This week, the Chicago area faced some severe storms - the likes of which I never experienced in Britain.
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This is a gentle reminder for our friends in the UK that “tornado alley”, the region of the US known for frequent seasonal tornado activity, is larger in area than the entire British Isles.
Even larger if you count the areas that aren’t *technically* part of Tornado Alley but should be.
When you realize the entire island chain of Great Britain, Ireland and various other bits can fit comfortably in the state of Pennsylvania...
@@michaelscott6022 Yup and then you realize Tornado Alley is just... just a weeeee bit bigger than PA.
@@ReformedSooner24 the map for the alley has been revised. not all news organizations use it, but it has expanded further east toward Mid TN (wasn't trying to be rude with my obnoxious comment about the Alley. I read an article about how the geography of the Alley has changed by expanding East, but the West side is all good.) Anyway I wasn't trying to be an ass.
Seasonal tornado activity? North Texas has tornado season from January 1st to December 31st
As an American, I was genuinely surprised to find out not as many countries get tornadoes as us.
I like to think of ancient people and them experiencing these things. ‘The sky reached down and threw trees!’ ‘Yeah right that’s like the big wave Dave seen last week near the water. That stuff doesn’t happen man’ They might have had an idea. But seeing how people thought kangaroos and platypus were cryptids, it’s possible.
As an American I feel surprised to hear that other countries get tornadoes at all.
Apparently, Bangladesh next to India on the map has a lot of severe tornadoes and with housing not being too well built, they often have hundreds of deaths.
There’s a reason why part of America is called ‘Tornado Alley.’
Same here... all it takes is a very cold front meeting a hot front and boom - the land needs to be flat enough, hills will prevent tornadoes but I am sure why. .
As a midwesterner (central Illinois) you can feel when it’s all about to hit the fan. The temperature drops fast, you can smell it and the pressure changes. It’s honestly wonderful.
And a hush falls over everything, and only prominent sounds are leaves blowing around. I get charged up, I fuckin love thunderstorms!
The smell is the best thing, and the biggest tell. I had no idea others found it weird that Midwest folks can smell 'em comin', but after casually mentioning it on Discord... 😅
Here in the Southeast (Dixie Alley), I know exactly what you mean. About the time that tornado watch is issued, you can go outside and "feel" the heaviness of the air, see the clouds start moving, and the wind picking up. I've lived through two Super Outbreaks (1974 and 2011) and they were no joke. Most people who live in tornado-prone areas can read a radar about as well as the meteorologists!
Change in pressure gives me sinus headache every time :(
I knew they were gonna get a tornado warning when it hailed. That's one of those things ya just learn go hand in hand.
My cousin, an American who emigrated to the UK and married an English man, just visited her family in Texas with her toddler. It's the toddler's first time in the states and this past weekend we had a massive storm, hail included. Major thunder and lightning. I found out the next morning that their child never witnessed a storm like this. However she thought it was fireworks. Also when they lost power it was the coolest thing because everyone was running around with flashlights and she thought it was a night time party.
At least they weren’t scared by it. When i was little I went through a tornado warning while at school that scared me so much that severe storms still my me very anxious
He hasn't lived in America long enough if he thinks Midwest thunderstorms pop out of nowhere. You can feel/smell them hours beforehand.
I'm not from Midwest, but Texas (does that count idk) but yeah I tend to get sleepy when it is going to storm.
Maybe it's something we Americans just learn from growing up here.
Whenever I’m in an unusually good mood with no particular reason, that usually means a storm is coming. It also means we have to drag my mother away from the twelve foot wide glass picture window. It’s never broken in the hundred years or so the house has stood, but we’d best not tempt fate. My family is a bit storm happy.
You can feel the humidity and pressure changes. It makes you love your senses so much.
For sure. It gets humid and super calm. It's usually cloudy and you can feel the lower pressure until the sky collapses
A note for future reference: if there’s severe weather in the area, or even predicted, the tornado sirens will not be tested, even if the scheduled test day and time arrives.
Yep - our normal test day was Tuesday at 10am and they bailed on it.
I suppose its where you live, we were having bad thunderstorms and our little city did their test like it was any other day. I thought how stupid but then that is normal! ( S/E Michigan )
Our test day here in KCK is Wednesday at noon. It went off as expected and we still got a hell of a thunderstorm that night
Hi Laurence, so sorry that Grimsby made the international new. With what three residents being sought and two arrested for being members of an international cybercrime network. Terrible news for your hometown.😮 😢. On a much 😊happier note, you and your family (especially your furry companions) made it through a scary patch of weather uninjured and emotionally intact. God bless, from N.H., 👵🏻 😅
They ran our test a few weeks ago right on time while we were under a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch... so it depends on where you are I guess.
If you have lived anywhere in the Midwest or the South for any period of time you’ve experienced tornado watches and warnings. It’s quit fascinating watching a severe thunderstorm approach. The rush of wind just before it hits is the freshest air you will ever experience. I love being outside when this happens.
I believe I have found my thunderstorm loving people.
same here, in northern virginia it's the most exciting weather we get. Although strangely we did have an F1 tornado go through our neighborhood a few years ago, that was weird
Is true! Very fresh breeze. I love it!
If you were ever in a tornado where parts of houses were being blown away and people next door were being killed, you wouldn't think they were so fascinating. North Alabama has seen numerous tornados and they are nothing to dismiss by sitting in a garage and watching them approach. People die when they come.
Fun fact: That smell is caused (mostly) by Ozone (O3), which forms when lightning splits apart Oxygen molecules (O2) and allows Ozone to form.
Thunderstorms here have always been my favorite weather. Nothing like that first blast of wind coming and the sky going dark to make you feel like something truly epic is about to happen.
YEs. I love it, but try to also pray for people to be protected &/or prepared to meet their Creator, as, besides the news and knowing the dangers, growing up there was a neighbor-ish, friend of my dad's who's parents and baby sibling were killed by a silo coming down on them in a tornado. Here in western, west-central WI we'd get a lot of watches and some warnings, some super-creepy looking skies, but basically never an actual tornado in my lifetime until more recently, so It's been all too easy to take safety for granted !
Yes, nature is grand. Nature is dramatic.
For those who don't know, siren tests tend to be scheduled, and if there's severe weather during a regular test time, they won't do the test. If you're not from an area with regularly scheduled tests and you're hearing a siren, look for a local and see how they're behaving. If they're ignoring it, it's a test. If they're standing outside with a camera, you probably want to seek shelter.
I grew up in (and have moved back to) Southwest Ohio. One of my earliest memories was April 3rd, 1974. Look that one up. As far as I know, we didn't have any damage in our immediate area, but there were confirmed touchdowns probably half a mile away at most.
Heard a story no idea if its true or not but it would be nice,First year the Oklahoma city thunder NBA team played the lakers were in town for a Saturday game they were quite disturbed to hear the weekly siren test go off at noon,seems most of them never knew that sirens are tested every week
The sirens are usually around midday too
First Wednesday of each month where I come from... always freaks out newcomers who don't expect it.
As a Kansas City resident for 30+ years and growing up in southwestern Ontario (another "tornado alley"), your description of the locals' behavior made me chuckle. Cameras indeed.
Growing up in Michigan, what's weird to me is that storms like these are not normal elsewhere in the world.
Exactly we don’t seek shelter until it’s hitting. We just stand out front watching the carnage brewing 😂
Exactly, I was today years old before I knew this! I’ve lived in NE Indiana my whole life. It’s just normal.
@@dedklownx I live in Dixie Alley and have all my life. In 2021 an EF4 tornado ripped into my town. I heard the sirens but ignored them since we already had some false alarms that night. They cut off minutes before a tornado emergency was issued... meanwhile I was outside on my balcony watching the lightning 🤣 It only hit about a block away from me!
@@dedklownx unless the thunder gets real loud, I'm standing out on the front porch after it's already boiled over. Something very soothing to me standing out in the humid air and rain while also not getting wet. Storms are soothing to me until I remember my sump pump could fail at any time.
Honestly, how many of us Great Plains people have either literally chased a tornado or sat on the porch watching it go by.. usually with the more intelligent wife/kid/parent yelling for us to get under ground
As someone on East Coast US, seeing clouds gently spiraling downward from the sky is a rather terrifying experience (my area didn't usually get tornadoes). Also hurricane Ida was terrible, but at least you can semi-prepare for hurricanes.
Everyone’s experiences vary but I think you’re short-selling hurricanes. Not only do you get long sustained winds with massive gusts and flash floods that rip out highways but also the subsequent flooding as the rains move down river…and tornadoes. Hurricane Ida that you referenced spawned 35 tornadoes. Frances spawned 103 tornadoes. The East coast doesn’t get as many tornadoes as tornado alley but I think preparation for hurricanes, while smart and warranted, leads people to minimize or even ignore everything the storm is going to bring with it that you simply can’t prepare for. The worst part about hurricanes, outside of usual loss of power, etc. is all of the tornadoes and flooding.
Tornado Alley is rapidly moving eastward.
I've heard hurricanes compared to a lumbering Army, where thunderstorms and tornadoes are hit-and-run drivers.
As a Hoosier, I’d much rather be in the path of any hit or miss tornado than a hurricane. A tornado will decide which houses in the neighborhood it wants to eat there whereas a hurricane takes the entire city and doesn’t spare a single home.
lived in tornado valley since i was born, and i am very sensitive to the weather like other people around here and can tell when it’s about to storm. it reminds me of how cows hide under trees when it’s about to rain, even though humans have no clue. we’re definitely more conditioned than people who don’t live in this kind of weather to tell when a storm is in the air
Some times I just find myself wandering toard a tree or an onning and I'm like "oh it must be about to rai- and there it is"
...if the cows lay down, it's gonna' storm...
“Tornado Valley”
Sometime you could smell whenever it’s gonna rain. And you can feel it in the air, the humidity.
I named my daughter Kayleigh. You don’t see it a lot.
i love how he actually took the necessary precautions for a tornado, me and my fam would be out on the front porch looking around for it 😂
Following safety procedures is very British. Standing outside in disaster-weather is very Florida. Most Americans are somewhere in between.
fr living in the midwest my whole life a tornado is more of a spectacle than danger.
@@BradyPostma I'm a FL man and have indeed gone to the beach to watch the storm surge as a hurricane came my way.
We Americans are just built different
@@BradyPostma Well, a tornado warning is the lesser of the two warnings and just means that there’s a chance of one occurring somewhere in the area. A tornado watch means one has actually been spotted and you do need to take cover. So if it was just a tornado warning, there really is no reason for them to be taking shelter.
As a native Midwesterner, I feel an odd and totally unwarranted sense of pride whenever anyone is awed by the types of weather systems that we deal with. 😅
SAME!!! Lol Kansas here.
It's like..."huh. This is all kind of...banal to me. Is it really that unsettling to hear the 'nado warning clarions?" -Dude who's lived his whole 30+ years in Joliet, Illinois
In the Midwest, every season is every other season that it's supposed to be. Nothing quite like seeing snow in the middle of June while taking a casual bike ride
It's the only time most of us make the national news!
@@AnonymousInternetUserLaine hell just yesterday we got freezing rain and snow here in Iowa and it was 80 degrees last week
I’ve lived in Texas for a decade now and it’s become a hobby to sit on the porch and watch the storms. They’re crazy, but also beautiful.
Fellow Texan, I love sitting out on the porch to watch the thunderstorms!
I'm also a Texan on the thunderstorm-watching, porch-sitting bandwagon. I like to sit in my granddad's old chair and drink a Lone Star for best results.
I live in Florida. We typically have a thunderstorm every day at about 4:00 pm throughout the late Spring and Summer. They last between 20 minutes and 1 hour, and they can be quite violent. If we don't have our daily drench, it's a sign we're having a drought.
Same in Louisiana.
As a Floridian, I often wondered if our "rainy days" are worse than, say, an Irish "rainy day." Like, the rain falls so heavy and fast that you have to shout to the person next to you.
Same! It's also always seemed like an oxymoron to me that we're both the "sunshine state" and the "lightning capital of the U.S." XD
The. 5 minute burst of a few inches then silence and sunshine
Florida's a 3-sided tropical island. The afternoon thunderstorm is just a fact of life, same as in most tropical countries.
My workplace got a new roof and had skylights everywhere... unfortunately they ended up leaking. A LOT. So after a while they finally gave up fixing them and capped them all... in aluminum/tin covers of some kind. It's in Georgia. When we get a flash rain storm, the sound of the rain drumming down on those covers was *deafening* you had to shout to be heard by the people inside with you. It was nearly impossible to get anything done when it rained. Oh, and the covers didn't work. Roof still leaked like a freakin sieve.
@@dragonspirit996 In Florida a 30% chance of rain means 30% of the geographic location will pour buckets for about 20 minutes and then will assume the atmosphere of a Finnish Sauna.
just for future refence, cities in the US wont test their tornado sirens on a stormy day. If it rains and you hear a siren, its never a test, take shelter. I've lived in the Midwest my entire life andthats been the case for every city I've been in.
except for my town 😂😂 It was a cloudy, green day. And they decided to test the sirens. 10am, first tuesday of the month. As always. It did lightly rain, but there was never a Tornado risk that day. Even tho it looked like it
This isn’t entirely true. Where I live they always test them on the first Saturday of the month no matter what. We even had it to where the test was also real and didn’t realize at first until the siren was going longer than normal so I looked it up 😂
And another point is to also familiarize yourself on when your particular locale tests their sirens as well. Like here in Kansas City, Missouri, our usual siren test time is at 11am on first Wednesday of the month. They usually won’t if the weather is bad to cut down on confusion though. Also, they will also blare the real deal much louder than the test sirens too.
The city that I live in test our Sirens every Wednesday at noon without fail. It's pretty cool because you can hear it all over.
I've lived here for 8 years and our warning system only tests at 1pm on the first Saturday of the month
I've always loved the sound of rolling thunder. Sometimes it's incredibly loud, and sometimes it seemingly never stops, and always surrounded by the smell of rain
I found it odd that Laurence said storms cropped up out of nowhere. Sometimes yes, but usually you can tell fairly far in advance that it's going to rain. Then I read through the comments, and apparently this is a learned trait that many people don't have. I'm from the Midwest, so I have this trait. I just assumed it was something that any one could do.
It's not common for weather to change alot in the country I lived - but when I lived in the northern Netherlands I learned - from trial and error - that small gusts often have rain behind them whether it's 5 minutes or 30 minutes away.
Thank you for taking tornado warnings seriously. A piece of advice that may save your life - if you see a distant tornado and it appears to be standing still, it is very likely to be heading directly toward you. And like my favorite meteorologist Ryan Hall says, "Don't be scared, be prepared."
Oh I love him. I love watching his videos
Ive seen some people go “Most tornadoes kill/injure barely anyone, they cant be that dangerous.” The numbers arent very intimidating, the tornado isnt exactly safe either.
@@dr_mafarioyt4313 I wonder if there is a correlation between people saying "tornadoes aren't that bad" and tornado deaths. This said, the last time I heard that a tornado touched down, I just went to bed normally next to a glass awning door. Was bad for my area, but as probabilities have it, my home wasn't touched. I just figured most people don't get hit, so the chance I do is low.
@@Gandhi_Physique I think the closest a tornado has gotten to me was like 7 years ago in Colorado when a tornado passed through Greeley. Needed to go down in the cellar since it passed like a quarter mile from my house, yet barely anything was even touched, just like one or two things out of place. Still spooked me tho
@@Gandhi_Physique I guess in that case - those people who say that only get to be wrong once haha.
You can tell when a storm is about to happen based on what the birds are doing. When it gets eerily quiet outside, you know it is about to get pretty bad.
Yes! This! When they go to nest and hunker down, *you* do, is what the family motto is. Animals only go quiet if there's a reason...
Everything else goes quiet, but the swallows take to wing and hunt for all the bugs right then.
If the sky turns green or orange you know it's coming
The current theory is that they can smell the ozone increase.
My dogs were going crazy when one of the recent tornados went by close to my house.
Fun fact: That sudden rush of wind that happens just before the rain starts is all the air displaced by the incoming rain. Also, if you ever want some weird / scary weather: have someone in Arizona record the happenings during a dust storm. Complete beige out conditions, and there is thunder and lightning all the time thanks to static charge.
Things that actually scare me (weather addition): sand/dust up/storms, straight wind, and dry lightning storms. And humidity below 30% how do ppl survive on such drive air??????
@@Traumatized_Mel Very well! I lived in AZ for 27ish years...and being in TX now with humidity, I long for the triple digit days with no humidity. Probably the difference between growing up in AZ and growing up anywhere else with high temperatures in the US: Kids learn really quick that doing stupid stuff on the asphalt in 110+F is a great way to visit the ER. Also, even without parents around we learned really quick to drink water like we were filter fish trying to collect food (i.e. all the time). The "dry heat" thing is definitely easier to handle vs the Wet Bulb "you can very easily die and feel it the whole time because you are sweating and it doesn't help" is a big thing too. That said, the lack of humidity means when it is in the triple digits in AZ and you NEED to be active (or like punishing yourself doing work outs / hiking) locals know to constantly push water since the sweat wicks off thanks to the dry air. It cools the body faster, but you loose that liquid faster without noticing as well. Side note: This also makes swimming in AZ and then getting out amazing! You get out, go for your towel to dry your hair, and inside 1-2 minutes you are dry without toweling much and now feeling chilled thanks to the moisture being wicked off. Being chilled (even for a little bit) on a hot day was glorious! PS: Sorry this turned into the words longest response.
I live in the desert in West Texas, and we get the dust storms with thunder and lightning, too.
now thats some madmax shit right there
For all the passers by, we get to call them Haboobs. It’s fun to say. Just try it.
I didn’t realize the American thunderstorms were that strange. I love these storms and don’t think I have ever taken cover during a tornado just enjoy sitting outside or inside with a door open watching the rain.
To be fair I don't think Laurence is claiming that American weather is truly unique, just that he hadn't seen its like in Britain. The British Isles are quite small, so even the interior isn't _that_ far from the coasts - so the fact that the US is 5000 km wide probably has something to do with this. (But as for tornadoes, I've heard they _really are_ rare or nonexistent outside the US Tornado Alley. Which seems wild to me. Of all the geography in the world, only a specific region of North America can regularly produce something as distinctive and powerful as a tornado?)
The fact you have never taken cover in a tornado is proof you've never seen a tornado near you. The dead dont speak.
I've had thunder rolling steady for like 5 minutes solid. Then light up the sky like it's daytime.
Just to emphasize what others here have likely already said: do NOT wait for the warning sirens to go off. They often don’t activate in time. There are consistent weather patterns you can look for that indicate imminent tornado activity instead: sky turning gold/amber, all wind gusts suddenly dying completely, and hail that suddenly stops. Whenever a tornado touches down nearby, these are changes that take place in the surrounding area and a decent indicator that you need to seek shelter. Be careful out there. Twisters move deceptively fast and they can switch directions way quicker than you expect from such a massive funnel.
Weather prediction has gotten a lot better, but I agree they're sometimes quite late to the party. I have seen weather live stream channels catch tornadoes forming 8 minutes before the national weather service.
And if you see one that doesn't seem to be moving, it is coming right at you. Seek shelter IMMEDIATELY!
My dad used to take me tornado hunting when I was little, the gold sky is super pretty. On a completely unrelated note, I have very little fear when it comes to inclement weather. How odd :)
@@FlowersOfIcetor knowing the danger closely helps to remove the fear of it, for now you understand more of the unknown.
Well waiting until you hear the sirens is like waiting until you see the massive tsunami wave towering over you before you head for the hills with any sense of urgency. There's no point in trying to wait it out to be sure and really no huge deficit in you taking shelter for a little longer than you think is necessary.
I was a lifeguard in the Chicago suburbs. One day when a storm was forecasted to come in and pool was not busy (likely due to said forecast). I was talking to a parent while their kid swam. The parent was from Britain and commented that growing up they thought the storms in American movies were a Hollywood exaggeration, but after they moved to Chicago they found out that it can rain that hard.
If you see it in multiple movies with no connection to each other. It’s not an exaggeration. Its real.
@@magicyber909 In that case, where can I go to buy my gun that never runs out of bullets? I want to go make some cars explode in giant fireballs when I shoot them.
@@magicyber909 if you see something in many movies with no connection, thats usually called a trope
@@stonecoldscubasteveo4827 Wal-Mart and do the whole Guns Akimbo thing?
@@bugsmith9751 Totally. I've never seen it rain frogs like in Magnolia... I feel swindled
I was in Illinois for at least part of the 2012 fiasco you mentioned. To be specific, I was on a plane back from Florida. It turns out our pilot was able to take off in Florida on time by changing our declared destination to Missouri, and his plan was to change it to Illinois once we got closer. It didn't work out. What was supposed to be a 2.5 hour flight became almost 8, flying around waiting to be cleared to land in either Indianapolis, Madison, or O'Hare. The turbulents were so bad that many adults were crying, and the flight attendants were visibly disturbed. The biggest drop still gives me nightmares a couple times a year. When the plane finally landed, we had air marshals and police enter the plane to arrest a man who molested a flight attendant in the chaos. Our pilot also was in quite the pickle and never said anything even after we landed. Some poor lad was in the bathroom when the big drop happened and suffered the consequences of Newton's Third Law. We were supposed to be off the plane by the mid-afternoon, but I remember getting home at almost 2am that day. Worst flight and worst storm of my life.
Sounds horrifying. Do you know if the guy in the bathroom had to receive medical treatment?
At least 'Karen's' hadn't perfected the art of spreading misery back then...really coulda cranked it up to 11 on a flight like that.
There is something so fun about these storms for me, especially in the summer because it provides us with respite from the hellish summer heat. The only trouble is my new house is a bit creaky and drafty so I get a bit nervous in those hail storms, but it’s always so cool. The only sign you get that the storm is coming is all the birds shut up and you stop seeing squirrels, then 10 minutes later the sky darkens, the wind picks up, the temperature drops, and the rain starts pouring.
Nothing like sitting out on the porch during a nice summer thunderstorm and just listening to the rain
One of my favorite things 😊
I have a screened in porch and getting a hammock chair for this summer. Whether it's rain or a neighbors bonfire burning, I can relax a bit before bed.
And the thunder a mile away that sounds and feels like a bomb just hit your neighbor's house lol
I was just gaming and then all sudden the entire house foundation shook from thunder
And the sirens... so lovely.
As someone who grew up in the midwest, I actually found myself missing these severe thunderstorms when I moved to the coast. There's something delightful about being inside during a thunderstorm. Getting to watch the fury of nature in the comfort of your home.
YEAH THIS GUY GETS IT
Oh dude I moved to Washington from Mississippi and there's barely anything aside from some decent rain, no thunder storms
Absolutely. Here in Texas the storms can be wonderfully violent. It's also pretty bipolar, with heavy rain to nothing to F5 to sunny in the span of 10 minutes.
The thunderstorms in Oklahoma are amazing. We had moved from IL to OK then to TX. I missed all the storms so much that we moved back to OK and bought a house.
That's great unless you live in a manufactured home (including tiny homes). An EF1 tornado that will simply destroy the roof and windows of a well-built house will literally turn a trailer into a cloud of aluminum confetti, along with the occupants.
I use to sit in my parents garage with the door up and listen to the thunderstorms. The lightning never bothered me, but the gust front of a storm and the sound of the rain coming through the woods was really exciting, and the smell of a storm was just so refreshing.
Used to sit on my buddy's veranda and do this. Best time.
Living in the Ozarks, we’ve even had a thunder storm with lightning striking rocks that sound like ricocheting bullets.
Yes we do
This captured the vibe of American storms so well that it made me nostalgic. The storms America gets are terrifying but when you grow up with them there's kind of enjoyment too when you're able to just hunker down safely and awe at the force of nature for a while.
What is so interesting is also how different the areas of the country are in regard to storms. In the north west the rain is...light. It is constant, but it is light. Like, wear a t shirt and feel wet but not drenched despite being soaked. Then you get north east rain where you feel the rain drops hitting you hard. The NW also doesn't get much hail compared to the NE. I live in a valley and get the mountain valley shadow effect. Thunder rolls and rolls and rolls across the land. You don't get that sound anywhere else. The SE has the best visuals though, the lightning just sparks and forks so amazing. The SW has heavier rain than the NW but it still on the lighter side yet seems to have a lot more wind so it comes sideways more often. Everywhere else is combinations of them and the combinations create very unique effects themselves. Where as the British isles have the same weather style all over them, but it is expected given the size difference.
Midwestern storms are beautiful in their chaos. I absolutely love those summer storms that pass through, just pelting everything in it's path and then suddenly its sunny again, but everything now has this warm orange glow from the leftover clouds. Just beautiful
All fun until one hits mid 2-hour drive with no spots to stop and no road lines to see💀
I sat on my roof and watched a storm come closer when I was younger I was super fun watching the lightning go through the clouds and seeing the rain at the house down the street get closer to us, I went inside before it the rain reached me but still
Where I live (the most northwestern tip of MS) we are protected from tornados pretty good by the bluffs, they break up potential tornados well. So we get all the tornado weather without the tornados. And yes there is enjoyment in watching nature in all her terrible beauty letting out a storm. Watching the sky go through those quick changes, the gorgeous lightening.....there is beauty in chaos for sure.
As a person from Texas, a tornado warning only lasting a few minutes is unheard of.
Same for downstate illinois, Chicago's weather is quirky on account of the lake though. I'm currently in hour two of a tornado warning actually
Born and raised Texan. CHicago T-storms aint got nothing on ours!
I’ve actually given up on taking shelter when warnings happen. I just sit on my couch, playing my PS5 and listen to the alarms going off. Plus, the clouds do be pretty when it’s not pitch black. But even then, when the lightning peeks through the clouds, it’s always a beautiful sight to see. I love clouds.
Thats weird when i was their i was fishing and we heard warnings and kept fishing and it never happened
Okie here. Tornado warning can last hours. Just keep living like you were unless you can see it coming your way.
Storms can get bad enough in Northwestern Ontario, but when I visited a friend of mine in Kansas, things were on a whole different level. I remember it had been cloudy all day, but in the evening we decided we were bored and wanted some junkfood. So we went to Walmart to get some things like chicken fingers and jalapeno poppers and such. After a while in the store, it sounded like the store "radio" was getting overtaken by static. Which makes no sense, because it's actually a closed circut track of songs, not a radio at all. Passing by the front doors again, we look outside, and all that could be seen was grey. A *WALL* of rain was outside, you couldn't see more than 50 feet or so and the standing water was almost ankle deep.
As someone who had a tornado pass through his neighborhood and possibly OVER HIS HOME, it can be terrifying even if you never directly lay eyes on it. One minute me and my housemate were idly prepping, the next, there’s sirens on and we put ourselves in the bathroom, no time to grab the cats… and in that dark bathroom with the power dead, phone flashlights on, we hear the air being SUCKED OUT OF THE VENT RIGHT OVER OUR HEADS. Then, in less than 30 seconds, it was past us. We stay in another few minutes before we get out. Our place had its cruddy fake plastic shutters ripped off and our grill was yeeted down a hill, but otherwise the house and its contents were fine. Meanwhile half of other houses in the neighborhood had their attics torn open in one place or another and there was at least one broken window. And other houses and buildings in town were outright destroyed. Terrifying stuff. Many of those buildings are still in ruins to this day, too.
Amazing. That you could _hear_ the sharp drop in air pressure through your bathroom vent makes total sense, particularly if you didn't have any windows open elsewhere in the house - but I'd never thought of that detail.
Glad you were not hurt. Hope no one was injured elsewhere because of course it is true (as it is often said) you may be able to replace things, but not people. We are in central Michigan, which state was this in?
The weirdest storm I have experience was many years ago in upstate New York. We had a snow storm with thunder and lightening. I think the weather people called it "thunder snow".
Probably a nor'easter. Those are wild
@@parallelpinkparakeet oh yea, nor' easters can be wild!!!
I've experienced that several times living in Wisconsin. We have extremely weird weather here. I have experienced tornadoes in the middle of winter, 24" of snow in 1 day, temperatures in the 60's in January and then 2 days later it's -10 outside, and much much more.
Iowa occasionally has thunder snow, either in late fall or early spring. It is weird.
Seen thunder snow in Chicago and Tennessee. Love it.
Currently in Montana, otherwise known as "Big Sky Country", and for good reason. Thunderstorms can get pretty big here, but they look infinitely more intimidating when you can see them from 70 miles away, stretching miles high into the sky over the mountain ranges, lighting up an entire county with lightning strikes.
A good Montana thunderstorm is always a sight to see. And I'm over near the Idaho border, so I don't even see the really big storms that form in the eastern part of the state.
I'm from the mountains of WV, but I had the fortune to take a cross country trip with my mom some years ago, and holy shit. I was driving when a storm rolled in, and watching that thing creep across the sky towards us over a few hours was ominous enough, but when it finally hit, visibility went to shit, the wind was pushing me out of my lane, and there was mf hail. We outran it and camped out in the next town we found but that was one of the most intense bouts of weather I've ever experienced
I'm completely serious when I say, this is the first time I've wanted to visit Montana.
Used to be like that in Arizona. Earliest memories are of watching storms approach across vast expanses of desert.
My brother used to work for big sky :)
Cannot express adequately how much I love your persona in these videos. Voice, cadence, humor and topics all top notch.
"Ain't got nothin' on" glad to see you're picking up our vernacular! Lol😅
A truly terrifying sight is going outside and seeing the sky being a shade of green and the wind almost blowing you over.
Yeah that green is something else. You know you’re in deep when the whole atmosphere turns green around you
The sky turns green because of hail so you know it’s gonna be bad
@@wcor33 and also tornadoes
@@pestilencetheplague7646 gotta love the tornadoes that go along with it
Every time it turns green you know shit is going down *for sure*
As someone from Chicago it’s so interesting seeing someone from an entirely different country talk about what it’s like living where I’ve been my entire life
Do you guys still have the creepy sirens that sound like spaceships? Lol I’m from Kansas but y’all’s sirens sound so weird
@@lwebster7100 You talking about the tornado sirens? As far as I know that’s all round the Chicagoland area
I didn't know the countries of Britain were entirely different from the United States of America. I was certain countries like India, Cambodia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Morrocco, etc. were more different from the United States of America than those of Britain. I served with a guy from Peru and they said they keep their dogs on the roofs of their homes there. Is that a common thing here in the United States of America or Britain that I never heard about? India is among those where the tradition of eating with the hands is still popular. Is that a thing in Britain or parts of the US of A I never visited? What about using literal latrines (the hole in the ground) rather than toilets?
@L Webster my partner lives across the street from a school and it sounds so much scarier right next to you, I'm close to a park but it's far enough to just tune it out
@@lwebster7100 They're in the entirety of the midwest. And yes, they sound absolutely terrifying, which is why Siren Man exists.
In 1977 a massive thunderstorm went through Kansas City followed by a second storm which pulled the first storm back. There were layers of lighting strikes hundreds of feet in the air and nearly non stop thunder. It was spectacular to watch. The storm lasted most of the evening causing a devastating flood. The next day I saw cars tossed around like toys on my way to work. I doubt I will ever see a bigger storm than that was.
In general, they do testing on tornado sirens on specific days of the month to avoid any confusion. If you hear a tornado siren, that's a good sign to get to shelter and listen to news broadcasts. Also, buy a portable, hand crank radio, preferably with a flashlight. Also also, if walker brothers pancakes is still open in Chicago, they are tasty.
Tornados can be weird. When I was 8 or 9, we had a tornado take the concrete stairs from my front door and throw them into the neighbors' yard 3 houses down, but the baby Aspen tree we had planted 2 weeks prior, standing maybe 3-4 feet tall, and 10' from said stairs, wasn't missing a leaf.
that wasn't the tornado, that was me.
@@ongoingplague3148 I've heard you've been spoken to about these shenanigans. One of these days it's going to land on something you'll regret.
I've heard of someone's shed or something being shifted over and inch by a tornado, and then another tornado moving it back years later. Might just be an old wives tale, but it's funny either way
Yeah, we call them downbursts. In the area I live in we have the mountains and they shield up from proper Tornados but we get little brief micro tornados that shoot down, touch down and then pop right back up into the clouds. Like a swimmers foot when the dip a toe in and the water is just too darn cold. But those can do some serious damage to whatever they hit. In the case of the one near my grandmothers apartment it shaved the branches off one side of a tree and left them scattered all around the road and ground nearby. But the tree wasn't harmed in any other way just like someone took a magical eraser and removed half of its branches on one side.
@@TheLastSane1 had one of those in the mountains of WV when I was a kid! Huge trees with trunks my 6ft dad could barely wrap his arms around were swaying like saplings. When the roads were cleared and we could finally leave, the telephone poles along the road away from the mountain were all snapped in half for a quarter mile. It still feels like a dream
As a lifelong resident of the Midwest, I love how you've learned (to a degree) the casual post-tornadic attitude. Two weeks ago when we had to go in the basement for a tornado, as soon as we emerged, I just went back to doing a final for school.
Yep. It's like how people in the south freak out at an inch of snow, while we just go about our lives when it's several feet lol.
@@universalsoldier2293 Where I'm from, South Texas, it's like but with hurricanes. If school/work has power you gotta show up
Yeah, once after a tornado warning and flooding storm, my classmates and I went outside and bellyflopped in the lake that was once a yard
Nothing like doing homework in an empty tub during a tornado warning because your family doesn't have a shelter and the neighbors don't wanna share
@@genera1013 I'm in north Texas and every March-october I'm in a panic when I see storms are predicted. I've been here 7 years and I'll never get used to that!
The Derecho of 2020 was unbelievable in Iowa. We had about 5 minutes notice and experienced 100+ mph winds and almost my entire city had no electricity for days. Cedar Rapids Iowa had 145 mph winds for almost an hour. I heard almost every building in Cedar Rapids was damaged.
That happened in Springfield Illinois just this past June 29th. The derecho damage was so bad it made the papers all the way out in Las Vegas! We were without electricity for 6 days.
My town in Nixa Mo caught a derecho this year. It was crazy
The great lakes area has the oddest storm patters. Some towns always stay dry while their neighbors north, south, east, and west of them get buried under snow. Along Lake Ontario, we watch clouds over Buffalo make the Himalayas look tiny, and we can know for certain they're getting smashed 10x harder than us.
I love how quiet the world gets before a thunderstorm
The... The thing... The thing before the thing... I forgot.
@@Saltier The calm before the storm?
I was in York, UK, in June 1990. It was a stormy afternoon, rain threatening. I was wandering the Shambles up near the Minster when sirens started to sound. As a resident of Oklahoma at the time my first thought was, “Tornado,!”. But none of the locals seemed concerned. I then emerged in front of the Minster where they were holding a 50th Battle of Britain memorial. They were air raid sirens.
The "tornado" sirens around the US were never intended to be for that purpose. They started life as Civil Defense sirens for possible nuclear attacks. The Civil Defense Act of 1951 was passed by Harry Truman. Part of that Civil Defense Act mandated public fallout shelters for the Atomic Bomb as well as outdoor warning sirens that would warn the public of an Atomic Bomb blast. Ton June 11, 1958, the day after a tornado struck in Butler County, Kansas, sirens, known to alert for an atomic bomb threat, were sounded for a potential tornado at 11:05 p.m. in east Wichita. It was the first world use as a tornado siren.
@@Whatthechuckttv Interesting! It makes sense that air raid sirens would be reused for emergency events. Since you are primed to hear them as a lead up to a '$hit gonna hit the fan' moment
In Michigan they still test them at 1pm, on the first Saturday of each month. Though we hear them a few times during the summer when tornado warnings pop up. For some weird reason, lately it’s been kind of butt puckering to hear it on a clear day, wondering if something worse is happening. Only to check the watch and see it’s 1pm on Saturday…
@@darrelljohnson7832 in Ohio, it’s the first Wednesday of the month at noon
@@darrelljohnson7832 In Arkansas, it's the first Tuesday of every month at noon, if bad weather isn't in the forecast.
When I was little, my mother would sit me down with her in the bay window to watch the lightning. She didn't want me to be afraid of thunder. It worked. Even violent lightning evokes a sense of peace and nostalgia in me today, time spent with my mom. And the smell on the air in the minutes before the rain arrives... seek cover, and then enjoy. Thanks mom.
Nothing will ever be as awe inspiring as sitting out on your covered porch watching a raging thunderstorm race towards you and engulf everything.
I live in the Chicago area. Tuesday we had baseball size hail and then Wednesday morning we awoke to the sounds of the tornado siren going off. It's been a very active April so far.
Happy spring 🌼
Wrath of God weather. Sounds about right for Chicago.
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Phoenix summer thunderstorm can accompany a DUST storm
And it's only the beginning of April. .. sorry to hear that, glad you're okay. I'm in Rhody, where they don't even have the language to discuss tornados. I once heard a local weatherpers9n refer to "intermittent tornados". Yeesh
A lil bit of advice from a southwestern American: googling a weather radar for your area during a storm can help give you a good idea of whether a storm has actually left or if you’re just in a brief gap (as well as give you an idea of how intense the storm may be). Also, if you’re outside and notice all of the birds perched around you starting to take off, that’s another sign that stormy weather may be about to pick up. Birds can usually pick up on those changes in the air shortly before they hit, so following their lead and heading home could keep you dry
That or if the birds are chattering before dawn, means a stormy day.
Same up here with snow. The sooner the birds hunker down the heavier the storm.
Anecdotes about wildlife aside, the advice to pay attention to the hard data is the best you'll find in these comments. It used to be that the best resource for this data was the minimaps in the corners of live broadcasts, but nowadays the best realtime data tends to come in the form of regular tweets from your local weathermen. Using that, in combination with a radar app, will do an excellent job of lifting the "fog of war" that tends to make people needlessly panic out of sheer lack of understanding.
@@Asterra2 fair point. I was just saying a fairly reliable folk method. Regardless, nothing beats satellite data and phone alerts.
He'd better not get caught watching the birds. He's a married man!
You need to visit Central Texas where the thunder shakes the very Earth. Literally. Buildings shudder with the impact of the sound.
I grew up in Virginia, and in 1968 the "tail end" of Hurricane Camille came through our area. My mother said that it rained at our house for 30 minutes. It dumped 4 1/2 inches of rain in that period and triggered several floods of local rivers. We lost friends who died in the floods. No tornados that I remember, just a really bad thunderstorm.
My coworker from California used to make fun of me because anytime there was going to be a storm I could smell it, and when the clouds started to form I could tell immediately if there was gonna be a tornado (sky is usually a different color). He would always ask me when there were clouds and I’d tell him “no it’s not green or brown enough, not gonna be a tornado” 😂
My family's made fun of me for that too 😅 Apparently you can smell the ozone from thunderstorms, and you can definitely feel a pressure change when a cold front rolls in.
Bro did you say _green?_ Doesn't the sky only turn green when the tornado already ripped a bunch of trees out of the ground? 🤣
@@droganovic6879 umm, no. The sky turning green thing is real, and it is extremely eerie. It has to do with the way the light is refracted/scattered during certain weather phenomena
In Georgia we have had green/orange/red skies - it's usually EXTREMELY quiet sometimes also and you feel like you are on a different planet ahah
The colour of a week old bruise is how I describe it
Some years ago, while traveling in the Appalachian area of the US South I experienced a storm like I'd never seen, with dark green sky, torrential rain, hail, deafening thunder and lightning. Really felt like the end of the world happening. When it had passed and the sun came out, the world was glowing. I mean, trees, cars, houses ... everything looked lighted from within. Absolutely surreal! Never saw anything like it, before or since.
Ah yes, the storms that looks make it look like the sky is filled with the yellow-green glow of a nuclear Holocaust. Those are fun.
Sounds like Spring! April showers and all that ^^
We have that in California too. After a rain storm (which is infrequent) everything is fresh, the air is clean.
The weirdest thing I remember was while Dad was driving us through Kansas one day. We passed through a small town of about 250 people, and overhead was a thick black cloud. The sky could be easily seen around the cloud as it by no means seemed to be more than a mile and a half in diameter, but once we crossed under the cloud, the sky turned a funky yellow color. It never came ro anything as I recall, but it was a creepy sight. I slept through the 2020 storm in my parents travel trailer. While I slept, the storm tore the shingles from the front of my parents house. This recent storm collapsed on of the gas stations and tore up the shingles on the back of the house.
Wow. Never seen the green, glow yes.
I live in SW Missouri and have had several tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, and bad thunderstorms which did not garner either. My town was under the supercell thunderstorm which produced the Joplin tornado.
As someone who has lived in the Midwest my entire life, just because the rain seems to have stopped, it doesn't mean its over
I remember going to a grad party in the early 80s on the St. Croix river for a classmate from our brother school. A couple of other attendees had been going there too on one of our state highways through the northern suburbs. At one point, the driver, another friend, hollered “Oh shit!” while looking in the rear view mirror and sped up. The back seat passengers turned to look and saw a tornado chasing them. It ended up taking the roof off a small mall and almost destroying a smaller double store across the road, also damaging the McDonald’s on the lot to the north. Fortunately it spun out before it got as far east as the river, but the clouds and the storm were ugly. Whenever severe weather is bearing down on or hits in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, that storm usually gets mentioned. It was also included in an exhibit about severe weather in Minnesota done by the History Center in the late 90s.
As someone that grew up in the midwest I can smell rain coming. It might not actually be by smell but other things like the humidity cloud shapes that I don't realize I'm doing. its something you have to get used to when you live here. Not to mention the sound of thunder. I've had windowpanes nearly break just by the sound of thunder alone. I like our chaotic storms, they help me sleep.
What you are smelling is ozone, and yes it absolutely is a thing. You also can feel the air pressure change if you have damaged joints.
@@Nempo13 Live in Texas, for storms in the summer there are also the significant temperature drops preceeding a thunderstorm. Like 20-30 degree drop in the span of like 15 minutes. Its wild feeling the air temp around you drop like someone turned on the AC in a small room.
Same! Always love it when I’m just stepping outside and can take in that nice earthy smell before I even see the clouds. Especially where I live in Arizona that in monsoon season there’s a slight dusty smell that combines with it after it’s passed. gotta love the way one of those really big thunder claps just rattle through you too. Perfect sleeping/napping weather!
Aaa, the smell of ozone! nothing else like it! Here in the PNW we get that too: "Smells like rain"
I love when it is a good hard thunderstorm and you can hear the rain on the roof and windows. I love curling up under my blankets and have my absolute best sleeps ever!
I don’t care about what you’re saying yet I still cannot stop watching. Well played, sir… well played
I have been through a number of storms, and I even experienced an F-5 when I lived in the suburbs of Chicago. I currently live in Charleston, SC, and I was here for hurricane Hugo, the first storm in an escalation of hurricane activity that lasted 11 years. It may seem bad today, but the number of storms and their severity has declined sharply since the early 2000s.
Or, put another way, there was a spike in the early 2000s that we haven't returned to yet. Give climate change a bit more time, I'm sure we will. (:
What's funny is that in the midwest we're pretty used to that kinda weather, so much so that we basically just shrug it off like it's nothing and go about our day. One time I was at my friends place and all our phones were blowing up with emergency alerts saying severe storm warning, tornado warning, and flood warning at the same time, but you know what we did? We turned off the alerts and went to taco bell haha
That sort of happens here on the upper east coast as well! When our phones blow up with severe storm warnings, everyone just gets slightly disgruntled from the sudden loud noise before continuing on.
A relative of mine often retells the time when a tornado made landfall down the street from the McDonalds she was working at. While the staff was locking down the restaurant, they had customers complaining that nobody was taking their orders.
And that attitude right there is how people die when there’s a tornado lmao
Shit I just shut those things off 5+ years ago cause those alerts are so damn annoying. Still have the presidential alerts on though so if world war 3 starts I'll know before heading out in the nuclear fallout to grab a cheeseburger
Yup. I’m not going in a small room just for nothing. I’m trying to see what’s going to inevitably kill me.
While I was in high school, we had a German exchange student in our class. It was in April of that year a monster thunderstorm hit town. I remember him looking out the window of the classroom, watching the sky turn black, the searing bolts of lighting which lit the cloud. I remember him flinching as a boom of thunder actually rattled the windows. The torrents of rain you could hear hitting the building. After the storm past over, he said that a bad storm in Germany did not come even close to what he experienced that day.
Had a friend in NJ that had to send their dog out to her brother in Cali. Supposedly there were no thunder storms in Manhattan Beach
I remember we had a French exchange student when I was in graduate school in California. In the 6 months she was with us she experienced a decent-sized earthquake, probably a 3ish on the Richter scale (feels like Thor slammed the earth with his hammer. Stuff rattles alarmingly) and a wildfire where she got trapped on a train that had to back up because the tracks were on fire. I remember her stomping into the room and shouting "How do people live here??"
@@samanthab1923 Pretty true.
@@stickywiggit Man I'm from the States and I also question how do people live in California
Yeah, if you have a big cumulus cell thunderstorm it looks like the sky is going to swallow you up, our friends from Bosnia were a little freaked out since they don’t get the towering look there. And the lightning and thunder combo really don’t disappoint, especially if it’s nighttime
Sometime in the mid-90's there was a huge thunderstorm that just kept circulating and not moving over the entire Twin Cities. It dumped 10+ inches of rain and had tornados and funnel clouds all over the area for about 12 hours. What I remember most was the lighting. Just volumes of huge strikes. A relentless thunderstorm with driving rains
Yeah, I think I remember that, and praying for you guys ! I'm from Dunn co., WI, so, after you guys it came our way usually, and we had a dairy farm to deal with, so, may have been a little thankful for us, too :).
That's terrifying
I just found this channel but I getting an absolute chuckle out of how British this guy is, the constant 'I've just witnessed something unsettling' look on his face, the pretentious, comforting, and constantly moving right past punctuation cadence of his speech, all culminates to being the most entertaining video I've watched in years, well done. Also I live in 'Tornado Alley' so I appreciate the meta take on how insane we all are.
The worst times are when the sky turns a odd color like green, red, really watchout is it is near black that mean there is a near invisible tornado sucking up dirt near by.
Oddly accurate
I think the weirdest storm I ever experience was when I was a kid up here in Michigan. The sky was forest green, the lighting was purple, the rain was hot and we took shelter in a bowling alley where everyone refused to stop bowling, even after the power went out. I had to verify that this actually happened because it sounds bizarre, but no, both my parents verified it actually happened.
Yeah, it's so odd when the sky turns green. If I'm remembering correctly it's because of how light gets absorbed and reflected differently off the water particles in the stormcloud.
Oddly enough, that does not sound weird to me.
@@millenial90 hail core, green and yellow is a sign of heavy hail in the clouds
Yeah, sounds like a typical midwestern experience. Hot rain, weird lightning and bowling.
@Sahaquiel I know Michigan gets tornadoes. My friend got hit by one in the 70s while logging. They hid in the machines and cut there way out. Didn't know it aad coming till they heard it
lived in the southern US my whole life and the Thunderstorms are most common during the spring and fall when the temperature gradient is the largest.
As someone who grew up in the Chicagoland area and has since moved away, I very much love a good thunderstorm and miss them.
I grew up in Sydney Australia, a place known for intense thunderstorms compared to the UK. But now living in the mid west US I find the thunderstorms here are off the chart intense. The whole concept of storms forming trains hundreds of miles long just blows my mind. Fortunately I love thunderstorms (without the tornadoes) so really enjoy the prospects of fine summer thunderstorms
Oh man the smell when the storm comes in love it
@@patrickmartin6977 i always smell corn after the storm ends. probably because i live in indiana
It's wild for us to think other places aren't like this, tbh. We're just so used to it. I'm not comfortable with it at all, like everyone around me is. But I'm used to it, if that makes sense. Trying to explain to international friends why they scare me so much is really hard because they cannot understand. Lol.
@soviet yunyun lol I always smell the River. I live in the Mississippi River areas.
@@patrickmartin6977 Petrichor! The best smell.
In the US midwest the saying is, "Don't like the weather? Just wait 5 minutes." Last Saturday, we had strong winds, 1 tornado warning (with those sirens), thunder, lightning strikes (power outage was brief, thankfully), rain, hail 3 times so thick it looked like a blizzard, and ... in between each of those, bright sunshine. Crazy! Glad you're all OK & super glad Arthur isn't sensitive to the sound of thunder!
Colorado is like that too. Snowing one day, 75 and sunny the next.
My grandma used to say that, but she would add onto the end "Or move 5 feet." It can be true some times.
Clichés do come from truth, however, so...quit telling others what to do or not do. Here in the Plains States it is a true statement, very, very frequently. "Don't like the weather, wait 5." Don't like what I am saying? Tough.
I live less than 10 miles from Little Rock, AR. Just missed us, but was a little harry
Massachusetts has entered the chat
In 'artford, 'ereford, and 'ampshire, 'urrican's 'ardly 'appen, but in the Southeastern US, they happen quite often. Large hurricane storms can also spawn tornados as well as the flooding and wind damage from the hurricane. I remember being in Raleigh, North Carolina during Fran in 1997. Worst storm I'd been in. My power was cut off for a week!
Speaking of Twisters, did you know that L Frank Baum wrote the Wizard of Oz in 1899-1900 while he lived in Chicago at 1667 Humboldt Ave ?
I live in Brooklyn now and miss the dramatic T-Storms of WI and Chicago!!! One of the scariest things you didn't mention - which I've seen a handful of times - is when the sky turns GREEN 😱
Greenish-yellow and you head to a basement fast. That's a sure fire sign of a tornado.
Oh my gosh! Yes!!
Greenish yellow, no birds in sight, and then all breezes stop. You have moments to get to the basement.
I've seen that too (in Indy once) Tornado sirens blaring, the clouds were spinning horizontally but the tip never came down to the ground vertical. Pretty surreal.
I've seen tornado documentaries with the green sky.
1:25 As a midwesterner, the big wind gust and ominous clouds are my favorite part
The worst is when we get big wind and ominous clouds but utterly zero rain.
I dunno how it is in Illinois, but in Missouri we adopted the policy of sounding the tornado sirens in counties adjacent to the warnings. Sometimes they go off but nothing happens but a few dark clouds and a light rain.
This is definitely more of a thing in the Midwest than where I come from. In New England the storms to look out for are generally snow storms, barring tropical storms coming up the coast from the south that the weather report makes a point to freak out about at least once a year. Generally speaking, "severe weather" in New England is the kind of thing you can sleep through and deal with in the morning. Since moving to tornado alley, I've gained a whole new respect for the kind of nerves of steel it sometimes takes to live here.
I just wanted to say thank you for taking warnings seriously. Unfortunately many of us in the Midwest start to get complacent and start to ignore warnings because they often come and go without actual damage. But you never know when it’s going to be the storm that could change your life. Every warning should be taken seriously, like you did here. A few minutes in your safe place is a minor inconvenience compared to the potential for life changing injuries or death.
I came to say the same thing: thanks for taking the siren seriously and getting your family downstairs. Too often, people who come from places - especially other countries - that don't have tornadoes tend to laugh at locals who head for the basement. OK, laugh, but laugh while you're getting your hienies to a strong shelter. Seeing the aftermath on a video and walking around in the unbelievable destruction and rubble is quite another. I was traumatized for years after walking around where half of my junior college had been just 24 hours earlier - there was *nothing* except pieces of god-knows-what that would fit in your pocket. It literally took me ten years before I could even go to bed when wherever I was living was even under a tornado Watch (which, btw, just means the conditions are suitable for a *possible* tornado, whereas a Warning means THERE'S A TORNADO HEADING RIGHT FOR YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD). They ain't no joke, folks.
Every extra local who takes the warnings seriously is another bit of social pressure to destigmatize sheltering. It's always awkward to be one person, but two people can reinforce sheltering (and laugh at the lack of it from others) and keep each other preoccupied. Sometimes, we need creative ways to fight the little devil in our brains that tells us "it's not a big deal."
In the Southern US, we didn’t get into our shelters unless you saw the 🌪️ coming down the street.
@CAP198462 which is unfortunate when the tornado is rain-wrapped or develops overnight 😞
Same here in Florida w hurricanes. Always stay prepared and aware.
As a survivor of the April 2011 tornados that tore through Alabama (among other states) I can say take those warnings seriously! We could hear the air being sucked out of our house as the tornado went past that day. It’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced.
Oh my god, I remember that. I lived south of where the tornado hit, but if I recall correctly, we had a neighbor who's house got completely torn apart. They lived maybe a mile from us? I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. Tornadoes do not let up here.
I'm from the Dothan area, so we were mostly unscathed during that outbreak, but I remember going up to Tuscaloosa afterwards with my church to help clean up and pass out provisions
@@Lechgang Thank you so much! I’m so sorry for your neighbors. That storm brought so much destruction. We were in Pleasant Grove and big parts of the town were just torn away. The National Guard came and people couldn’t enter or exit the area. The quiet after the storm was very eerie! It took us all day (8+ hours/day) every day for over a week to clean up just the debris in our yard.
@@RecklawTheAmazing thank you for helping out! We ate church provided provisions in the days after that storm. You couldn’t leave the area and return so we had no way to get more food. I’m thankful to the lady at our local CVS for giving us snacks and bottled water too. I feel for anyone who goes through these storms. And I applaud those who help in the aftermath. ❤
Those tornadoes even hit TN a bit but missed the eastern part effectively.
My town just went through a tornado earlier this month. It claimed our town’s small airport, many houses, electrical lines, even the part of my college campus where I went to school. It’s nice to hear someone talk about how severe American weather can be.
Blizzards, tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail...I grew up in remote rural Minnesota. Every year we'd get 2 or 3 of each, some years waaaay more. We loved it tho we only ever suffered a some broken limbs, power outages and a few flooded spots. It made me a total weather geek! Thanks for the videos!!
It is always interesting to me to see people from other parts of the world talk about the storms in America because it's so normal to me. I'm from North Carolina and one of my core memories is eating spaghetti with my sister in the closet under the stairs while my parents monitored the tornado on the news in the living room. Where we live the ground is too wet for basements so under the stairs is the most structurally protected place in the house. I live in Italy now and I didn't anticipate how much I would miss our thunderstorms. We've had maybe two good ones in the two years I've lived here. Whenever we do have one it really reminds me of home. My Italian professor was baffled at how happy I was to hear thunder during class. It's just so familiar and I have so many memories of lying in bed and listening to the thunder as it rattled the windows. When I was a kid, my dad would sit on the porch with me and my sister and watch the lightning at night. We learned how to tell how far the lighting was away based on the speed of sound. I've only heard one thunderclap here that has actually shaken the ground. It heals my homesickness just a little bit. I don't think I could live somewhere with such mild weather forever because I miss the storms too much. I also want to sit on the porch with my kids and watch the lightning strike.
Oh I feel the same way. I'll never forget my Dad teaching me that the thunder was just the trolls playing bowling and the loudest ones were when they had a strike!
I never thought it'd be something I could miss, but I'd definitely be homesick for the thunder that rattles the foundation and windowframes- there's nothing for it
Mmmm closet spaghetti...
@@LeeStJohn-ym4df wholesome
We also had a tornado closet under the stairs being also from a place to wet and lowlying to have basements. Me and my brother would do shadow puppets during tornadoes. I also feel like I sleep better during thunderstorms.
As a former Midwesterner, always keep an eye on the weather forecast, especially in summertime. Learn how to see a tornado or its precursors on radar, and keep a NOAA radio around. If a tornado watch is issued, prepare a small kit of essentials, like medecine and the like. If a tornado warning is issued, go IMMEDIATELY to whatever your best shelter is, preferably a basement, with your kit. Keep a device that can pull up the radar and NOAA info. Wait until the warning passes before leaving the shelter. 90% of the time nothing will happen, but better to play it safe than end up a statistic.
But lets be honest 😂 most of us immediately go outside on the porch and tornado watch
This same storm sprouted a tornado in my neighborhood before it moved East. It was an F1 but the amount of damage due to trees was massive. People are still cleaning up!
You can almost feel it in the air when a big storm is coming soon
@@spookydood3965 feel that, that’s a big one coming! Is what my grandpa says whenever we’re on his farm before a huge storm.
@@Mink_Tracks Texans in a nutshell.
Oddly enough, the only time I've ever been to England was August of 2002 and there was a hailstorm there. Now I've been living in Florida since 2004 and only experienced one hailstorm and that was just last week!
For most of us in the US, the word “garden” implies a planting (large or small) of flowers or vegetables or decorative plants or some combination of these things. You might have a garden in your yard or even a container garden on your porch or deck or balcony. But if you mostly have just grass-a lawn-on the property in front or back of your home, then you just have a yard (which is quite common), not a garden. With that understanding, most homeowners in the US have yards, but not gardens.
Growing up in the south, I always loved a mid day thunderstorm. It wasn't til I got older that I realized how dangerous they can be. But still, I sit love sitting on the porch listening to the wind in the trees and the sound of the rain. Even the crack of distant thunder is soothing to me. The best part though is when the wind breaks up the rain and blows mist onto the porch.
Yes it's the best
A couple of years ago I was living in San Jose, and a front rolled through overnight with some dry thunder (which lead to what was, at least at the time, the largest wildfire in CA history). I was woken up by it, and being the midwesterner that I am, rolled over and went back to sleep. The next day everyone I talked to complained about staying up half the night in fear.
Yup. I sued to spend my childhood watching them from the screen door. Until my mom yelled, ofc.
Lived through a tornado in Ohio when I was a kid. Took most of the house but fortunately we made it to the basement and all the neighbors did too. No fatalities but a lot of damage. Always take those warnings seriously
my adopted kitty lost her prior home in a tornado, here in Cleveland storms generally track west to east, she's been known to hear a thunderstorm in Toledo tracking in this direction and scamper under the bed
Weather patterns here in Nebraska are pretty wild! Love it when you can smell the coming storm and everything goes green/orange/pink
Midwestern are wild, they'll hear the sirens go off and immediately go outside to see if they can spot the tornado. Like "oh boy, I sure can't wait to see God's wrath descending from the sky to rip houses off their foundations!"
When I went to university, I remember there was a huge thunderstorm at the beginning of the school year, one of the really crazy ones we get a couple times per year in Ohio/midwest. I didn't think much of it, but there were a bunch of international students huddled around the windows in the dorm because they had never seen anything like it in real life.
I mean, an Ohio joke would be too easy, but Ohio, amirite? (/lh)
Yea. I remember we had a foreign exchamge student who when winter hit was unprepared. Wearing two jackets too school... while other people where wearing shorts like it was summer.
This happened well over a decade ago (because my parents and I hadn't yet moved out of NY state), but I can still remember one year where upstate New York actually got hit by a tornado, and it traveled across the route that my family and I would use to go to our camp up at Sacandaga Lake in August. And then, while the families in that area were still reeling and recovering from that tornado....the exact same area then got nailed full force by a hurricane that then flooded the area. Those poor people literally took a one-two punch from both a Tornado and Hurricane before any of them had even begun the process or trying to recover from the tornado. And Tornadoes/Hurricanes are pretty rare up in NY. I can still remember seeing all of the destruction left in the wake of those two storms, and I felt horrible for every family that those storms had hit.
There's a quality to the air that you will notice about an hour before the storm. It's a scent, and the coolness.
As someone who was born and raised in the Midwest, I'd feel wrong if I didn't say that you missed out on the Midwestern pass-time of standing outside while the sirens are going off and looking for the Tornado. :D No, while this is actually something a lot of people do (I remember family members and myself going out on the porch when I was younger) it's a terrible idea, so good on you for not messing around. Also, thank you for the puppy play time at the end, freakin adorable!!
It's usually the dad that goes and looks while his wife is yelling at him to get inside. 🤣
I can't NOT go outside and see it all happen. I love it! The excitement and terror of it all is just too intense to miss out on. It's like practice for Gabriel's trumpet.
Iowan dad here, can confirm. I am on the porch with the weather radio, lopper, & a beer. I need to be ready in case a tree falls over my dead end road. Only storm I've stayed inside during was the 2020 derecho; glad I did, it nearly blew my front door out of its frame.
We have sirens? I can't remember ever hearing them in my life regardless of the storm.
@Zach Seeman as a lifer here too, I absolutely cannot understand this mindset. I am absolutely terrified. There was a video of a woman who was saved by her husband from being sucked into it because she was doing just that. I mean...your family loves you, why put yourself in danger on purpose? I'm not even trying to sound critical, just genuine understanding because I have the opposite reaction.
as an Iowan I can confirm that there's a reason we have our sirens go off once a month
Once a month? Lucky. In my area of Iowa they set the dang thing off every day!
Oklahoma has them every Saturday at noon!
in Michigan and Ohio it's every Saturday at noon
Your sirens go off? In florida there ain't no siren for hurricanes. and when they start spewing out tornados like a fuckin dark souls boss? Nothing.
@@wetswordfighter Not only do sirens go off in the Midwest but they also actually use the emergency broadcast system. You hear the signal on the radio (like during the tests in the northeast) and they tell you where the tornado has been sighted and where moving or likely if not sighted. In the northeast they constantly have the emergency broadcast system tests yet never use it other than maybe the three tv networks (if you are watching another channel oh well no warning for you even though those channels have the test all the time) even on 9/11 when they were evacuating major cities while the last plane was still missing there was no emergency broadcast, nor right after the very rare earth quake ten years ago, ok if didn’t use it then what are they saving it for and constantly testing?
There is so many signs, good one i was taught when the wind starts. Watch the leaves they will turn bottom side up to prepare to catch the coming rains.
Wow, not only was I chuckling at how seriously you take the tornado warnings, but immediately after (6:12) you showed my home, Dayton. And I remember the storm that did that damage you showed. That storm knocked out power to my house, so I finished the wings from the airfryer on the grill, and watched the rest of it go by from my porch.
As a Texan I grew up with tropical storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes. I count my blessings that I don’t have to worry about mudslides and earthquakes.
Felt that, altho thankfully I live in this nice sweet spot where we're south enough to be just out the usual Tornado zone (my hometown has only had one once) and just north enough to not get super effected by hurricanes and tropical storms
Growing up in southern California, I'm grateful we have earthquakes and don't have to deal with the high wind storm varieties (we had a tropical storm not too long ago, but it was nothing like what the other side of the country gets). Tornado's freak me out enough to never want to move where they happen.
@@summernovah Very lucky. Hope good fortune continues to favor you.
@@KyleDavis328 Hurricanes aren’t so bad to deal with as long as you have ample supplies and a backup generator for the aftermath. Grab everything important and evacuate to a safe area before it arrives and you’ll be fine. I’ve weathered through a few hurricanes and tropical storms, and I’ve slept through each one with no problem. Hurricanes get bad due to the fact that there are people who are unable to evacuate for various reasons and others who are too stubborn to, and unfortunately pay the price. Tornadoes are scarier cause once one touches down you can’t get out of dodge safely. You’ll just have to hunker down in the safest room in the house and pray.
Funny cause I'm from Cali and have the exact opposite views. Last earquake I was in I was outside bare foot and saw my house shake but didn't feel it in the ground. I'm far more terrified on high moving winds than I am shaking ground lol.
When I lived in Japan, with all its earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami, etc., I thought, "Well, at least I'm safe from tornadoes!" We had a tornado.
Yea, most Midwesterners don't bother with hiding when a tornado warning happens. We usually go stand out on the porch and look for the funnel cloud. If we can't see them, we ignore it. If we can, we generally stand their and watch it. Then we bolt for shelter if we see it coming our way.