Ever see a tornado?

[Rick Denney]

Hey: We recently experienced a rather nasty storm in Western PA and I took some pictures of what looks like a tornado or a funnel cloud. If you've ever experienced a tornado, please give me some feedback as to what it is. Thanks!

http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/43c8e30f ... EBwEofWWeh

Your URL returns an error, so I could not see your picture.

Funnel clouds can be invisible on their way to becoming a tornado. If there isn't rain or dust in the funnel, it will be quite hard to see. I was driving up I-27 from Lubbock to Amarillo many years ago, admiring the super-cell thundertorm up ahead for nearly the whole distance. We were about 8 miles south of Amarillo when we got close to the storm's western flank. The road curved left, and I notice a large dust cloud blow up in front of us in the freshly plowed field. I didn't think a thing of it, until the dome of dust started to lean over at the top and assuming a more typical shape. We passed by, stupidly, about 200 yards to the west of it. From the other side, the sun was shining on it and then it was obviously a large tornado. We heard the flash news reports a few second later, and the sirens were still going off a couple of minutes later when we got into Amarillo.

Much more recently, we had a big thunderstorm approach us here at my office. The folks around here are not Texans and don't have experience with tornados, and I thought they were a little too eager to take refuge in an internal hallway. I was standing, stupidly, at the front door, observing a clear wall cloud in the approaching storm, and realized that was I was looking at was a bona fide funnel cloud. It went right over the top of us, never reaching the ground.

And then two years ago, we had ample notice from the media of a swarm of smallish tornados that were uprooting trees and tearing off roofs in a due-north line point right at us. We hid in the basement, with my wife highly anxious. That lasted for about two minutes, and then curiosity got the better of us and we stood, stupidly, at the back door of the basement watching the turgid sky. The tornado passed us perhaps 1000 feet to our west, wreaking havoc to the woods. Three miles north of us in Brunswick, MD, it overturned a car at a gas station.

Rick "whose experience with tornados hasn't cured his stupidity" Denney

[windshieldbug]

[Rick Denney]

I saw, and lived through this one. Came very close to my house, and after it passed it was hours before I knew if my dad was alive or not. He was...
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resourc ... nado_x.htm

Ooh, I remember that one. Seems like Wichita Falls kept trying to build its population over 100,000, and every ten years or so some disaster would knock it back down again. This is the one that kept them from going over 100,000 in the 1980 census.

Rick "whose 'area' included the Wichita Falls District of TxDOT" Denney

[tubatooter1940]

Saw a skinny white waterspout over Mobile Bay. It never came ashore.
On a cruise ship to Nassau, I was on the very top deck when the wind began to blow the water out of a kiddy swimming pool. I saw a big waterspout (tornado over water) a mile or so to starboard. I could see the helmsman looking out the forward bridge window but he wasn't looking at me. I went as far forward as possible and did jumping jacks till he looked down at me and I pointed at the funnel. He cut hard forty five degrees to port and the wind soon abated. I went hunting my wife with a story to tell.

[Rick Denney]

I know someone here in Amarillo that has a Toronado that is this same year model and color and it's spotless. I've offered the owner $25 cash money for it and he just laughs at me for some reason.

I've been working on my GMC motorhome so much doing a major renovation that it's tempting to find a reasonably decent old Toro, which has the same drivetrain. There's something ludicrously excessive about a passenger car with a 455 engine.

Rick "recognizing that a Toro probably outweighs a Hummer" Denney

[Rick Denney]

My Dad bought a new Bonneville in '72 with a 455. He didn't like to, but he let me use it a few times.

The Pontiac 455 was a completely different engine than the Olds 455, from back in the day when the different GM divisions had their own power-plant groups.

The Olds 455 is one of the great torque monsters of the muscle-car era, but the Pontiac 455 might even be better.

Rick "who's always had a thing for Old big-blocks" Denney

[windshieldbug]

I know someone here in Amarillo that has a Toronado that is this same year model and color and it's spotless. I've offered the owner $25 cash money for it and he just laughs at me for some reason.

... and, to think! Today, front wheel drive is considered an asset!!!

[MartyNeilan]

I was at work in Nashville when the F3 "tornado" tore through downtown in spring of 1998. Nobody I know ever saw a funnel. But, a huge black-purplish cloud covered half of Nashville and slowly moved across downtown. My building out on Plus Park Blvd was never directly engulfed. But, windows were taken out of many buildings including the so-called "batman" Bellsouth tower. The Gaylord headquarters outside Opryland lost every piece of glass in it. Three large cranes building the Titans arena (then TN Oilers) were toppled. Steel garage doors were torn off, power lines leveled and even buildings collapsed . A drive through downtown the following day looked like a war zone. Winds were estimated by some to hit F5 levels due to specific damage, but there was no funnel.

I wonder if Ike Harris has any memories of it?

[tubatooter1940]

I was riding out in the country in my Toronado one day and the wind was really blowing. I zoomed by this lady chicken so fast that with the wind blowing so hard added to my turbulence, that poor chicken had to lay the same egg twice.
Truth or fiction?

[tubatooter1940]

Back in the 70's they paid me to do it also, along with "I don't want it all. I just want a little bit" ,"Matilda" and " Don't Wanna Bump No More With No Big Fat Woman".
Back in those days, anything by Chuck Berry was great until he did "My Dingaling" and that was the end of that.

[Rick Denney]

... and, to think! Today, front wheel drive is considered an asset!!!

It is on my motorhome. Without a driveshaft or crossing rear axles, the floor can be 14" off the pavement. That means the motorhome is only 9 feet tall (WITH the roof air conditioner) and still has 6'-4" of headroom. That's enough for anybody (except Schlepp).

Rick "recalling when the fun trick was to turn the wheels on a Toro and spray gravel on people not expecting to be in the line of fire" Denney

[Rick Denney]

Rick's last vacation in his GMC

That looks like what I thought mine would look like during a recent trip to North Carolina. Mice had eaten the fuel lines on the gas tanks I'd just replaced last year, and I learned this when I noticed the spreading pool of raw gasoline during a fillup.

Rick "whose fuel lines are now sheathed in stainless-steel braid" Denney

[windshieldbug]

I bet his has more "Stripes"

[Rick Denney]

Yeah, yeah. . . . But do you recognize the vehicle in the movie still above????? Is that what you have or do you just have a "normal" GMC?

What'r U, nutz? I wouldn't even be allowed to pull my coach into a GMC owner's rally if I wasn't fully familiar with the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle.

That would be like owning a Shelby Cobra without having seen Gumball Rally.



Rick "whose EM-50 UAV is camouflaged as a crapped out old RV" Denney