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2013 US Tornado Season

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FelixOrion

Poet Centuriate
I spent summers in OK as a kid. Those weather guys would go on and on every damn time a storm was coming. They would hype crap up to get ratings, to the point that people just ignored them. We wouldn't go into the cellar unless the town's sirens went off. I wonder if a place as big as Moore even has those

Moore? It's 55K people. There are towns where my family are in western Nebraska that are only 300 some people and have sirens. Moore has sirens, I wouldn't even doubt that.
 

UberTag

Member
Just tuned in. Can someone brief me on whats all happened, the damage, etc?
Here you go...
"Biggest destructive tornado in the history of the world"

This sounds a bit like hyperbole, at least this early. I mean, it could be, but let the NWS do a survey first.
"This is the worst tornado in terms of damage in the history of the world." - It's bad but I'm amazed when people can say things like that with a straight face.
Lance "Danger" West breaking down in tears. 3rd graders getting pulled out of the wreckage at Plaza Towers elementary school that got levelled.
 
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K.Sabot

Member
Outside of being underground, there isn't much of a safe place in a F4 or F5 tornado.

Newer houses are building concrete danger rooms for this stuff now, though I don't know how effective they are to this sort of destruction.
 

Seraphis Cain

bad gameplay lol
Here you go...


Lance "Danger" West breaking down in tears. 3rd graders getting pulled out of the wreckage at Plaza Towers elementary school that got levelled.

Yeah, it's looking a lot like that might not have been hyperbole after all. Maybe.

Regardless, it's terrible. I really hope the casualties are low, but I'm afraid they won't be. =/
 

squicken

Member
Moore? It's 55K people. There are towns where my family are in western Nebraska that are only 300 some people and have sirens. Moore has sirens, I wouldn't even doubt that.

Yeah my grandparents lived in small farm town. I honestly don't know if large cities on the plains have sirens
 

Goreomedy

Console Market Analyst
Why are they interviewing some work-release stable boy? Please don't think he represents all Oklahomans, GAF, World. Sigh...
 

K.Sabot

Member
Why are they interviewing some work-release stable boy? Please don't think he represents all Oklahomans, GAF, World. Sigh...

To be honest he represents like at least... 60% of Oklahomans lol

Outside of OKC and Tulsa you're mostly surrounded by agriculture / church types.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Yea I don't find Gary to be very good anymore. It goes to just raining and he goes nuts. 4 may have some hyperbole at times but they tend to usually be accurate for the most part. This just reminds me so much of May 3rd.
 
Outside of being underground, there isn't much of a safe place in a F4 or F5 tornado.

Honestly with the amount of advance warning (the storm prediction center had marked yesterday and today as potential big problems days in advance!) and track precision available nowadays, if you live in a place where tornadoes occur you should be able to easily book it to your vehicle when a warning / tornado emergency and drive on an orthogonal vector away from the storm to relative safety.

Though that doesn't work for, say, schools, of course.

People in the midwest/southeast valleys rely too much on sirens, and NOAA radio alert systems suck and are underused for largely good reason. We need better alerting systems to match our far superior advance warning and tracking technology. Sirens were OK back in the 80s when we had just shitty basic radar systems, but now that just seems too much of a cudgel given the precision of modern radar and forecasting tools.

edit: I also think that high EF tornadoes (judged by radar signature and spotter/police reports) should come with an advisement of evacuation out of the path if specifically if no underground shelter is available. That's already done for mobile homes in general in the warning bulletin.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Honestly with the amount of advance warning (the storm prediction center had marked yesterday and today as potential big problems days in advance!) and track precision available nowadays, if you live in a place where tornadoes occur you should be able to easily book it to your vehicle when a warning / tornado emergency and drive on an orthogonal vector away from the storm to relative safety.

Though that doesn't work for, say, schools, of course.

People in the midwest/southeast valleys rely too much on sirens, and NOAA radio alert systems suck and are underused for largely good reason. We need better alerting systems to match our far superior advance warning and tracking technology. Sirens were OK back in the 80s when we had just shitty basic radar systems, but now that just seems too much of a cudgel given the precision of modern radar and forecasting tools.

Yea. They gave a lot of warning considering how fast it formed. They were literally telling people to leave and drive east away from this. That's how bad it was and they knew it. It formed so fast it wasn't funny. I was watching as they saw this and within 5 to 10 minutes it was full blown. It was that quick.
 

UberTag

Member
All of the students at Briarwood Elementary are accounted for.
Hopefully Plaza Towers fares similarly but given Lance West's reactions earlier it's hard to say for certain.

3 confirmed fatalities at the 7-Eleven near the demolished Moore Medical Center.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Yea. They gave a lot of warning. They were literally telling people to leave and drive east away from this. That's how bad it was and they knew it. It formed so fast it wasn't funny. I was watching as they saw this and within 5 to 10 minutes it was full blown. It was that quick.

That's pretty crazy that they were actually telling people to drive away, so they already knew it was that bad at that point? Because I've never seen that before, the advice is usually take shelter (live in Alabama, so fairly regular tornadoes here too).
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Yup. It wasn't that bad yet. it hadn't even been a tornado yet. Mike Morgan cut in early because he could tell what was going to happen then as it started they were. They were like get the hell out of there. It's coming right for you. Drive east. That's something I had never heard them say before either. That's how bad it was.
 

Allforce

Member
Honestly with the amount of advance warning (the storm prediction center had marked yesterday and today as potential big problems days in advance!) and track precision available nowadays, if you live in a place where tornadoes occur you should be able to easily book it to your vehicle when a warning / tornado emergency and drive on an orthogonal vector away from the storm to relative safety.

Though that doesn't work for, say, schools, of course.

People in the midwest/southeast valleys rely too much on sirens, and NOAA radio alert systems suck and are underused for largely good reason. We need better alerting systems to match our far superior advance warning and tracking technology. Sirens were OK back in the 80s when we had just shitty basic radar systems, but now that just seems too much of a cudgel given the precision of modern radar and forecasting tools.

edit: I also think that high EF tornadoes (judged by radar signature and spotter/police reports) should come with an advisement of evacuation out of the path if specifically if no underground shelter is available. That's already done for mobile homes in general in the warning bulletin.

Why isn't something like an Amber Alert used for Tornado Warnings? I'm in Ohio and I agree, the sirens are completely ignored even when there IS a warning and if you're not watching the news you're effectively out of the loop.

Meanwhile if a child is abducted/goes missing you get a text on your phone within minutes with the car she was last seen in, the license plate, the description of the child, etc.
 
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