June 2009 on the Great Plains
With three escape options and the car running and ready, we let the largest and longest lived of the tornadoes (near Aurora NE) get within less than a mile, so we could hear the whoosh of it out in the field. When relatively safe to do so (very rare), it is amazing to see a tornado up close, admire its sinuous power and ever-changing form, then back off again and let oneself be captured and enraptured by the full beauty of the whole storm’s vaporous and ephemeral sculpture.
Read more →Thoughts on the Norman Tornado of 12 June 2009
Fortunately the tornado was a bird fart as these things go: a narrow, two mile long path with marginal EF-1 in another neighborhood and EF-0 in mine, mainly minor roof damage to a few homes. My house came away intact, with not even a shingle lost, though trees snapped on all sides. The supercell erupted over Norman, spawned the small tornado, and soon died. In the grand scheme of things, it was but one of nearly a thousand weak tornadoes each year in the United States.
Read more →Scattershooting…
It’s about stinkin’ time we’ll have some robust mid-upper level winds juxtaposed with foci for supercell genesis!
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