Topic: FW Tornado 4/13/7

[GRAYWOLF]

 Some of you may have heard about a tornado in Fort Worth Friday night. I wanted to let everyone know we are fine and were very lucky.

Shortly after getting home the sirens started up. I was outside. K was watching the news and they said the alarms were going off but they didn't know why unless it was for hail north of FW. I stood out front watching the clouds for any indication of anything. Several other neighbors were out doing the same thing and no one noticed anything. After a minute or so they shut off.

I stayed out side for a little while longer staring at the clouds. Eventually I go back inside and make my way to the back yard with the camera to see if I can get any pictures on the dark clouds to the west.

While I am back there, the sirens start up again. I continue to look for anything. Eventually, I noticed, coming over the roof line of the houses behind us, a very dark cloud that looked like it could be a tornado hanging down, but I can't see around the houses to tell if it was just an optical illusion.

As it becomes more visible I notice a very light cloud behind the dark one and all these little dark clouds kind of sucking up into the rest of the dark one. as the dark cloud clears the roof line I can see the full rotation of the cloud and from that angle it is the width of the 2 houses.

At that point I go inside and close the door and peek out the window just to verify I was actually seeing this. Then I can see debris blowing in a tornadic way and close the window and K is yelling from the kitchen that she just watched a trampoline fly through the air and land in a different neighbor's back yard. We decide it is time to head for the bathroom where Jackie and the dogs have been since I first saw the rotation.

Our house is fine, but the fence is down on one side. Some of the houses down the street are a little worse for wear, but no major problems. A couple of streets over a few houses lost sections of roofing (plywood and all).

According to 2 police officers that were responding to an alarm after the storm, they watched the tornado coming east on I-30. It touched down, went back up and touched down again then went back up.

Had the tornado stayed on the ground, the houses at the end of the street probably would not be inhabitable and ours would really be hurting.

One strange thing is that the air pressure popped open the glass doors on the fireplace and blew some ash out on the hearth.

Friday the 13th....hmmmmmmmm!!!

[Ultra]

 

Glad to have you with us still.

[porridgehead]

 

Staring down the barrel of a loaded gun held by a rabid syphallitic crack-addicted glue huffer is less scary than that. Talk about a spin on the fate wheel.

Glad everybody came out unscathed. I don't think I'd be able to sleep for a week.

[GRAYWOLF]

I had the friggin' camera in my hand, but was so awestruck I didn't get any shots of the rotation!

[porridgehead]

I, for one, am just as glad you didn't take the time to snap a few pictures. There are times where family takes precedence over everything, rotating storm clouds heading in your direction being one of them.
If it were me, I probably wouldn't have remembered the camera in my hand until I was certain everybody was as safe as they could be.

[Otto Puzzell]

*whew*

[GRAYWOLF]

Well, I was watching for a tail to come down, while the Mrs was rounding up the kid and dogs....

[Boxer2500]

Scary stuff. I saw that storm on TV Friday night; looked like a pretty nasty one. I had a smallish tornado pass over my parents' house a few years ago, taking out a tree and ensuring a nice big check for a local roofing contractor. Didn't get a chance to see that one, but I sure heard it. It might be a cliche to say it sounded like a speeding freight train, but that's exactly what it sounded like... that, or a 757 on takeoff roll.

When I was driving I-80 in southern Wyoming two weekends ago, I was driving into a supercell and watched it drop a funnel cloud south of the freeway. If it had come the other way, I'm not sure what I would've done -- it comes down to either huddling in a flood-prone ditch or staying in your car which is threatening to turn into an airborne projectile at any second.

[Tifosi]

My kids live with their mother, just a few miles from Russiaville, IN...the site of a Palm Sunday 1965 tornado that killed their cousin.  A couple of years ago, we were heading into Kokomo, and while passing through Russiaville, we heard a siren blaring.   Looking behind us, we saw a funnel cloud in the distance that had been following us.  We pulled into their grandparents' driveway, and made some evacuation plans.  The whole town was going nuts...everybody remembers that the whole town was nearly destroyed.  My oldest son took a couple of pictures of a pair of small "pigtails" that were right above us...it was daring, I know; but it was also fascinating. I had never seen anything like a cloud rotating...it is without a doubt the most awesome act of nature.

The storm passed over us, and touched down in Kokomo a few minutes later...there was minimal damage to a couple of buildings, one wall and the roof of a skating rink were destroyed, as was the scoreboard and fence of the local school.  It could have been much worse...and it was nothing like what happenned in Texas, but it was still very exhilirating and terrifying at the same time.  There's no way to predict just what a funnel cloud will do...I was reminded of the movie Twister... even though it isn't very realistic; it does capture the uncertainty, the unpredictability and the exhiliration one can experience by encountering tornadoes.

I've been through a hurricane with  constant weather updates every 15 minutes...the whole earth seemed to be alive during the storm...but it was nothing compared to seeing the clouds rotate, picking up debris and travelling along the ground.  I knew where the hurricane was headed; but with a tornado, nobody knows much of anything.  And that's terrifying..


Dan

[GRAYWOLF]

It is truly awesome, and mesmerizing, to see a huge rotation in the sky like that. One thing I never really thought about with a tornado is that once the actual tornado goes back up into the cloud, the winds on the ground continue to swirl giving the same visual effect of a tornado. I watched the houses behind mine get in gulfed in this swirling debris.

I am sure it is a sight I will never forget, but at the same time, hope to never see again! The preliminary evaluation by the NWS is that it was an EF1 that touched down just before my house in Haltom City. I can't even begin to imagine an EF5!!!