Tornado!

[Idle]

Sky was looking bad on Friday so I went out to move one of the cars out of a field and under a shed. By the time I was in gear the hailstones were falling. Then it really started to hail and it sounded like I was under attack.

I got into the shed and was going to wait it out but it was getting worse so I decided to run into the house. Suddenly the wind came up and it knocked me over. And then it really started to get windy. I felt like Dorthy trying to get into the storm shelter.

The next day I found a small tornado had dropped down into the field next to the house. It was about a mile or so away but tore a hole in the pasture land and ripped down some trees. Beyond that nothing since this place is just a whole lot of nowhere.

The bottom line is they come up quick. Or at least quicker than this old man can outrun them.

[t walgamuth]

Glad you are fine!

[engatwork]

Good to hear you came out unscathed Idle.

[Air&Road]

Yes, it’s been a really stormy year in Texas and Oklahoma as well as other places. I do volunteer disaster relief and have been ridden hard and put away wet this year. I started on the panhandle wildfires and the last was the Houston wind storms, which was not nearly as bad as they originally said.

USUALLY, a tornado has very localized but serious damage. Occasionally there are severe and very widespread storms such as Wichita Falls in the seventies I think it was, and the OKC area several times in the last few decades.

Idle, I hope you learned not to step out into a hail storm. Even pea sized hail will whip the crap out of you. Glad it wasn’t any worse for you.

[Idle]

The worst part was it came up so quickly. I told my wife I was going to move a truck under the shed since it looked like a bad storm was coming. I walked out to the truck and on the way it started to hail. And yup, I should have turned around right then. But the truck was closer to me than the house.

By the time I got in the truck it started to really come down. So I move the truck about twenty yards and then it was HAILING. Like I said, I thought I would stick it out but it kept getting worse.

So I ran for the house, about ten yards, and then it hit. Now... This is Nebraska. We get winds here of 30 and 40 mph all the time. This must have been closer to 80. And I mean without warning.

No one has reported any damage because there is no one that lives where the thing went through. Just cornfields and they are just now being planted. So no damage except to my front porch railing which I grabbed on to and bent.

[yaidden]

Glad everything went well!

[Idle]

Thanks.

This is the closest I have ever been to an actual twister. If anyone wants to know what it was like then find a convertible, put the top down and find someone to drive it at 100 mph.

Then stand up. Yeah, it's like that.

[Tony H]

I spent some time in the Midwest while in the military and also as a child in Michigan. A few came close. The sky got incredibly black very quickly.

[Idle]

And we just had another one last week.

This was a very local thing and didn't hit any houses or other buildings. But it did bring down a lot of trees in our nature area.

I live in a small gated community with an area set aside for natural things. Deer live in there and so do coyotes. Plus a few wild turkeys.

But a storm hit and twisted the tops right out of some of the trees. And knocked some smooth over. After that it tore up some farmers soybeans and he had to plant the whole field over again.

I think he came off the worst of all of us.

[WilliamLee]

I hope you're all well.

[Idle]

So far. We had another big storm today but no damage came from it.

This is all supposed to be over by the end of the week.

And... I thought it was bad to lose some trees. A farmer near here had his soybean crop torn up by hail and had to plow under his entire field and replant everything.

It was like hail damage to your car if your car covered 360 acres.