Yep, in Scotland where they train, it was a Tornado GR4 from a squadron on its way to Iraq....effing awesome

I've seen wall clouds and felt the air turn an eery electric green, been evacuated many times heard sirens and taken shelter from golf ball sized hail. But I've never actually seen a tornado.

only a mini one

it ploughed down mill street pulling out the whole tramtracks all the way to vic ave. Pushed a tree over into our block of flats and broke all the windows on one side. From the windows at work (on the first floor) it looked like watching the inside of a washing machine. No other damage!

mdiver said:

I was talking about these kinds of tornadoes:

Yes. One went throught the grove of trees behind the house where I grew up. I remember having to go into our basement/cellar a lot as a kid. I have seen funnel clouds form in the sky (and my mom telling us to get in the basement right away). You can always tell when it's tornado weather. The sky is a weird yellowish-green (like an old bruise) and the air is very still right before. We used to have tornado drills in school in addition to fire drills.

Was talking this over yesterday with a friend who's writing a book on miracles:

I survived a tornado that hit my apartment complex, a number of years ago. I lived on the top floor, and the twister punched holes in the roof above all the units surrounding mine. It also knocked down the trees that stood outside my bedroom window, demolished most of the building a few dozen feet across the street from me and made a general mess of my development.

When I consider the way the tornado circled me, I can only give God credit for protecting me and my home. My unit's damage was minimal. But my building was condemned until the repairs to it were complete. It was surreal.

ThreadBare said:

Brownsugar said:

Thanks. Tell your sister I was really brave and courageous through it all, though.

<-- to her sister...

ThreadBare said:

When I was a grade school kid, a tornado ripped the roof off the cafeteria/gym/auditorium of our school, spun it and set it back down crooked. We could see the sky through the corners of the building. We were in the proper assumed position under the tables.

We've had a few touch down within a mile of us in various places we've lived. One killed two people about a block away.

A few years ago, one bounced over our house. It touched down on one side of us, went directly overhead and then touched down the other side and kept going. We had minimal damage (piece of wood driven through the side of our house), but it was pretty scary.

I swear we're tornado magnets.

I live in Oklahoma...Norman to be exact. That May 3rd F5 tornado just missed the place where I worked. I remember it took me almost 5 hrs to get home...something that should have only taken me 30 mins because of all the damage.

It's that time of year again. We just had a huge warning here a couple of nights ago.

MoniGram said:

The footage of that tornado was posted on YouTube. It was like watching a horror flick.

TonyVanDam said:

That F5 tornado was pretty bad...it was horrible to see the damage that was left behind...and you can still see it's effects...in the trees that managed to stay rooted when it went past them. They now grow all funny like.

i lived in tornado alley in texas (wichita falls area) and round bout this time
things started getting pretty heavy. I've only been in 1 and it scared the shiit
out of me. we had an aluminum shed built in the ground and the wind picked it
up and carried it about 50 ft from our house...and we also had 2 ATV's inside...
which we never found who knows where they ended up....