Last Sunday my mom and I were driving home from apartment hunting, I looked up and said, “Is that a-”
“Yes it is!” She answered. We pulled over with 50 other cars under a bridge, trying to decide whether to abandon our car and run for a ditch or to stay and hope that seat belts and airbags would be enough if we were thrown. It wasn’t a huge tornado and it wasn’t in contact with the ground any longer. However, it started hailing 1 inch diameter stones, which is very bad. I called my dad and instead of running for the basement stairwell, he grabbed his camera and snapped a few shots. He said it was hard to tell what it was at first, but after watching it for a few seconds, he could see the rotation. (ckick for larger photos)
And just when he was ready to bolt for the basement, it broke up.
There were 5 tornadoes that day and countless funnel clouds. In my area, the tornado touched and demolished a barn, that’s it. However, the Southlands Mall in Aurora suffered some awful damage but luckily no one was killed. It’s been insane lately-this past week we’ve had 3 days of tornadoes and more are expected today and possibly throughout the weekend. And we don’t even live in Tornado Ally- we’re used to just a couple times a season.
My colleague and I were caught out in the weather today and heard the emergency weather sirens. We took cover in a stairway, not sure what was going on. Turned out to be nothing but lightning, however further east on the plains experienced more of this stuff.
5 Comments
June 11, 2009 at 5:11 am
Holy crap! I’m glad you and your mom are okay. I’m also glad your dad got those photos. Of course, it reminds me of how Hellbilly will watch the weather and say we’re going to have to get to the basement N.O.W! And then? Just when it’s clear the serious stuff is H.E.R.E? He goes directly into our front yard to stare at it.
Oy vey!
June 11, 2009 at 8:28 am
Insane. Excellent snaps, by the way. We don’t get twisters out here in my neck of the woods :)
June 11, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Oy, I hate that 50 car, group moment of “what do we do?”. I’ve only ever been in a twister situation once. We zigged when it zagged, and instead it picked up a horse trailer. Glad you’re ok!
June 12, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Nice pics.
June 22, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Oh, I love tornadoes. Me and my sisters used to bust out the lawn chairs and watch them from the driveway.