One of the thankful things about the NW is that we aren’t terribly prone to natural disaster. But, I have been up close with a mini-tornado (dust devil) before (about 3 ft away), and they’re pretty neat. I didn’t have the presence of mind to try to touch or jump in, but I should have. Didn’t make a sound like a locomotive, maybe like a dodge dart rolling down a hill in neutral.
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I am human, and I need to be loved
Just like anybody else does
Yeah, I saw one…
The “Plainfield Tornado” of northern Illinois in august of 1991 (I may have the year off by one…it coulda been 1990).
I watched the thing from my grandmother’s house…we were just out of its range. When it got too bad we were herded to the basement. We were out of the range anyway…but in her back yard we found old report cards and linoleum from a school 3 miles away.
Scariest and coolest damn thing I ever saw.
I have a great story about the person who used to be my babysitter during that tornado…Ask me about it if you care!
“It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago…”
-Dan Quayle
I live in Alabama, so of course this time of year has everybody looking out for tornadoes (anybody remember hearing about the F-5 that ripped us up a couple of yearrs ago?) Turns out I missed my chance to see a tornado last week. A couple of small ones swept through the city, not doing a lot of damage. I was at work on the eleventh floor of a hospital and looking in the right direction , but there was too much rain, fog, and mist for me to see the funnel. I’ve had recurring nightmares about tornadoes for years, but I also have this strange compulsion to try and see one whenever I get the chance. Haven’t been lucky yet, but still hunting.
“There are more things you don’t know than there are things that I do know. I despair of the imbalance.” – Dr. Morgenes, The Dragonbone Chair
Been in one; seen two.
Eighth grade, Garland, TX. Was in Earth Science class when a freak December tornado hit the school. We were okay, but the entire neighborhood around us was a wasteland.
A few years later, Garland, again. Saw a funnel decend from a very safe distance.
A few years ago, between Casa Piedra and Marfa, TX. Summer thunderstorm produced a very small tornado that I had to limp my small truck past. Very scary.
Pantellerite - I’ve been in two, seen one. Go figure! =)
Anyway, went through the one in Oak Lawn in '67 (but I was 1, so I don’t really remember much about it) and then the Plainfield one in 90.
Saw one that went past Bolingbrook sometime in the eighties - but I really can’t remember what year. I remember it though, because I was driving my first “new” (to me anyway) car home from the dealership going south on I-55 - I remember the noise and the sky - it was green, and looked like it was boiling.
Missy:
How far were you from that Plainfield Tornado?
The only other thing I really remember was all the news coverage afterward…Channel 2 was right near my house (we were lucky enough to be out of the path, so they went as far in as they could without moving too many fallen trees from the roadway)…
Yes, that was a pointless, pointless rant.
“It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago…”
-Dan Quayle
Allen - I was living in Bolingbrook.
It was a really horrible time, wasn’t it?
I’ve had personal, up-close experience with three. The locomotive sound that others have described is absolutely right. The first one was when I was five years old, tearing up the highway behind a small shopping center where my grandparents worked. I watched it out some glass doors until one of the adults came and dragged me away. Good thing too, since the glass shattered shortly thereafter. That one was fairly large, what I mainly remember from it was the weird dark green color that the light outside got, the sound of it, and all the debris flying around. The second one I’ve seen was from a distance. It was smaller, skinnier and “twistier”, came down from the clouds, and then hopped around before it went back up and dissipated.
The last one I didn’t actually see. This was in 1991 or so. It had been stormy all day, and I was only halfway paying attention to the weather reports on TV. Then the sirens went off, the TV announcer said that there was a tornado heading RIGHT for the part of town I lived in, and the power went off. This was enough to convince me 
I grabbed my cats, and headed for the bathroom. I heard that locomotive sound, felt the air pressure in the room change, then things started to shake. I’d like to say I saw my life flash before my eyes, but at that point I was beyond coherent thought Then the shaking stopped, and it got really quiet for a minute until the emergency vehicle sirens started. I opened the door, my apartment was still there, and reasonably intact. I went outside, there were trees down everywhere, glass everywhere, part of the building’s roof was across the street, and there was a stop sign stuck through the cab of a pickup truck in the parking lot. Seeing the first two was just awesome, but that last experience is not one I hope to repeat.
Ahhh, a topic I can answer to. 
Being a storm chaser for about 4 years now, I have seen two. One on a school-sponsored trip for credit (man, gotta hate that :D) just south of Wichita, KS on the day before Memorial Day, 1997. We saw the entire life-cycle, from about 5-7 miles away. Lasted about 10 minutes. Destroyed a barn I heard.
The second was near Lincoln, IL in April 1998. We almost missed it, as visibility was poor. We were about 2-4 miles away from it, and it looked to be around 1/8-1/4 mile wide. This tornado also didn’t do much damage.
Just graduated from school into the working world last year, and three friends and myself, are planning for a week long trip in the Plains in the middle of May. Boy, I can’t wait
Vispair: ™ (Inspired by Despair, Inc.)
Teamwork: When you do all the work, and your co-workers get the credit.
Irony: The light at the end of the tunnel is actually a pair of headlights.
I have seen a tornado while looking straight up!
It happened while camping 3 years ago. We were on an island in the Mississippi when the storm hit. We could hear the warning sirens from the town 2 miles away. The twister came through the trees across the river, lifted momentarily (thank God), passed directly over us, and then touched back down on the other side of the river.
Stuff still flew around pretty good. My tent (with my car keys, billfold, check book and extra clothes) took off into the river. It snagged a tree root about 10-15 feet away from the shore so I was able to salvage my stuff. 24-inch diameter trees were snapping all around us. One guy got hit in the head by a flying branch but it wasn’t a major injury.
45 minutes later it was clear and sunny.
What a rush.
This is getting hard. Somebody relieve me. (A Wallian exclamation)
Well, my short answer is “No, I haven’t seen one.” But I’ve been close…when I was five, one came dangerously close to my neighborhood. My babysitter freaked out and ran with me back to her own house (I remember I slammed the door on her thumb accidentally on the way out). It was dark, windy, and noisy outside…that’s all I remember. Later that summer, a tornado went through the neighborhood, went between my house the next door’s, and uprooted a small tree–landing on the neighbor’s (it was an uninhabited house, still under construction–no one hurt). Later, in junior high, the weather had a sudden, eerie shift–it became unnervingly quiet and the sky was black. At 3pm, it was dark enough to be 7pm. Weirdly enough, there was a line of sunlight following the horizon.
My mother saw a tornado when she was in college–it went tearing through her campus, destroyed a few buildings, and killed a couple of coeds. My mother was in about the worst place when it hit–the shower! She was able to run out and cover herself before taking cover, but man, that would have just sucked.
And a final note–I, too, have frequent tornado dreams. In all seriousness, I think they are symbolic of times when my life is chaos and I feel no control over what is happening to me: all I can do is sit and wait it out.
Teaching: The ultimate birth control method.
www.tornadoproject.com/ is probably the best tornado-related website there is.
Yeah, Miss…it was horrible…
I lived in Joliet at the time…I’m now away at school, but I’ll never forget…
When I was a kid, I remember watching gape mouthed from our yard as a small tornado went right up the alley, about 20 feet away. It stole some garbage cans from the alley, but got much more powerful about a mile away and ripped the roof off a building. I was too young to be scared, I remember thinking that it was so cool.
Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.
In the shadow of Hurricane Allen, I believe, early fall 1980, I lived in Austin, Texas. We had been out partying all night and pulled up to my house about 5:30 AM - it was just getting light - as we got out of the car in my driveway we noticed that we couldn’t hear each other that well. The same sort of feeling you get if you go up in an unpressurized airplane had us all. While we stood in the driveway chattering, suddenly the apartment house behind my house exploded. We stood in awe for a moment until the tornado moved away a bit, and we realized what it was. Drunker 'n rats, we all piled in the car and tried to chase it down 51st street.
It was faster than us.
Thank the Powers That Be.
I used to have 16 or 17 waterspout/tornadoes on video from when I worked offshore (my husband accidentally erased some of them). Also had a waterspout come ashore as a tornado and pass up the street I was living on at the time. I didn’t get to see that one as it woke us up in the middle of the night and we just cowered in the bed until it was gone.
I guess it depends on the waterspout - some are certainly powerful (Grand Isle, LA had a waterspout come ashore as a tornado several years ago and kill 2 or 3 people). However, I’ve also seen some very small, almost invisible waterspouts - even had one hit the boat I was on one time. It was a steel-hulled boat and rang like a gong when it was hit, but this was a tiny little waterspout.
I think waterspouts/tornadoes must be easier to form, or at least touch down, over open water, as I’ve seen a lot of tiny, tiny waterspouts (about as big around as your leg)and I’ve never seen or heard of anything like them on land.
But a big waterspout is definitely dangerous. Several years ago we picked up some damaged material from an oil rig that was hit by what must have been an F5 waterspout. It tore a tied-down helicopter to pieces and scattered it for miles, twisted a bunch of steel beams, and actually moved the entire rig about 6 feet. They said that their wind gauge broke at 300 mph.
You’ve got a point there, brother - and one of these days I’m going to figure out what it is. - Cecil Adams
My sister was up in Salt Lake City for a wedding reception/breakfast when the downtown tornado of last year hit. She was caught on video saying, “You guys, we’d better get downstairs!” It was only a couple of blocks away from her.
I’ve never seen one IRL, but I did see “Twister” several times. Does that count? <g>
Yes—& I never want to again!!! :eek: :eek:
I’ve seen two. One a few years ago as it went past Dayton, was a small one, little damage out in the boonies. The other kind of doesn’t count, got to watch the funnel cloud forming as it went over our house towards Xenia, so I didn’t actually see the tornado per say, but I watched its formation from a window. (And yes, it was that Xenia tornado.)
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes