Jim Oaks
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- 2005 Jaguar XJ8
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- 295/70/17
Weather Will Kill You.
I just recently had a conversation with my son about this. We were talking about the instability in the world, and I told him that the thing I think is my biggest realistic threat / concern, is weather. Weather will kill you.
Today (Saturday) I went down to Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth for the Pate Swap Meet. The weather was going to be 85 degrees with the chance of rain only in the teens. However, there was a risk of severe weather, even though the chance of rain was showing as low.
After I left the swap meet, my phone was showing that there was a tornado watch in the area. The weather map didn't have anything on it for a couple hundred miles. A little later I got a GEICO text alert that hail was going to start within just a few minutes, and that I need to find shelter for my vehicle. Again, nothing anywhere on the radar. It was warm, windy and the sky to the north was starting to look dark and cloudy.
I stopped at Taco Bell and as I was waiting for my food I thought; this is either going to be nothing at all, or a storm they talk about for years. By the time I was leaving, a severe thunderstorm had popped up about 45-60 minutes west of my house, and I still had an hour drive going northwest to go home. As I was leaving town, I saw a guy walking to his vehicle looking up at the sky and thought to myself, that's a smart man. He's watching the weather.
The storm was moving southeast towards me, and I had planned to drive northwest to go home, but I was concerned that I could get caught in a tornado in the middle of nowhere, so I decided to go west to Decatur, re-evaluate, and then head north to go home. When I got to Decatur, I bought fuel and saw on the radar that the storm was moving slow, and that if I headed north, I'd be able to pass in front of it and get home. The county I live in was under a tornado warning, but the brunt of the storm and real hazard was 20-25 minutes south of me. As I drove past the storm, I could see that it was a large strong storm with a lot of lightning.
The storm was producing 100 MPH winds PLUS a tornado. It did major damage to a town I was actually planning to move to before buying this place. At least one person there is dead and 20 others are displaced from their homes due to damage. The tornado actually backtracked briefly and then dropped further south. Lightning from the storm struck and blew up a natural gas well. The tornado ran out of steam just before it got to Fort Worth but was still a powerful storm.
This was a slow-moving storm. Nobody should die from a slow-moving storm. Pay attention to the weather. Seak shelter.
The blue circle with the white ring around it is where I am.
The red circles are radar indicated tornado
Blue is hail
Green is rain
Yellow is strong winds.
The first radar map is from 7:40 pm.
The next one is from 8:56 pm and that's a combination of strong winds as well as a tornado on the south edge of that storm.
I don't trust the radar indicated tornados on the Weather Channel radar. For tornado's I like to look at the map at:
Here's the map showing a different tornado...
And if you 'toggle' the radar than you can see just the tornado, its path, and read the locations. If it's showing up on their map, it's a tornado.
I was watching a live feed from a storm chaser, and you could see the tornado when there was a flash of lightning as well as blue power flashes from damaging winds taking down power lines. The other people you could see driving around in their live feed were probably oblivious to what was happening. They just saw a thunderstorm at night.
If it's storming at night, it's really windy, and you're seeing blue power flashes from power lines, that should be a serious warning sign. Even things like downed trees and power lines can wreck your life if you're not paying attention.
At this time, that storm is still in the Fort Worth area beating the crap out of it. Flash flooding is eminent.
It will be interesting to see how much damage this storm causes.
Anyway, this is just a reminder to pay attention to the weather and not take it for granted.
FYI, this map shows the tornado tracks from this evening. The green dot shows where I was, and the red dot shows where I had to travel to go home.
I just recently had a conversation with my son about this. We were talking about the instability in the world, and I told him that the thing I think is my biggest realistic threat / concern, is weather. Weather will kill you.
Today (Saturday) I went down to Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth for the Pate Swap Meet. The weather was going to be 85 degrees with the chance of rain only in the teens. However, there was a risk of severe weather, even though the chance of rain was showing as low.
After I left the swap meet, my phone was showing that there was a tornado watch in the area. The weather map didn't have anything on it for a couple hundred miles. A little later I got a GEICO text alert that hail was going to start within just a few minutes, and that I need to find shelter for my vehicle. Again, nothing anywhere on the radar. It was warm, windy and the sky to the north was starting to look dark and cloudy.
I stopped at Taco Bell and as I was waiting for my food I thought; this is either going to be nothing at all, or a storm they talk about for years. By the time I was leaving, a severe thunderstorm had popped up about 45-60 minutes west of my house, and I still had an hour drive going northwest to go home. As I was leaving town, I saw a guy walking to his vehicle looking up at the sky and thought to myself, that's a smart man. He's watching the weather.
The storm was moving southeast towards me, and I had planned to drive northwest to go home, but I was concerned that I could get caught in a tornado in the middle of nowhere, so I decided to go west to Decatur, re-evaluate, and then head north to go home. When I got to Decatur, I bought fuel and saw on the radar that the storm was moving slow, and that if I headed north, I'd be able to pass in front of it and get home. The county I live in was under a tornado warning, but the brunt of the storm and real hazard was 20-25 minutes south of me. As I drove past the storm, I could see that it was a large strong storm with a lot of lightning.
The storm was producing 100 MPH winds PLUS a tornado. It did major damage to a town I was actually planning to move to before buying this place. At least one person there is dead and 20 others are displaced from their homes due to damage. The tornado actually backtracked briefly and then dropped further south. Lightning from the storm struck and blew up a natural gas well. The tornado ran out of steam just before it got to Fort Worth but was still a powerful storm.
This was a slow-moving storm. Nobody should die from a slow-moving storm. Pay attention to the weather. Seak shelter.
The blue circle with the white ring around it is where I am.
The red circles are radar indicated tornado
Blue is hail
Green is rain
Yellow is strong winds.
The first radar map is from 7:40 pm.
tornado hq - tornado tracker and current tornado warnings
In a tornado warning? Use our tornado tracker map to see if a tornado might be headed your way.
www.tornadohq.com
Here's the map showing a different tornado...
I was watching a live feed from a storm chaser, and you could see the tornado when there was a flash of lightning as well as blue power flashes from damaging winds taking down power lines. The other people you could see driving around in their live feed were probably oblivious to what was happening. They just saw a thunderstorm at night.
If it's storming at night, it's really windy, and you're seeing blue power flashes from power lines, that should be a serious warning sign. Even things like downed trees and power lines can wreck your life if you're not paying attention.
At this time, that storm is still in the Fort Worth area beating the crap out of it. Flash flooding is eminent.
It will be interesting to see how much damage this storm causes.
Anyway, this is just a reminder to pay attention to the weather and not take it for granted.
FYI, this map shows the tornado tracks from this evening. The green dot shows where I was, and the red dot shows where I had to travel to go home.
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