Weather will kill you.

[Jim Oaks]

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.

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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:

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...

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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.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Yes weather is an underrated hazard. My wife kinda makes fun of me cause whenever theres a storm i track the shit out of it.

I probably dont take warnings serious enough....

That said...im kinda lucky where i live. Usually the worst of it tracks about 15mi north or 15mi south. But if we ever do take one head on i figure itll be nasty

 

[Curious Hound]

Absolutely respect weather. I don't panic like some. But I watch reliable sources and try to make reasonable de isions about it.

 

[rumblecloud]

I've always thought that Texas was like a storm magnet. It's such a large state with varying topography, exposed to the shenanigans of the Gulf.

Nevertheless, when it comes to the weather, common sense isn't nonsense. I watch the weather too.

Thanks for the Tornado HQ link. bookmarked on my phone cuz my satellite interweb is the first thing to go out during heavy storms.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Thankfully tornadoes aren’t very common here at all, but they do happen and we do get some severe weather here and there. I’ve been guilty of standing around watching severe weather roll in but I typically do it not far from solid shelter and ready to bolt if it gets too threatening.

It really does seem like a lot of people don’t pay attention to anything beyond their phone anymore and don’t take weather warnings appropriately. Guess that comes with the death of common sense.

I have noticed that we seem to be having a lot more severe weather than we used to as well as a lot of wind around here. Growing up I remember a lot of very calm days, now it seems like the wind is always blowing and most days it’s 10 mph or above it seems. I’ve been tempted to leave a chainsaw in the truck all the time anymore because trees are often coming down. Not dead ones either.

 

[pjtoledo]

I often chase the storms for a better look.
here in the flat land of northwest Ohio you can usually see the really bad stuff in time to stay at a "safe" distance.

if you're stuck without access to weather info tune the radio to AM. lightning puts static crackles on AM, gives you an estimate of proximity & intensity.

 

[sgtsandman]

Never take Mother Nature for granted. Like Lil_Blue_Ford said, severe weather and natural disasters do seem to be more frequent now than in the past.

One mixed blessing about this area is that the topography is irregular enough that most things aren't as severe as they could be elsewhere, especially if you are on higher ground. Tornadoes, when we get them, tend to be smaller and skip from hill top to hill top. Flooding is a concern is you live down in a draw or a valley but not up higher. Hail, generally isn't severe enough to cause major damage, but it does happen from time to time. We do get a little bit of everything, but as long as you are in the right place, it usually isn't a problem.

Not that it keeps me from keeping an eye on what the weather is doing and I do keep stuff in the trucks just in case. Because stuff happens. And being associated with search and rescue, I have to keep a 3 day bag ready at all times. Again, because stuff happens.