Tornado!

[Delta]

[COLOR=#65644]While looking for leads on fish rains, I stumbled upon a presentation about taking shelter under overpasses (link: [url]http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/papers/overpass.html[/url]). Well that certainly rendered to waste the hours I logged watching tornado specials on cable.

I've yet to encounter a major, newsworthy tornado here in the tropics but I've encountered quite a number of mini-funnels whilst communing with nature and traipsing (lost) in valleys. Last March, me and my teammates got caught in the path of one of these babies and I sure was glad I wasn't wearing a skirt (not that I would; my field instructor would've sent me to hell for it). Swept up dust, chickenfeed and a couple of chickens from the dry earth and left us caked in a really interesting, 100% organic variety of baby powder.

So here's your chance to help me finish one of my mock-research posters. In this thread, we share our experiences with and beliefs about tornadoes, and interesting debris that fell out of the funnel. Like fish, for instance.[/COLOR]

[Sangome]

[size=1]Living in the Midwest, we're under the constant threat of tornadoes. What's amusing is that our county comes under tornado warnings, yet, they NEVER hit our town. For example, just three weeks ago, there was a tornado warning out for our county (I was too busy watching a movie I got that day, so I wasn't paying much heed). I started to hear alarms going off, and at first, I thought it was the movie...but then I ran into the living room and saw a warning was out for us. I started screaming at my parents, wanting to know WHY we weren't leaving, and they said the tornado was north of us. So I went back to my room and nervously sat through my movie, with alarms blaring, and my favorite character dying in the movie. Oh, how fitting...

Though the region itself has had its fair share of tornadoes...alot of towns around here have had some kind of damage. Yet, my town always manages to come out with just a few scratches...hmm.[/size]

[Ikillion]

[color=#56995e][SIZE=1][FONT=Comic Sans MS]^Its really funny how out in the midwest (Well atelast where I live) that happens to me just a little to often. There would be alarms going off on the TV warning of a flash flood as well as a tornado and in the end it turns out it was in the town right next to ours, far enough away that it really wouldn't effect us at all. I can already feel that one time or another that its going to be our town that gets hit and I will be sad.

For the topic on hand though I remember back in fourth grade when I was walking back home from school back when I lived in the Central Valley of california. There was some kind of a rather large Dust Devil that seemed to come out of just nowhere. Swirling dust, rocks, and other kind of...dirt stuff. Then after the mysterious thing had finally gone away and countinued to walk home I got hit in the head with something, as I continued it got more frequent and apparently the thing had sucked up some small washers as well as some bolts and started to drop them upon my noggin. It really wasn't fun but I couldn't stop laughing for the time being.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Horendithas]

[COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]My one and only experience with a tornado was the one time we had one here in down town Salt Lake City, Utah. I don?t remember any strange things falling out of the funnel or such, I just remember feeling surprised since tornadoes aren?t something that happen very often here in Utah. It was a bit surreal, as it just seemed more like a twilight zone moment instead of an actual tornado. So I guess the thing I learned was that just because it isn?t common here, doesn?t mean it can?t happen. [/COLOR]