Have any of you actually ever seen a tornado?

Question

I really like thunderstorms, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. They say that electrical storms actually stimulate some sort of feelings in your body, and I believe it.

Answer 1

sure have. thunderstorms complete with thunder & lightening is quite thrilling but tornados are more than potentially dangerous. a while back while driving through the mid-west, a tornado watch was in effect. while i hadn't planned to stay around to see what it could do as in being up close & personal, i did see a funnel cloud off in the far distance. if it was small to me, the formation was probably large at its point of origin. it was thrilling, awesome but it was also nature's way of telling me, "run". so i did & i got out of there. like real quick. i think it is amazing that people live in these areas, experience destruction & re-build on a constant basis. they respresent the true pioneer spirit. me? i'm a devoted coward! i believe in the japanese saying (about self-preservation): "of all 32 forms, flight is the best."

Answer 2

I saw a tornado while I was living in Chgo and the tornado was about 3 miles away. It looked pretty powerful and totally scarey.
It ended up tearing through a suburb.
A newpaper photo the next day showed a straw that went through the side of a Coca Cola bottle and came out the other side-without breaking the bottle or bending the straw.

My friends were in a skating rink getting ready to leave and were in the coat room when the tornado hit the rink. One of my friends had coat hangers slashed all through her legs. After months in the hospital she was the last injured person from the tornado to leave the hospital. I can only imagine the horror of that experience.

Recently, I was at work, working evenings in a lab/xray office and I worked alone. I was doing paperwork and I heard an airplane flying low overhead. It got to sound really loud and I was amazed at how low it probably was. When I left work there was debris all over the roads on my route home, and when I got home I found out that what I'd heard was a tornado and not an airplane.
I've heard people say they sound like a plane or a train. Its true.

Answer 3

No, I am lucky enough to live in a place where there are no Tornado's. We do get thunderstorms, which I Love. I used to live at the Grand Canyon and we got the Best Lightning and Thunderstorms. It was fascinating to watch if you were inside, but you don't dare go near the edge of the Canyon during one. Many people have unfortunately died while on the Canyon edge watching Lightning storms.

Answer 4

I lived in Wichita falls in 1979. I lived through the tornado of that year. Pretty bad. Growing up in that area I used to storm chase with my father for the weather center. I have seen 40 in my life. they are very powerful experiences. Tornado's are very unpredictable. Some will tell you they only travel west to east. Not true. That they don't go backwards not true. And all sorts of other stuff. Not something to mess with I can assure you. If there is a tornado on the ground in your area, Take COVER. do not try to outrun it if you are in a car. In your house. Go to the lowest floor, and the most interior room.

Answer 5

I have seen a tornado. Actually, I was driving a boat off the coast of Louisiana in 1989 when a tornado came down about 1/4 of a mile from us. We ran at full speed (52 mph) away from it for 17 minutes and it stayed right on our tail. All of a sudden it disappeared back into the sky and was gone.

Answer 6

I was in Kansas, and one started circulating right over head. It seemed like all the clouds in the sky were being sucked into a drain. The sky was a strange color--it turned greenish-brown. We hauled butt back to the house, and the tornado ended up hitting Lawrence. I actually grew up in Texas, and I remember hearing the sirens go off--sometimes just a test, other times because there was some kind of rotation. When the sky starts moving, it reminds you of how small you really are.

Answer 7

Interesting. I was in the Nashville area, in a rental car looking for the Marriott in 1999 when TWO tornadoes appeared in the sky.

I don't know if it was electrical stimulation from the tornadoes or plain old-fashioned fight-or-flight syndrome, but all three of us were 'WIRED' until we got in under cover.

BOTH of those tornadoes touched down and did major damage, by the way.

Answer 8

I understand some people get a thrill from watching dangerous storms but not me. I live in an area that gets tornadoes and lived in Georgia where 2 of them touched down right near us. I have also lost a relative in one in Erie, Pa. in the one that happened at least 15 years ago. The house fell into the middle of itself.
I have seen tornado form at least twice. The sky gets an unusual color of green. Then everything gets still. Then the hail, the horrible noise and the wind come.
Our son was living in St. Louis a couple years ago when they had one and right before he was at a fast food joint. His truck had baseball size dents in it and no windows left.

Answer 9

Yes I have seen 2 in my lifetime. I saw one literally come up the street several blocks over from our house standing on the front porch. I was 8 at the time and we lived in Illinois. The other one was here in Arkansas in 97. I saw it form on the outskirts of town and it then headed toward town and hit a mobile home that killed 2 small children. It went from one side of town to the other and tore everything in it's path up. It leveled our brand new General Dollar Store and took a under ground gas tank from a gas station Jr Food Mart like place and set it down in the middle of main street a half mile away. That tank was a big as a small car and it moved it like it was a red rubber ball. It stripped all the trees and tore the oldest tree in town out of the ground and made firewood out of it. They are very scary and an awesome power of nature. I hope I never see another one. We spent over 2 years cleaning and rebuilding.

Answer 10

Yup it was weird!!!!
We live in an area where there aren't that many, so to see one is unusual. We were driving with the windows down and everything got quite. It was like a vacuum sucked out all the sound. Then we saw the tornado it was real wide and dark at first we thought it was a fire. You could see all the stuff flying around in it. It was cool but very spooky.