Trying to Reason With Tornado Season

[pdub]

It's going to be another stressful evening in eastern Tennessee. Already had a few tornadoes in the immediate region. The TV news media is on contstant stream, of course, wearing out the same videos and photos of damage over and over.

That's how it should be, of course. Warning, danger, warning. But it all blew through and a few unfortunate folks got wiped out and/or hurt or who knows...maybe even killed. Data is still coming in.

But that wasn't "IT." There will be another much bigger wave coming later this evening, when the cold front comes through.

77 degrees here right now, and snow behind the cold front right now as it moves in from the west. Violent storms in front of it. It's a natural thing. Non-linear chaos.

I hate it. I don't hate a lot of things, but I really do emotionally hate a severe weather outbreak. This just....I hate it. It's nature's form of terrorism. A hurricane plasters everybody, been through one of those. But a tornado carves a path of ultimate destruction. Homes wiped off of the foundation, and homes a few hundred yards away untouched. Terrorism.

I hate it, even when they first start talking about the chance of it, and then all the videos from where they DID hit. Terrorism. Terror from the sky. It sucks.

And the news coverage - we see it and worry about it, but the folks who actually get mowed over can't see themselves on TV because the power is off.

[DanStokes]

Weather, bad weather as we humans define it, sucks. But I don't "hate" it. It has no will or logic. It's simply a response to natural laws, Bernoulian principals and the like. Hot air rises, cold air falls, they swirl when they make contact and sometimes fall on their side - tornado. The tough part is that we get in line with these events and it costs us. I sure don't like what happens but it is what it is. No hate here - to "hate" something I have to think that the being in question has decided to harm me.

Along that same line, I DO hate the expression "The wrath of Nature". You hear that on the news all the time. Again, it implies that "Nature" is out to get us when really it's just doing what it does. "The FORCE of Nature" is acceptable to me. Maybe I think too much?

Dan

[catchmeblue70]

They just changed us to a TOR:CON 10 here in Bowling Green. They closed campus down at 12:30 so everyone could go home, so I'm just waiting for it to hit.

[ksj2]

Guess Im used to tornado season having lived in Kansas all my life.The tornado that hit Harveyville Kansas this week is just 3 miles from where my in laws live.They had very little rain and some wind but had no idea what was happening 3 miles away until my wife called them.Usually the last of Feb and first part of March are for surprise snow storms not tornadoes.Could be a LONG season.

[Barry Donovan]

I don't hate it either.
to try and segregate a locale based on weather...it just brings a bigger area humbly to the one thing we are all living on.

weather is a carburator run year round.

respect it, life is good.

I just spoke with my dad. took the big rig to south carolina from maine, working.

he loves the weathers changing.
81F and a/c to within hours heater on.

[ksj2]

70s yesterday and snow showers this morning.Never a dull moment.

[studemax]

Small one took out my step-brother's place the other night, about 30 miles east of Wichita.
He's still cleaning up.

[bulletproof]

ive lived in oklahoma all my life ..its just something you except and do your best to be prepaired...

[sedandelivery55]

ive lived in oklahoma all my life ..its just something you except and do your best to be prepaired...

That's all you can do, have a plan and prepare the whole family in what to do. We lost it all May 3, '99 to a F-5, now there's an 8 x 12 concrete bunker in the ground 4 feet from the door and the family and half the neighborhood knows where to go and ALL are welcome. I've had as many as 6 dogs, two cats, 12 adults and 9 kids at once hiding out in it, while I sat in the livingroom watching it on the news. I can't stand crowds.

[BOOOGHAR]

any word from Haley ? last I read from Reed Timmer (storm chaser) was that Bowling Green was about to get hella hammered .....

on a side note - Reed has a reality on Discovery on the storm chasing he does, I follow him on FB and use Radarscope to follow storms

heres a snapshot I took from Radarscope today, upper right corner you see the number 40 - at the time of this pic there were 40 warnings and watches going on in the country at one time, I saw it as high as 45 today, now those warnings and watches covered thunderstorm, flood, and tornado. Also you can zoom in ALOT, it shows citys and major freeways but I zoomed out in the pic just to give you a idea of what was going on at that particular time



The red boxs are tornado warmings, yellow - thunderstorm, green - flooding

[BangShift McT]

Haley came out of it fine. They lost power for a bit, but were otherwise ok.

I've got family in these storm waves' path...a family friend's apartment was missed by 6mi by the Harrisburg, IL twister, and most of my family is in Murphysboro, IL, a place that's been leveled by an F5 before. But it's just weather...and it's gonna do whatever it damn well pleases..

[ksj2]

If its day light I go on the porch to watch.Nightime and rain wrapped Im S.O.L.

[tiresmoke!]

Tornadoes are just a sad reality of life, nothing you can do to prevent or stop them.

My wife lost one of her aunts, and we believe now that it also took a cousin(lived with her mother, the afore-mentioned aunt) from the tornado that ripped through East Bernstadt, Ky. last night.....ripped the house apart, nary a wall left standing. Wacky weather patterns this year for sure....Spring is coming early, heads up folks.

[Scott Liggett]

I miss dramatic weather changes. I miss bad ass thunder and lightning storms and heavy rain.

[pdub]

I miss dramatic weather changes. I miss bad ass thunder and lightning storms and heavy rain.

I think I know what you mean Scott. I was right there in that mindset, all those years ago....I was back to living with my parents during a divorce and I told my dad that if I had any time off from work left, I'd like to go down to the coast and see the hurricane (Hugo) come ashore. I'd just like to see one.

About 3 a.m. that same night, I didn't have to go anywhere to be in it. Hugo brought it right to us. Good goshalmighty...no, I don't want anymore of that. That made me be scared from now on every time it gets cloudy. Burned into the conscience.

I was yakking with a contractor at work yesterday, the looming bad weather was the topic on everybody's mind. He said his dad had that "I wanna see it" mindset last April when the killer twisters came through our county. He just hadn't seen it. Dude said his dad would go out onto the porch hollering at the sky during a thunderstorm, "You call this a storm? I wanna see a STORM!" Like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.

So last April the tornado missed his dad's house by a little bit, but it uprooted trees on somebody else's property and slung them into his house and took out three bedrooms. The tornado was hopping and skipping - did all of that and left the ground and then set back down again over a hill and killed three of his dad's best friends in a house about a quarter mile away.

Dude asked his dad after that, "So you still want to see a storm?" The dad said no. No, not ever again.

That's where my brain is. I hate it. I'm more likely to die of a heart attack during the storm than to be wiped out by it. I realize that much, the odds. But I hate it. It seems to be happening more often these days, too, the storms.