Oh fun! The Tornado Experience!

[Food Lady]

never got struck by lightning but i love watching thunder and lightning storms....i'd be happy eating candy and watching it in the dark with a BIG bay window...

Me, too, simply because CA doesn't get intense ones, mostly just rain that lasts for days. It puts me to sleep, the sound of thunder.

I used to work at a gas station that had gotten struck by lightning the year before I worked there. Apparently everyone in the building went deaf temporarily, so I guess that's to be expected. I just want to understand why that happens. All I know is that my former CW is still terrified of storms.

[smoorman76]

I live ten miles form Greensburg, KS and out here, tornados are SERIOUS business.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

never got struck by lightning but i love watching thunder and lightning storms....i'd be happy eating candy and watching it in the dark with a BIG bay window...

As long as the rain isn't blowing onto the front porch, that's where you'll find me in my rocking chair, watching.

Which is why I've not been on some evenings as of late . . . we've had thunderstorms pretty frequent over the past 3 weeks and I keep the laptop unplugged until the storms pass, which sometimes isn't until later in the evening (like after midnight.)

[RootedPhoenix]

Which is why I've not been on some evenings as of late . . . we've had thunderstorms pretty frequent over the past 3 weeks and I keep the laptop unplugged until the storms pass, which sometimes isn't until later in the evening (like after midnight.)

I did the same thing with my electronics in the last lightning storm we had. Fried equipment is Not Good.

Although I was potting plants right up until I could tell the lightning was really close, so.... but I couldn't very well leave the roots bare either.. >_< (the storm came up kind of quickly).

[EricKei]

As long as the rain isn't blowing onto the front porch, that's where you'll find me in my rocking chair, watching.

We used to do that when I was a kid. Mom in the rocker, covered in the biggest quilt we could find, my brother and I alternately running out into the rain and zipping back under cover when a bolt flashed, and Dad just kinda hanging out laughing at all of us ^_^ We called them "Thunderthtorm Parties"

[Difdi]

The area I live in is actually pretty well-rounded when it comes to disasters. Thanks to the boom in the software industry due to a certain large company having it's HQ nearby, there are a lot of people who moved here in the past decade and a half, and few of them are prepared for a storm.

Most of them are astounded at the sheer variety of things good old Mom Nature can toss around in the area. For example, we have the most tornadoes of any place in the continental US outside the famed Tornado Belt region. Every major wind storm produces at least one tornado, and some minor ones do too. Granted, they're rarely large tornadoes, mostly F0 with rare F1s. But there was an F3 in the past generation alone...

Closest I've come to a tornado so far, was a seriously abnormally strong dust devil (not even F0 but scary as heck) that picked me up and carried me 30 feet, before setting me down, light as a feather...in traffic.

And recent immigrants wonder why natives of the area start looking very nervous when the wind picks up...

Luckily, none of them was touching any metal, so they stayed grounded.

Actually, grounded is the LAST thing you want to be if lightning strikes you. In fact, it probably would be the last thing you'd ever be (aside from extra crispy). The reason the people in that car survived is because the car was more grounded than the occupants.

[mattm04]

Well if were talking lightning I was indirectly hit. I was sitting on metal furniture on a concert slab porch during a thunderstorm. Smart I know. It was just a few rumbles than all of a sudden BOOM. Sounded like a rife or shotgun near your ear. The table I had my feet on turned blue and sparked to the ceiling fan. I quickly jumped up and ran inside. I felt a little tingle in my legs.

I look out the window and see pieces of melted siding all over the ground. The strike destroyed the phone box so i used my cell to call 911. FD arrives with one engine and a ambulance. Seeing the damage they call in tanker as the nearest hydrant is a mile away.

While they are getting axes, pike poles, thermal camera, etc off the truck another neighbor shows up and tells them their house was hit. Blew up elect. panel. Chief calls in another engine. Another neighbor shows up...and another...and another. Now remember the part about the nearest hydrant.

In the end we had had the entire towns FD fleet all 3 engines, 2 tankers, 1 heavy rescue, 1 ambulance and one service truck plus a ladder truck another tanker and another engine form mutual aid towns. No house fires just a tree fire and a brush fire near a house for some power lines.

[tropicsgoddess]

What the hell?!! Wow...that's a new low in stupidity. I've never been through a tornado before and sure as hell don't want to. I'd freak the hell out to be honest and this is coming from somebody who lives in the freaking lightning and hurricane capital!

[marcpork]

I live in a town where about every 50 years a tsunami comes... or not, depending who you ask. A couple of years ago we got the tsunami warning and started to head up into the mountains. We live eight houses down from the beach, so we had to drive by the beach to get the the main road.

People were lined up waiting for the tsunami to come. Right on the beach! We stopped to ask "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

They said "The water pulls out really far before the tsunami hits and we want to see it!"

My mom just got back in the car and muttering about letting them die for natural selections sake. (probably not a bad idea considering all the drug dealers, addicts and idiots)

Luckily, there was no tsunami so we still had a house and all our belongings afterwords.

But seriously, "Let's go watch a natural disaster! Yay!"
I'm glad I left that place.
I'm ashamed I had to move back.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Okay, who here knows anything about lightning striking, say, a "gypsy" wagon with a steel frame?

If that wagon were, for instance, parked in the woods, would it have more chance of being hit by lightning than anythng else?

I live in fear every time a storm kicks up when I'm living in that thing.

[Broomjockey]

If that wagon were, for instance, parked in the woods, would it have more chance of being hit by lightning than anythng else?

Well, that's actually a difficult question. Usually, lightning will simply strike the tallest object, but something metal would provide an easier path to ground, which might balance out the difference in height. If you really want to feel safe, you'll need a lightning rod. About 2 feet of steel, and a thick copper cable running to the ground. If you can isolate it from the wagon, that'd be even better. Something like a rubber-lined bracket. You could probably make it yourself for about $20 and an afternoon. The bonus of making it yourself would be it could be easy to remove when it's time to wheel it elsewhere.

[KMMCurly]

I've never really been in a Tornado but I've caught the tail end of one. It was about 11 years ago and my family had gone to floreda for the whole @Disney' experince and we where at one of the water parks, Typhoon Lagoon I think (ironic).

My parents had noticed the wind getting up and the sky getting darker but me, my brother and sister were kids and at a Diseny water park. All we noticed were the lines to the water slides.

A big annoucment came out the the park was closing NOW due to an incoming storm. We kids pout a little but pack up and head to the car. Just as we reach the car I turn my head and am just in time to see the first lighting strike hit the road... 25 feet away.

My 9-year old response to this? "COOL!"

By the time we got back to the hotel room it was coming down hard, a few bratches being thrown around the storm took up a few trees. My sister is still a little freaked out by stroms, I still think they're awesome.

[EricKei]

Damn o_O I can't compete with any of that ^_^

The closest I've ever come is watching reports on TV when a hurricane makes landfall and a bunch of those little circles start popping up on the display, having been spawned by what is -- for all intents and purposes -- a tornado over water that's been modded by some insane weather haX0r >_<

Closest I've ever BEEN to a live tornado is "within a few miles, but not where I could actually SEE anything".

[Ironclad Alibi]

When I was in high school a friend and I were playing in the water at the beach. Several tornados touched down nearby, and people watching us said they saw a waterspout starting to form where we playing in the water. Fortunately, it didn't form and dissapated.

[Horsetuna]

I think we were being CHASED by a tornado once when I was coming home from work ona shuttle bus.

It was pitch black out and windy/rainy. I was in the back and glanced out the back window - noticed this WALL of dust/rain following us.

We turned at one point (so it was coming towards us fromthe side) and up a hill, and I got out there.

Two seconds later HORIZONTAL rain hit me. I didnt bother with my umbrella but that rain STUNG as it hit me, and lightinng/thunder was instantaneous...