UK Tornado (F3) today

[sue4u2]

Ugh! I hope those people get home soon! It's no fun to have winds like that, trees uprooted all over, the streets a mess. That's the way it was when Hurricane Ivan hit us last year. I'm still recovering from Hurricane Ivan, it was that traumatic.

There is something about 4 to 8 hours of relentless wild, roaring wind that really puts the fear of everything in you... Ivan was scary but the one major hurricane that still affects me too this day is Frederick in '79. Mobile took a direct hit. Terror personified.. I will never go thru another one like that, which I thought Ivan was going to be, but turned out not to be as bad.(here that is) anyway, I will haul ass.. east, west, north. underground, whatever..
August and Sept are shaping up to scare the hell out of me..

With that said, I still can't imagine 200 to 300MPH winds

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Here's the meteorology nerd in me coming out - I remember this tornado very well. I remember that one guy...Josh something?....getting the record windspeed. I think it was 318mph, which happens to be the max. limit for an F5 tornado. Personally, I would consider the tornado an F6 based on that windspeed. If he recorded 318 mph, you can bet it was going even 1mph faster at some point during its life, which bumps it up to F6. The F0-F5 ratings do have corrosponding wind speeds, ground speeds, etc, but the rating is (or is supposed to be, according to Fujita, the "F") given based on the damage alone. F6s and above I guess then would be classified based on the windspeed and the other factors, since the damage scale of an F5 is that everything is completely scattered and destroyed.

Yeah, I've heard various things about that high wind speed, too.

318 mile an hour winds.... Good god, I can't even begin to imagine...

Orignally posted by LivLuvAndBootlegMusic
We had a tornado (F2, 120mph winds) just a few miles north of where I've been vacationing for the past two weeks. Last week, there was this HUGE storm during the night. Lots of blackouts and brownouts w/ the electricity. We didn't realise until yesterday that there had been a tornado. I'm not sure if there were any eyewitnesses that could prove it was a tornado (as opposed to strong winds or a microburst), but we went to look at the damage and there is a definite NE path where HUGE trees were blown over, the tell-tale sign of the tornado being that about halfway down the trees, the trees are completely twisted and broken in half. Luckily, the path was only a few miles long and moved through the woods so the only major damage was trees and having to clear the roads and the river.

...wow. That's scary. Glad that your area didn't get hit .

We had a storm in Iowa back in...1998, I believe it was, in which one of the windows in our house (the living room, specifically) was blown in, and the next day we saw that there were branches all over the road and trees pulled out by their roots (a couple of which were also hanging about in the road), and a couple of trees in front of our house were either bent over or split down the middle, and other people's windows in our neighborhood were broken, and I think there were a few other things scattered about in the roads. They officially said it was straight-line winds, but my dad thinks perhaps a small tornado may have come through...what do you think?

Also, apparently there was a storm just a bit north of here last night that apparently had 60 to 80 mph winds, there was a microburst that apparently came through that area-destroyed a storage shed, and did a bit of damage to a few other things. They'd investigated to see if a small tornado was involved there, too, but have since said there wasn't one.

And I'll agree with verte, I hope those people are able to get back home soon, too. And those of you who've been through all these hurricanes and tropical storms the past year or so-god, you poor people. Last August and September were just insane as far as that kind of thing went. And this season's been pretty busy for you guys, too. Hopefully, even though we're getting closer to the peak of the hurricane season, it'll stay pretty calm for your area so you guys can finally go back to normal. I remember around Christmastime last year reading a story on Yahoo! about families who were homeless as a result of the hurricanes, and whose homes still weren't fully rebuilt, and how it didn't feel at all like Christmas for them. I felt so horrible for them, it was such a sad story .

Angela

 

[Liesje]

We had a storm in Iowa back in...1998, I believe it was, in which one of the windows in our house (the living room, specifically) was blown in, and the next day we saw that there were branches all over the road and trees pulled out by their roots (a couple of which were also hanging about in the road), and a couple of trees in front of our house were either bent over or split down the middle, and other people's windows in our neighborhood were broken, and I think there were a few other things scattered about in the roads. They officially said it was straight-line winds, but my dad thinks perhaps a small tornado may have come through...what do you think?

Without a visual, it's really hard to say. It's been my experience that meteorologists are reluctant to give out the "tornado" label without visual proof since straight-line winds and microbursts create the same types of damage (but with different patterns). Where I live (west Michigan), we had a storm, 1998 I think it was, which was unofficially referred to as an inland hurricane. Meteorologists had no proof of tornadoes, but the damage was horrible and covered a HUGE erea. Tens of thousands were without power for days. School was out for a while, everything was chaos. The size of the storm, damage, windspeeds, ground speed, and baromatric pressure readings were consistent with a hurricane (not sure what catagory, but not too high). Everyone assumed we'd had multiple tornadoes, but the meterologists examined the damage patterns and ruled it a microburst and several areas of damage from straight-line winds (up to 120mph). Since then, we've had some tornadoes in the area, but nothing major. West Michigan is known for it's meteorological extremes!

And I'll agree with verte, I hope those people are able to get back home soon, too. And those of you who've been through all these hurricanes and tropical storms the past year or so-god, you poor people.

Yes, I agree. I was in Gulf Shores, Alabama for a week this past April and even seeing the pictures and reading the stories, was not prepared for the amount of damage. This was almost a year after Ivan and still I'd say 40% of the buildings still standing were "totalled" and would have to come down completely. Of the rest, at least half still needed work and were not available for the tourist season. That was such a blow economically since Gulf Shores survives by tourism. It's actually quite ironic - the reason Gulf Shores came to be such a tourist spot was because a hurriance (in the 70s I think) destroyed/changed a lot of ocean shore that had been protected, so zoning laws were changed to allow for beach houses and resort hotels to go up. Ivan was a major, MAJOR blow. It felt like a ghost town the entire week when usually the beaches are packed. A few of the families and all the high school aged kids we go with had gone down a week early and spent the first week helping a local church and doing repairs for it's members. We were invited to their Sunday service to receive a thank you which was really nice, but the sad thing was while we were down there helping, a storm dumped 12 inches of rain and destroyed the church's roof. Two days later, it rained another 6 inches in a few hours. I've been to many places chasing weather but I've NEVER anywhere seen rain like they get in Gulf Shores.