Tornado Chasers

[ABEL]

Call me crazy...but I'd love to go with the storm chasers sometime to chase tornadoes.

Ok, so I'm sitting here watching The Learning Channel, and it looks really interesting and awesome.

Storms and especially tornadoes scare the s*** out of me, but I really would like to go storm chasing and hopefully see a tornado someday. At least as long as I knew it wasn't coming towards me.

Even though storms scare me, I've always been fascinated by them...ever since I was a little girl growing up on the farm, and my dad and I would sit out on the back porch and watch the storms roll in.

Anybody else here who has an interest in or who have been storm chasing?

 

[LOVE MUSCLE]

BLEA

I think they are cool and interesting too, the movie Twister was awesome and took place in my wonderful home state.

I have a much more appreciation or respect for them after may 3, 99!

In april of last year, one went right over my parents house out in the country. My dad and I were outside looking up in it and taking pictures. It was a wall cloud with heavy circulation and the hook came down on two sides but couldn't quite form the funnel.

 

[Daisyphisto]

LOL I just got done watching that too!

That is something I would never, ever, ever want to do.

I had a Tornado warning here a while back and I was terrified!

 

[ABEL]

BLEA

I think they are cool and interesting too, the movie Twister was awesome and took place in my wonderful home state.

I have a much more appreciation or respect for them after may 3, 99!

In april of last year, one went right over my parents house out in the country. My dad and I were outside looking up in it and taking pictures. It was a wall cloud with heavy circulation and the hook came down on two sides but couldn't quite form the funnel.

Did the pics turn out z edge? if so I'd like to see them sometime.


While I have never actually seen a tornado, I have come close to seeing one a couple times.

Last summer, the city of Garland and Rockwall, just to the east of Dallas had a small tornado. I remember when the storm was overhead here, I kept looking outside at the dark stormy sky. I even went out on my balcony and looked up and could see clouds moving in different directions. I didn't know about the tornado that had hit east of here until after the storms had passed. There were no immediate warnings when I was looking outside, but what I think I saw must have been a rotating wall cloud forming.

About two years ago, a co-worker was driving me home from work. There were a few thunderstorms in the area, again nothing severe looking at the time. I was looking out the window and saw these little swirly things that looked like little whispy funnel clouds. It was before the storm had even gotten here, which I thought was odd, because most tornadoes usually form on the back side of the storm. I saw at least two of the swirly funnel cloud things on my side of the car, and she saw another funnel-like clouds on her side of the car. I got home and turned on the tv to see if there were any warnings or watches on tv, which there were none. The next day at work another co-worker said that he saw them too. It was very odd.

 

[BabyGrace]

haha I was watching that too! oh the joys of tv and boredom

I went through a severe storm chasing obsession phase, and while I don't think I'll ever do it, it has always intrigued me. A lot of people seem to be drawn to the idea of trying to get close to something that dangerous.

 

[ti-hua]

I have been obsessed with tornados for years and they scare the crap out of me! I don't think I'd ever want to go looking for one. I've seen enough documentaries to make me want to stay far away! Like that F5 that almost hit Oklahoma City a few years ago. Terrifying.

 

[Stories for Boys]

my second choice of career is storm chaser/meteorologist.....and livluvbootlegmusic is still planning on it.....we went through the phase together in 5th-9th grade....we both got storm spotter's licenses.....fun stuff like that.......

 

[ABEL]

my second choice of career is storm chaser/meteorologist.....and livluvbootlegmusic is still planning on it.....we went through the phase together in 5th-9th grade....we both got storm spotter's licenses.....fun stuff like that.......

I thought about becoming a meteorologist when I was in High School. But I suck at math so I chose to go to art school instead.

 

[z edge]

I have been obsessed with tornados for years and they scare the crap out of me! I don't think I'd ever want to go looking for one. I've seen enough documentaries to make me want to stay far away! Like that F5 that almost hit Oklahoma City a few years ago. Terrifying.

Actually, that F5 did Oklahoma city my friend!

It ripped through our city and killed like 40 people (which was really lucky to be honest) and destroyed 1000's of homes and damn near wiped out General Motors (where my dad was at work watching this thing from the parkin glot) and Tinker Air Force Base (where I now work)

My buddy that i seen all the U2 shows with (the guy with the Ferrari) lost his hous and all of his possessions in this storm. SOme people in his neighborhood died in this storm.

 

[u2er]

I've always been kinda interested in tornadoes and severe weather, but I don't know if I'd be brave enough to chase them..

 

[Diemen]

Actually, that F5 did Oklahoma city my friend!

It ripped through our city and killed like 40 people (which was really lucky to be honest) and destroyed 1000's of homes and damn near wiped out General Motors (where my dad was at work watching this thing from the parkin glot) and Tinker Air Force Base (where I now work)

My buddy that i seen all the U2 shows with (the guy with the Ferrari) lost his hous and all of his possessions in this storm. SOme people in his neighborhood died in this storm.

That was one day I'll definitely remember. I remember watching tv in one of the dorm lounges at OU and watching one of the big twisters just plow it's way through rural areas, tossing trees aside like toothpicks and completely obliterating houses down to the foundation. Luckily none of the twisters came into the main part of Norman, but man, driving back up to Oklahoma City when finals were over was a surreal sight. It literally looked like a war zone. Total neighborhoods were reduced to rubble - not even a wall left standing. I remember going to my friends house in Oklahoma City - and the only thing that happened to his house was that a few shingles were ripped off the roof. If you literally went one block away, the whole rest of the neighborhood was completely destroyed. I knew a bunch of people who lost their houses.

The one weird thing is that sometimes you can almost tell if there's going to be a tornado just by going outside and looking at the sky. In my experience, it seems every time there has been a tornado, the sky gets very quiet and gets a weird kind of dirty grey color to it.

 

[ti-hua]

Yikes! I wasn't sure if it actually hit OK City or not. Sorry 'bout that! Wasn't there another one back in the '90s that actually destroyed an entire town and instead of rebuilding all of the residents just moved? It basically wiped the town right off the map!

 

[~LadyLemon~]

Those pictures alone scare the shit out of me!

 

[HeartlandGirl]

Threads like these are just begging Oklahomans to come out of the woodwork and tell their stories...

I never really had anything against amateur storm chasers until May 3. My friend and I were at work in Norman when we were sent home because the "big one" was headed toward the metro. I went and got prepared to take cover. She went "chasing" all night. The next day at work, she complained that they weren't able to chase very well because the roads to the north where the F-5 went across were shut down. So, they drove around the rest of the state looking for action. For some reason, her actions that night really peeved me. She's complaining about not being able to drive up Sooner Road. Meanwhile, some of our coworkers didn't make it to work because their houses were gone. That night, there were an estimated 90+ tornadoes in the state. I found it ridiculous that my friend, having taken one meteorology class, felt like she was doing anyone any good by getting out on the roads that night. Then she had the nerve to brag about all her adventures and mishaps (and rave about how cool the tornado was) while thousands of people were suffering because of it.

What is the point of this story? Sure, amateur storm chasing can be adventurous and exciting. There are, however, times when the last thing the professionals need is a bunch of amateurs trying to get through blocked roads and putting themselves in danger.

 

[oktobergirl]

My brother is one of these amateur storm chaser people. Or at least he was when we lived in Missouri...

He also is an official storm spotter.

I've always been scared/ facsinated by storms. Never chased storms myself or had any desire to.

 

[ABEL]

I agree HeartlandGirl, that only qualified professionals or people with proper training should be the ones doing the storm chasing.

If I were to ever go storm chasing, it would be with the professionals (like the ones I was talking about that you see on TV who work in conjunction with the weather service). It is very dangerous for untrained people to be out in the storms, and they can get in the way of the professionals.

A lot of information is collected and studied from the type of storm chases that I am talking about, and ways of predicting tornadoes are improved by gathering this information, and warning people in the path of the storm.

Not only do I agree that only qualified professionals should be out during these situations, but I would be too scared to go out in the storms by myself, not having the training or equipment to know where the storm was going. I would only want to be with fully trained storm chasers who knew what they were doing.

 

[kariatari]

I LOVE storms! They are so exciting! My dad and I used to watch them coming in, too. The front of the squall line is the coolest to watch cuz that's where you see all of the scary looking clouds.

I've seen 2 funnel clouds. One was a cold air funnel that I saw from my back yard. The whole neighborhood congregated out on the street to watch it. It was really skinny and delicate...it looked kind of like a twisted rat tail or something. The second one I saw was just this spring up at college. That one was definitely not a cold air funnel, as it did eventually touch down.

I've also seen one tornado. My high school softball team had just got done playing a game. We had played the varsity game first because there was a chance of storms, and after the varsity game, they decided not to play the JV game because the clouds were starting to look pretty scary. We had to take pictures for the newspaper before we left, and as we were lining up one of my teammates just suddenly exclaimed, "Oh my god!" and she pointed towards the horizon. It was quite a ways away from us, but we could all see plain as day that there was a tornado on the ground. Needless to say, we cleared the field pretty fast. We later learned that the same tornado had touched down on someone's farm and completely destroyed their house, barns, and all other standing buildings on the farm.

 

[HeartlandGirl]

I hope you don't think I was trying to lecture you, ABEL! There is definitely a big difference between just hopping in your car, driving toward a storm and tagging along with professionals. I know that there are ways for amateurs to help out professionals. That would be the safer way to go, I think!

 

[ABEL]

nah I don't think you were trying to lecture me HeartlandGirl, I just didn't want anyone else trying to go out on their own storm chasing and getting into a dangerous situation like your friend

 

[Bono's shades]

I would never go storm chasing, I'd be too terrified! Whenever there's a tornado warning I flee straight for the basement and cower there until all is clear. I'll never forget the time I almost ran into one when a friend of mine was helping me move. We were in her brother's pickup out in the middle of the Iowa countryside on one of those hot, sticky summer days and all of a sudden the sky turned black and we saw what looked like a funnel cloud in the distance! As soon as we could we turned onto a side road going away from where we thought the funnel cloud was. Fortunately we were able to avoid it.