Tornado Outbreak

[Foxtrot]

Well, looks like we have a tornado outbreak ongoing in the midwest and southeast. 25 tornado reports so far, and more to come, this thing's not over yet. Many counties are under tornado warnings. Given the set-up today in the atmosphere, I'm not surprised. This system is so strong, the dewpoint here in Norman went up 2 degrees in 15 min at one time. The temp also went from to 70 degrees around 3a.m. before the cold front passed through and brought 35-45mph winds from the north.

Foxtrot

[ATrude777]

I am in the area when we got hit, I will tell you what i told Tom Alfano...

My city got spared of the tornados, but others were not so lucky. Marion which is 15 min from my house got hit by 3 tornados, Carterville (which is where I have my college classes) got hit by one. Overall Southern illinois received up to 10 reported touchdowns of tornados. 7 Counties were under Tornado Warnings at once, which was the most our state has ever received. 6 houses reported damaged but no injuries or deaths have been reported, yet. I say yet as it was the most severe storm and amount of tornados our area has ever gotten ever since the Tri-State Tornado way back in 1925 (something like that). I was in Carterville at the time it was storming and we were dismissed to go home. The Tornado hit 30 minutes after I left, so I missed it close enough. No damage reported in Carterville as well. It was a very very tense moment for us all as the weather people couldn't pin point where it was going to hit.

Alex

[Crunk415balla]

Some of the videos of the tornado's were pretty intense. Strong storm.

[JordanD]

Last night they we're going on and on about how a tornado was supposed to hit Louisville and that there would be alot of damage. There wasn't one clap of thunder the whole night.

[bobby]

Haha. Yeah well, there was rotation just on the south side of I-40, and guess who lives on the north side....me.


It was a scary night. The big part of the storm was headed right for my small town, then, within 5 minutes, it veered just south of us leaving us with almost sideways rain from the winds. All the while I was sitting on AIM talking to some of my friends that were a little shaken up from it.

No damage to report from my end.

[ExpressJet145]

Thanks for the phone call Alex, glad your okay...Tom and I were getting worried about you lol.

[ATrude777]

Thanks for the phone call Alex, glad your okay...Tom and I were getting worried about you lol.

Thanks for the concern, I had a ton of emails aksing where I was, and if I was ok with the tornados and such hahaha.

I am fine when I have time I will go into more details what happened.

Great to be back!!

Alex

[mapguy]

It's all Bush's fault.

[ATrude777]

Ok for those still interested ill let ya know how my day went on that "black tuesday"

when I woke up it was 30 degrees outside. Freezing cold. I went to my morning math class, it rose up to 50 degrees. Not to many clouds in sight at all. Looked like it was gonna be a perfect day! I went to my math class and had my math. Afterwards I had an hour break before my 12:00pm class starts, so I went to my car and listened to music. Next I looked up, it was completely pitch black, dark as hell, clouds everywhere, and it was thundering. It got really really warm outside too, the air was calm, perfect combination for tornados. However I didn't know we were under anything. I was about to step out of the car to head to my class when my phone rang. I answered it and my mom was very frantic on the phone. I said whats wrong? she said
"Alex where are you?!?!"
"im in the parking lot at school, im getting ready to go to my 12:00pm class"
"can you skip it?"
"uhm, no why?"
"there is a huge, and dangerous storm brewing right now, we are under a tornado watch, all of southern illinois and other areas are under it to. they are expecting massive outbreaks of storms. all schools are shutting down and sending students home immedaitly. malls are being sent home or into storm shelters, Alex Carbondale is almost shutting down."

when I heard that I just froze.

"ya your brother got evacuated and we had to go pick him up, they are saying if this hits it will be the biggest outbreak of tornados since the 1925 tri state tornado for southern illinois."

me-"ohh shiiiit. well...i have a paper I have to turn in.."

"well hurry up, everyone is here, your grandmother is coming over and the storm is picking up speed, get here in case it hits and we can go in the basement."

"ok im coming"

so i go to my english class, and only 5 people showed up. someone told me the mall in marion was being evacuated and sent to storm shelters in preporation for the storm.

now remember this is just a WATCH, not even a warning, and yet our entire area is freaking out, at least my city is. this has NEVER happened, ever before in school history, to send students home during a tornado watch.

finally our teacher let us go home. i walked outside, and couldnt believe how HOT it was, and SUNNY!!

WTF?!

Not a single cloud in sight!

I called my mom again and said mom, what storm are you talking about? its like sunny and no clouds.

"Alex ignore that get ur butt home now, its going to hit in about an hour, the sun is a false alarm, its heating the storm up, just get home now!"

"fine im coming home"

so i get in my car and race home as soon as i can, and out of nowhere, it HIT! clouds everywhere, rain like I had never seen before. i pulled up ran inside, and i heard warnings going off on the TV. Union County, jefferson city county...hamilton county....7 tornado warnings were set off at once, and then finally "williamson county!" I was JUST in that county! They reported 3 tornados in Marion, Illinois, One in Union County, and others dropping all over Southern Illinois, I heard reports of up to 15 however not confirmed. We are located in Jackson County. Our county was never called for a warning but we still got the brunt of it. sveere lightning, heavy rain, heavy wind, everything.

Clouds just exploded everywhere, it was horrible. I kept waiting for a tornado to drop down on me. Never hapened. Thankfully no deaths or injuries were reported in my areas. others around us werent so lucky however.

Then tuesday my net cut out because of the storms and tornados. poor Tommy, lol last thing I said to him was tornado is coming, and i lost all contact with him. he had txtd me called me everything but i didnt get them till the next day on wednesday.

I got a lot fo emails and concerns from everyone and want to thank those who emailed me, called me whatever to make sure I was ok. thanks all.

but now im back!!

Alex

[ExpressJet145]

Damn, nice report. Still glad your okay though.

[screaming_emu]

It's all Bush's fault.

cause he hates black people

[Messerschmitt Man]

AA_MD-80@STL thanks for typing that up, it made for interesting reading.

Tornados and severe weather in general is extremely rare in New Zealand, and if it occurs it's very small. Your description reminded me of the panic in movies like Twister etc.

[YEG boy]

I am from edmonton canada and we also get tornadoes during the summer months.In 1987 we suffered a F4 that hit the east part of the city killing 31 people and injuring over 500.They are intresting but terrifying.

[Fly_Southwest]

I was kind of involved in a storm like that once, I was home alone with my cousin (we live in a ranch-style home, no basement) and it was very windy and I was watching TV and my cousin was like, "Patrick, I hear sirens" so I put on the weather channel and they were saying tornado on the ground heading toward my city so I freaked out so I tried to call my parents but my cell phone had no signal so we ran around closing the doors to bedrooms and took shelter in the middle of the hallway.

Luckily, there was no tornado. They were wrong, it never touched down. The wind knocked a tree onto my mom's windstar and broke a couple windows, but nobody got hurt.

Glad you are okay alex, thanks for sharing your story!

[JordanD]

I remember back when I was a really little kid visiting the space museum in Alabama with my family. One night after we finished eating we we're going back to the hotel and there was some serious lightning and wind and everybody was going into the lobby. They had all the women and kids go into the lobby bathroom and all the men stayed out in the lobby. I remember people in the bathroom praying (although nobody was really freaking out). My dad told me that someone tried to open the door to the lobby but they just couldn't because of the wind. So anyway it's all over but then later that night my parents wake me up because there's another storm coming and we have to go back.
Yeah that night sucked.