Woo Hoo! I got to chase a tornado today
05-14-2006, 04:24 PM
#1
Community Organizer
Thread Starter
Woo Hoo! I got to chase a tornado today
OK...... I am a weather nut and today I got to do something I have wanted to do for as long as I remember, chase a tornado. I was returning from my home town of Georgetown and was about 4 miles outside of Florence when I noticed some really crazy updrafts... the kind I have seen only during microbursts. I noticed a suspicious dip in the cloud line on the horizon and went to phone my roomate to see if he could give me any information when I saw the debris cloud... I can't describe the rush of adrenaline I got. BTW, this was at 6:00pm today and we don't many of these around here (before you Ill. and Ohio guys start 
).
I threw the flashers on the pulled off onto the shoulder and took a look for about 20 seconds. I then jumped back into the car and turned onto a side road to head it off. I got to the intersection of Palmetto and 327 and could clearly see it ahead and just to the left of me. I gunned it once green (327 is just a connecting road to I95) and crossed the railroad overpass. When I crossed I looked to my left and it was a quarter of a mile down on the tracks. I pulled off immediatly after getting off the bridge, jumped out and turned around to watch it pass... the wind and noise was crazy. Once it passed I looked up and appearently a few trailers had been destroyed because there there was cloths, insulation, and huge peices of tin flying through the air. The tin was what got me.. peices were coming down all around me so I jumped in the car and took off about a quarter mile down the road and then turned and came back. I pulled over ontop of the over pass and snapped some pix (minus the first two) with my cell phone.....
Looking back at the overpass, tornado just passed and is to the left of the image...
Circulation in the cumulous'
After tornado passed (It was beginning to weaken by this point)
OMG THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
).I threw the flashers on the pulled off onto the shoulder and took a look for about 20 seconds. I then jumped back into the car and turned onto a side road to head it off. I got to the intersection of Palmetto and 327 and could clearly see it ahead and just to the left of me. I gunned it once green (327 is just a connecting road to I95) and crossed the railroad overpass. When I crossed I looked to my left and it was a quarter of a mile down on the tracks. I pulled off immediatly after getting off the bridge, jumped out and turned around to watch it pass... the wind and noise was crazy. Once it passed I looked up and appearently a few trailers had been destroyed because there there was cloths, insulation, and huge peices of tin flying through the air. The tin was what got me.. peices were coming down all around me so I jumped in the car and took off about a quarter mile down the road and then turned and came back. I pulled over ontop of the over pass and snapped some pix (minus the first two) with my cell phone.....
Looking back at the overpass, tornado just passed and is to the left of the image...
Circulation in the cumulous'
After tornado passed (It was beginning to weaken by this point)
OMG THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope you had the top down...
05-14-2006, 04:48 PM
#4
Community Organizer
Thread Starter
Nooo. top was up.
My biggest scare came when I looked up and saw huge sheets of trailer coming straight for me, I didn't think I could get the car out of the way in time before they came down on it.
Although. how cool would it have been to floor it and drive straight threw it top down ?!?!
One thing I noticed was right after it passed me at that overpass, it was REALLY cold.
My biggest scare came when I looked up and saw huge sheets of trailer coming straight for me, I didn't think I could get the car out of the way in time before they came down on it.
Although. how cool would it have been to floor it and drive straight threw it top down ?!?!
One thing I noticed was right after it passed me at that overpass, it was REALLY cold.
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05-14-2006, 05:20 PM
#8
Community Organizer
Thread Starter
No hail! Atleast not on the side I was on. I wasn't even getting rain. There was 2 inch hail on the other side. When I got on the north side, thats when the rain kicked in
Is there a way to resize and clarify one of the images?
Is there a way to resize and clarify one of the images?
05-14-2006, 05:31 PM
#9
depending on what the original size of the file was, you can go into photoshop and resize it and try to clear it up a lil but but if it is a cell phone pic your going to be hard pressed to make it bigger.
05-14-2006, 05:32 PM
#10
Registered User
I have been through an F3 tornado. It came about 100m from my apt. It f'd up the paint on my car. It flipped over and literally ripped apart cars 50 ft from mine. Was a ridiculous experience.