Wrong again
- Thread starter cameragod
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MtnShooter
Well-known member
Yep... that's a wall cloud. You see one of those puppies and you've got trouble coming.
SimonW
Well-known member
People get caught out like that over here too. Its actually a miracle nobody has been killed given some of the incidents in the last few years. Statistically the UK has the highest number of tornados per square mile of any country in the world. Strange, and some don't believe it, but true! Although 99% of them are weak tiddly things that only just lift some leaves off the ground, and most of ours come from multi-cells rather than supercells.
Michaelrosenblum
Well-known member
Looking at the photo from NZ, I was reminded of an incident a few years ago. We were sailing off Stonington, Connecticut on Long Island Sound in August when suddenly one of those wall clouds appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. The sky grew black in a matter of minutes, the temperature dropped, hailstones began pelting us and the wind went from like 12knts to close 40-50 in gusts. We dropped the sails but all hell broke loose. We were heeled all the way over in the water, waves crashing over us.. and then, in a few minutes, it was all over. Weird. Really weird.
adam
Well-known member
MR, how Steinbeckian of you.
I was just marveling at modern technology's power. In less than a day Stephen was talking with a friend from the other side of world (and I'm guessing you know each other from B-roll) via the internet when he decided to take a picture of the weather while he was talking, posted it online and people around the world commented on said weather. NZ never seemed so close.
No wonder the USPS is in trouble...
I was just marveling at modern technology's power. In less than a day Stephen was talking with a friend from the other side of world (and I'm guessing you know each other from B-roll) via the internet when he decided to take a picture of the weather while he was talking, posted it online and people around the world commented on said weather. NZ never seemed so close.
No wonder the USPS is in trouble...
Michaelrosenblum
Well-known member
The thing that really amazes me is skype.
For free you can video phone to anyone, anywhere in the world.
I remember when I was a kid (I am that old now) and we went to the NY World's Fair at the Bell Telephone exhibit, they had a model Picture Phone (is that what it was called?), and you could actually see the person you were talking to. (They were in the next booth). It was a huge affair, but the Bell people said that in a few years everyone would have one.
If you had told the Bell Telephone people that in the future it would indeed exist, but it would be free and not use wired phone lines, they would have thought you were insane.
Amazing how technology goes.
For free you can video phone to anyone, anywhere in the world.
I remember when I was a kid (I am that old now) and we went to the NY World's Fair at the Bell Telephone exhibit, they had a model Picture Phone (is that what it was called?), and you could actually see the person you were talking to. (They were in the next booth). It was a huge affair, but the Bell people said that in a few years everyone would have one.
If you had told the Bell Telephone people that in the future it would indeed exist, but it would be free and not use wired phone lines, they would have thought you were insane.
Amazing how technology goes.
AlexLucas
Well-known member
I grew up in the Midwest USA. If you see a hint of lime coloring in the sky, you're totally screwed (pulling up grass clippings and the like). Wall clouds we don't usually see. Also, tornadoes smell, well, unique. Once you smell one, you'll know. They kind of smell like, micro-debris, little pieces of the earth, like bark and stuff. Like you just mowed the lawn.
SO- if you're sweating in a way that you can't cool off, and there is ZERO air movement... turn on the TV or radio.
I've learned this by sitting many of my days with my face up against the cinder block walls of an elementary school gymnasium as a kid. And that isn't as bad as people from Iowa, Kansas, or Missouri.
AlexLucas
Well-known member
I guess it all depends on your idea of a tornado.
Until you've been through a F4 tornado, or seen what it can do, I think that you might change your definition of 'tornado.'
I've never seen flattened houses in the UK from storms. Until you see a 1500 kilo car in a tree, or one that was spun so violently in a car dealership that only the engine block and frame remain, sucking out the doors and chairs, and then chucking cars into neighboring buildings... then I guess that would be for me where the 'tornado' line is drawn.
Trust me, the Midwest is horrifying sometimes in storm season. And I live in Tennessee now, which has lost more lives in the last few years than any other state. I moved from the old bad, to the new bad. It's a rough week after a tornado. But never as rough as the families that lose people in a cosmic dice roll.
couryhouse
Well-known member
My exposure was at Disneyland in Calif. and in the trade journals
The idea of seeing the caller! Exciting it was at that time!
QUOTE=Michaelrosenblum;238711]The thing that really amazes me is skype.
For free you can video phone to anyone, anywhere in the world.
I remember when I was a kid (I am that old now) and we went to the NY World's Fair at the Bell Telephone exhibit, they had a model Picture Phone (is that what it was called?), and you could actually see the person you were talking to. (They were in the next booth). It was a huge affair, but the Bell people said that in a few years everyone would have one.
If you had told the Bell Telephone people that in the future it would indeed exist, but it would be free and not use wired phone lines, they would have thought you were insane.
Amazing how technology goes.[/QUOTE]
The idea of seeing the caller! Exciting it was at that time!
QUOTE=Michaelrosenblum;238711]The thing that really amazes me is skype.
For free you can video phone to anyone, anywhere in the world.
I remember when I was a kid (I am that old now) and we went to the NY World's Fair at the Bell Telephone exhibit, they had a model Picture Phone (is that what it was called?), and you could actually see the person you were talking to. (They were in the next booth). It was a huge affair, but the Bell people said that in a few years everyone would have one.
If you had told the Bell Telephone people that in the future it would indeed exist, but it would be free and not use wired phone lines, they would have thought you were insane.
Amazing how technology goes.[/QUOTE]
SimonW
Well-known member
Alex, the definition of a Tornado does not depend on its strength or an emotional response. A Tornado is a Tornado, whether it is weak or whether it is strong. The fact is that most tornados in any country, including the US are weak. The EF-4 strength beasts are rare when you compare their occurrences to weaker ones. There are people who have lived in "Tornado Alley" their entire lives who have never seen a single tornado. Heck there are even storm chasers who purposefully go after this stuff who have rarely seen one!
But in reply to your comment about the UK not ever having flattened or wrecked houses perhaps you'd like to try telling that to the inhabitants of Selsey who had a tornado that caused millions of Pounds worth of damage to property two years in a row! Or Birmingham.
Okay, it they weren't anywhere near on par with the devastation of the most powerful US ones, but still a risk to life none the less. Further to this, the UK has had very powerful tornados in the past (such as the F4 equivalent tornado in Portsmouth 1810), and will do so again in the future. You have to remember that the UK has a relatively small land mass so the actual chance of a large tornado hitting a built up area is small anyway, coupled with the none supercell nature of most UK occurrences. The UK also had the largest outbreak of tornadosin Europe in one day in 1981. 105 tornados were formed in the space of five hours. The strongest of which was the equivalent of an F2.
Conversely Germany, which isn't all that far away, has had some very powerful tornados that have caused extreme damage in the last few years. One I believe was caused by the same storm system that caused the Birmingham one. France has had a few devastating ones too, F4 equivalents (we use a different scale over here called the TORRO scale).
The Birmingham torndao
f11vid
PRO user
I've shot the aftermath of several tornadoes, but was most impressed when covering the 1984 Barneveld tornado for NBC.It was a small town nestled in a shallow valley, and the twister dropped over some hills to the west and simply scoured the valley west to east.It looked like someone had taken a giant paint scraper and just scraped the houses away,leaving those to the north and south unscathed.They had just put in a large,newly-painted water tower which was painted powder blue. On the east side. The west side of the tower had every speck of paint blown off down to metal, like a sandblaster had hit it.
AlexLucas
Well-known member
Define 'rare.'
Drive down a road and see this for a mile and a half.
30 minutes from my house. Only a complete ton of homes like this, I think 120 were registered destroyed. Spoke to the man that lost his daughter and wife while he was in the house with them... three days ago.
Sorry, can't get talking about tornados without having an emotional response.
A year before in February, I was in Macon Co. about an hour after this happened.
The wind moved like swift water, and wrapped about 20 feet of debris around trees, and it took days to get the people killed out from underneath the piles.
Bad stuff again.
The opposite side of my mother's town in Indiana got a F4, a year before that... destroying hundreds of homes, and killing 19 (if I remember correctly) in a trailer park about a three streets over from where I used to live.
I've been a newsman since 22. I'm now 35, and I'm pretty sure I've done over 15 major (F3 or F4) tornado strikes in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Where I come from, these things are NOT uncommon. Certainly not all tornadoes are bad. In the States, tornadoes are horrifying. Let's not get emotional about them... not after all the times we had to chainsaw ourselves out of my elementary school.
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SimonW
Well-known member
Alex, I'm not belittling your experiences by any means, and I fully understand why you are emotional about them. But the US isn't the only place where these things happen. India has had some truly horrific tornados, and gets them regularly, but the rest of the world never gets to hear about them. Russia has also suffered many deaths from hugely destructive tornados, and once more suffers from them regularly. Again the rest of the world never heard about them due to censorship in the Soviet years, and still rarely hears about them even now. As I mentioned too, France and Germany in recent years have suffered, yet for some bizarre reason it goes generally unreported. The US is not an isolated case by any stretch. What makes it a hub for chasers is the ease in which storms can be followed due to the road systems and ready availability of real time doppler radar etc. In countries where the road systems are not so good, or the tornados, such as those in Europe, are rain wrapped most of the time don't make good chase conditions, especially since it is nigh on impossible to get real time weather system updates.
So the US gets all the publicity.
Lastly, yes, you may get emotional, but that still doesn't change the fact that a tornado is a tornado, weak or strong. As far as I am concerned a major tornadic event is long overdue in the UK and there is a general complacency because most UK residents don't know a tornado from a hurricane and do not realise that tornados even occur here. Our weather forecasts, unlike the US, are dumbed down beyond belief. Given the number of occurrences per square mile it is only a matter of time. You have to remember that the size of the UK is such that many US people wouldn't think twice about driving the distance across it just to get lunch!
So the US gets all the publicity.
Lastly, yes, you may get emotional, but that still doesn't change the fact that a tornado is a tornado, weak or strong. As far as I am concerned a major tornadic event is long overdue in the UK and there is a general complacency because most UK residents don't know a tornado from a hurricane and do not realise that tornados even occur here. Our weather forecasts, unlike the US, are dumbed down beyond belief. Given the number of occurrences per square mile it is only a matter of time. You have to remember that the size of the UK is such that many US people wouldn't think twice about driving the distance across it just to get lunch!
AlexLucas
Well-known member
NO KIDDING.
Yeah, I looked it up. The UK is roughly the exact same km squared as Texas.
Now, don't get me wrong, Texas is big. But Texas has sportscasters who drive two hours just to go to a Friday night (American) football game.
Someone once told me that you could drive the tip of Scotland to downtown London in eight hours. That's shorter than Nashville to Chicago. Can't remember how many times I've done that trip. It takes a week, by car, to cross America. You can make it in five days, if you put the spurs to it.
You should see the Rocky Mountains before you die. Or the Yukon. Or the Grand Canyon. And especially Vegas. It's hilarious.
Come to Tennessee, and you'll have a place to put your head.
Tippster
The Fly on the Wall
A week? How slow do you drive? It takes roughly 45hrs of driving time at 65mph to get from DC to LA.
4 days hammering, 5 days normal driving... easy.
SimonW
Well-known member
Main problem here is traffic. Simple journeys take a long time. It often takes me five hours to get from London to Worcester, a journey that should only take 2.5 hours. Though John O'Groats to London would probably take around 13 hours because the roads in Scotland are often very twisty. Many country lanes here are only wide enough for one car so you spend a lot of time pulling over into passing bays. Took me three hours once to drive across the Lake District via the Hard Knott Pass!
Texas is certainly on my list of places to go. Tennessee sounds good!
Brock Samson
Well-known member
I think Greensburg, Kansas would like to have a word with you.
Having grown up on a ranch in Kansas, I can tell you that it is two very different things when you're on horseback running from a rope tornado that has a 50-foot footprint... and an EF-5 which can fairly easily re-arrange a path of land two miles wide.
SimonW
Well-known member
Yes, but they are both tornados! Do you say that a Great White shark isn't a Great White shark unless it is at least 4m long? Do you say that a hurricane isn't a hurricane unless it is at least a cat 4?
Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Are you seriously trying to say that anything less than an EF-5 should not be classed as a tornado? If so, then what would you call them then? Twisty gusts of wind?!
I should also add that the width of a tornado is not an indication of its power. There have been some very powerful occurrences from some quite narrow funnels in the past.
Brock Samson
Well-known member
Size is also directly indicative of power, i.e. wind speed, in the case of tornadoes. You are much more likely to survive a direct hit from an EF-1 than one of the biggest ones. Yeah a small one is still a tornado, never said it wasn't. There is a threshold where it becomes a dirt devil, though.