science Ever been through a tornado?

[King of Canterlot 9,603]

I was watching some storm-chasing vids on YouTube when this question popped into my head, have any of you guys been through, or at least seen a tornado? I haven't but there was one time a tornado passed within a few miles of my grandparents house, it was dark though so we never actually were able to see it, only the damage done by it in the morning when we went driving around the country side. 

[GeekySonic 1,150]

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Edited May 5, 2018 by GeekySonic

[Prospekt 11,018]

I once saw one a few miles away from my house, and I have been close to many storms that almost developed a tornado.

[CheeryFox 23,821]

About three times* (too close for comfort...two of 'em) and one direct hit! Kinda scary...but the weather nurd in me wants to see more. 

[Techno Universal 2,575]

Well in Australia we very rarely do get very small twisters and they are extremely small and weak as the worst they would do is pick up small unsecured objects. Anyways my parents once drove through a small twister on a freeway at 100KPH back in the late 90s and it caused their car to skid from side to side uncontrollably for a couple of seconds.

[StrawCherry 1,673]

Luckily, I have not. I would probably freak out if I were to go through one. Hard wind terrifies me, let alone a tornado.  

[Guest]

I have. 1988, there was a tornado skirting Shawnee county and it ripped up part of the house I was staying in. All I remember is how dark it was and the whistling noises it caused drowning out all of the screaming. It broke a window in my dad's car but the old thing still drove us around.

[Mirage 24,766]

Never in the natural world - I dream about them all the time though. Horrendous destruction and I don't try to run away...Not sure why.

[Summer Breeze 2,528]

Luckily not, in the nethetlands we luckily don't get tornadoes. As a kid I was absolutely terrified of tornadoes, earthquakes and stuff like that. Whenever I heard about that on the tv or the radio, my mom had to comfort me and tell me repeatedly that those things don't happen here. XD

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,478]

My county has had some touch downs in its history, one in particular caused a good amount of damage over 20 years ago. I have never actually seen one myself though. We have had plenty of tornado warnings, which has caused me plenty of anxiety, but in my town it has never become more than that. As much as these things terrify me, I would actually love to see one if it was in a wide open field.

[Lucky Bolt 35,063]

I've been in pretty close situations before. Back when I lived in Iliinois, I remember there was a really bad storm that came through one day. I was really little (I must've been like, 5) and I remember looking out the window watching the rain and hail come down, and then all of a sudden hearing a LOUD howling sound, I mean it sounded very similar to a train. That was the tornado, I just couldn't see it. I remember my mom yelling at me and my siblings to follow her down into the basement. We stayed down there for what seemed like a while. Luckily we didn't get any damage to to our house, the tornado must've only lasted several seconds. Some trees were knocked over outside, and we might have had some minor outside damage to our house. 

[Castle Bleck 19,361]

Earlier this year, I retroactively learned there had been a weak one just a few blocks away from my house the night prior.

[Twisted Cyclone 🚓 6,259]

My house has been in 3 close calls where a tornado hit within a mile or two away. 

My dad on the other hand was directly hit by an F4 tornado back on April 3, 1974 (the same day where 148 tornadoes touched down in 13 states in the US). The scariest part was that he was in a car when it happened. 

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,161]

No; though the area I live/near (Kanawha Valley) in experienced a tornado outbreak somewhere in the mid-90s. Granted they were weak F-0 and F-1 tornadoes, but they still caused some single-wide mobile homes to flip over and even cancelled school in the Boone County area. It was honestly a tad freaky.

[Denim&Venöm 18,958]

Once. June 2010. Never saw it cause it passed behind our house. And it was raining. And it was dark. Actually my dad, my brother and I were outside on the front poorch filming all the crazy wind, rain and lightening while my mom yelled at us to get back in. Then the wind really picked up up and decided to head back in. That was the tornado passing by.

The siren never went off. 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Denim&Venom

[Rainy_days 283]

No. It's too cold where I live for the tornadoes to form at all. But maybe sometime in the not so distant future there may form much more than now.

[DubWolf 17,263]

No though one time it sure felt like there was one; winds blew all the leaves off the tree, hail broke the windows (double-pane became single-pane...) and well it was nasty.

I'm South of Tornado Alley, storms here are actually pretty mild and rarely go severe thankfully, though I've gotten tornado warnings this past year and wasn't aware if things were any dangerous in the area since I never experienced anything severe  .

[Kaneki 1,073]

No, but some close calls:

 

 

[Celli 4,338]

Closest I've come is a watch, and one in Rochester.

[Ponyboykhan 0]

Nope. I've only had a couple watches since they don't happen often in Georgia.

[Thuja 3,659]

I don't know if this counts but I was living in Virginia Beach when Hurricane Sandy went through.  Thankfully, I was living a bit further from the beach so all I had was some wind and a few broken branches.  I remember thinking whether I should move my bed or not since it was next to the window and it sounded like, with each gust, it was going to break.

[Envy 6,162]

Apparently we experienced one when I was really young while out of town. My parents were driving and had to stop at a gas station. Apparently the gas station wouldn't let us take cover or something and my parents had to find a ditch. I'm not sure, it's been a while since I've heard the story.

The closest encounter (a potential one, anyway) I've had in recent years I've probably told many times on this forum. It was back in Spring of 2013. I had a late band rehearsal at the university I was attending - an hour from home. Now I could go on about how the storms effected me back in the university town (I got soaked!) but there were tornadoes or anything at that point. So anyway, I got on the bus and headed back to the university's local smaller outlet in my county. When I got there, the storms had turned really severe. However, my dad was there to pick me up. Any tornadic storms were well to the Southwest and were headed either due East or Southeast. So we decided to head home.

When we were just maybe 7-10 minutes away from home, all of the sudden the storm with the tornado warning had...come up North. Because of course it did. We were on the turnpike and all of the sudden, even though pitch black, the atmosphere gave off a very weird visual vibe and the rain started falling in all sorts of directions and the truck was lightly batted about.

My mom was at home and was freaked out because she was sure a tornado was going through where we were at. However, if we really went through one it really had to have been very weak. Our thinking is that maybe we passed close by.

On 12/11/2017 at 0:30 PM, Rainy_days said:

No. It's too cold where I live for the tornadoes to form at all.

Ah, paradise. I'm so jealous.

[RavenholmZombie 1,330]

Tornadoes are very, very, VERY rare here in Maine, but that doesn't mean we don't get them.

The strongest one I can remember only registered as an EF1-strength tornado and didn't really do much damage.

[Olly 1,011]

I lived in Wyoming briefly and the wind would sometimes get up to 60 mph. One time I was told a small tornado formed on a mountain in the area but I never actually saw it

[heavens-champion 1,905]

Not really, but I don't plan to, and not just because I saw Twister.