pretty specific signature on radar, so a "Tornado Warning" can be put out before there is even one on the ground. (obviously every storm is different, and distance from radar is important - plus there are areas that don't have good radar coverage)
Then there is the non-Supercell Thunderstorm (or something like a multi-cell QLCS), some of which can also spin up tornadoes, but unlike the Supercell it can happen quickly and the rotation may not show up on radar until its too late & the tornado is well underway...

Where I'm at a tornado (especially an EF 2+) would also be extremely rare, though not totally impossible. (I have zero fear/worry of it ever happening).

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I might be crazy, but I'd love to see a tornado - in a open field - where there's no "city/neighborhood" to destroy. I would go storm-chasing out on the eastern planes of CO if the right setup ever presents itself (most are just way too far for me)

@Medved:
Thing is, even a basic brick (or cinderblock, or similar) wall by itself isn't all that strong, and can easily be demolished by a strong tornado.

Exactly, but what I wanted to point out: If the that starts to fail, you have way heavier mess falling on your head... That is, why I said I would expect even worse toll on lifes. On the other hands it falls directly down and does not tend to fly around like the remains of the chipboard walls do in the wind.

There is the Supercell Thunderstorm, which is ofcourse the most common/likely producer of tornadoes, those storms can be watched/tracked fairly easily(but not 100%) the rotation within those storms gives a pretty specific signature on radar, so a "Tornado Warning" can be put out before there is even one on the ground. (obviously every storm is different, and distance from radar is important - plus there are areas that don't have good radar coverage)

The thing is not each supercell ends up as a tornado. The supercell like formations are frequent here, but usually they dissipate when reaching the hilly surroundings way before turning into anything nasty. The flat area is just not that big here, barely few 10's km across.
In the US the flats go along 100's km, there most supercells have plenty of uninterrupted time to turn into a tornado or so. Plus there is plenty of time to identyfy that...
And there is other aspect: Even when scientists revognize the danger of tornado formation being lets say 50% and sound the alarm, when the tornado happen to not form in the Tornado alley, people there shrug it off as "we are lucky this time". But doing the same in a country where tornados are unheard of, they will be sued for "spreading the panic" (dunno what is the english term for the crime when one spreads hoaxes to cause panic).

I'm in California right now, but there are record-breaking high temperatures in Oregon and Washington state! 112°F!

Its really cookin today! 97F and insultingly humid, fortunately its going to rain at some point tonight to break up the heat.

The largest fire in “California history” has changed yet again. It seems that almost every year the record of the previous largest fire in history is broken. The current largest fire here is over 500,000 acres and is only 30 percent contained, fortunately it’s nowhere near where I live currently.