A Tornado Watch...In Santa Cruz, CA?!?!

[Owen Glyndwr]

So I've lived my entire life in the Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley area of California, and I'll tell you right now, we usually get no, that's 0 thunderstorms all year. Now we have a severe Thunderstorm warning and a Tornado watch that just expired 20 mins ago. The National Weather Service warns against "Severe thunderstorms, Hail the size of pennies, and Winds up to 60 mph. This is totally abnormal. To say I am freaked out would be putting it lightly.

For discussion:
1. Are you guys having any sorts of freaky weather yourselves?
2. What do you do in the event of a tornado (remember: California doesn't have basements)
3. Should I go to class in a half hour (when the severe thunderstorms are expected to return to the area?)

[Lemur]

The odds of being in the direct path of a tornado are quite small, unless you happen to get caught by some sort of monster F5 (http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/6/Tornado-F5-Hits-Building-513406.html), in which case you can grab your ankles and kiss your posterior goodbye.

Going to class is a good idea. Schools are usually built to higher building codes than private residences, and they often have large, windowless interior rooms, which are a great place to be (think gymnasium).

Where you don't want to be is in a room with large windows, or in a street with lots of toys for the tornado to pick up and toss around (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ON6BCRx0bw).

[miotas]

Well, I've never had a tornado, but bad thunderstorms are no worry so long as you have shelter. If it's just a bad storm, then I'd suggest watching it from outside, but under cover. Especially since you never get them there, they really are quite amazing to watch. There's a few 40C(104F)+ days coming up here, so hopefully we'll get some nice storms.

[Legosoldier]

There was also a chance of tornados too yesterday down here in Southern California. Our school almost had a lockdown just in case the storms came near the Walnut Valley. However, it never came anywhere near here and one of my teachers informed us that it might have gone to another location after hitting Orange County.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Don't take a car to school, take a train:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYubpuIe3cw

[Major Robert Dump]

In the event of a tornado, go to the smallest, center-most room of the home. A bathroom or closet is usually the best bet. Getting in a bathtub/closet and covering yourself with a mattress may sound silly but it works. If it looks like it will definitely hit you, open your windows. Stay way from anything glass, and small objects.

In a tornado, mobile homes are death traps. So are places with large pane glass windows, like the mall in Wichita Falls where a few dozen people got shredded when a tornado hit there decades ago. Places like grocery stores will get you pummelled to death with cans of food. Even something as harmless as a straw can kill you if it hits you while travelling 300 mph.

If you are in a mobile home or stuck outside, try for somewhere low, like a drainage ditch or underground sewer. And if worse comes to worse, driving out of it is always safer than staying in a mobile home or standing in the open. Also, hiding under a bridge or highway overpass will also get you killed, unless it is a bridge in a valley or depression.

I've been in dozens of tornadoes and chased quite a few while working for television in college, including being ground zero in The Mother of All Tornados:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Oklahoma_tornado_outbreak

http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/datasets/weatherradio/image3.html

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/3/May-3-1999-Tornado-Outbreak-477609.html

[Ibrahim]

So I've lived my entire life in the Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley area of California, and I'll tell you right now, we usually get no, that's 0 thunderstorms all year. Now we have a severe Thunderstorm warning and a Tornado watch that just expired 20 mins ago. The National Weather Service warns against "Severe thunderstorms, Hail the size of pennies, and Winds up to 60 mph. This is totally abnormal. To say I am freaked out would be putting it lightly.

For discussion:
1. Are you guys having any sorts of freaky weather yourselves?
2. What do you do in the event of a tornado (remember: California doesn't have basements)
3. Should I go to class in a half hour (when the severe thunderstorms are expected to return to the area?)

hey, Tornadoes happen in almost every state; my mom's homestate (Ohio), gets one every while; I experienced one from there visiting Grandma*. also had another in Angleton back on 06-07. just do as lemur & Robert Dump say.

*it touched down not far from where we were-knocked a few trees and roof tiles down. luckily, no one to my knowlege was hurt.

[Owen Glyndwr]

Well, it wasn't too bad. I wasn't worried about the Tornado so much as I was worried about the lightning, but, surprisingly, the lighting didn't come back (although I probably spoke too soon, and one more huge storm is coming next week).

Sometimes is seems like the national weather service causes more fear than information :laugh4:.

But yeah, we had a PSA on television and everything! It was all so new to me.

[miotas]

[...]so much as I was worried about the lightning, but, surprisingly, the lighting didn't come back (although I probably spoke too soon, and one more huge storm is coming next week).

Lightning is nothing to be afraid of, so long as you don't stand under a tree, and so long as you aren't the tallest thing around then you will be fine. I quite like sitting out the back in the rain when there is an afternoon thunderstorm after a hot day and watching the lightning overhead. I've even had it strike within metres of me before. ~D

[Husar]

Yeah, thunderstorms are usually nothing to be really afraid of, in fact i find them romantic somehow. :shrug:
Perfect weather to be warm and cushy inside I guess.
Sometimes I wish we got more of them actually.

Tornadoes are a different matter, our army has some but otherwise you either stay away from them or listen to the Major.

[ajaxfetish]

hey, Tornadoes happen in almost every state

We even had one hit downtown Salt Lake City about a decade back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2gTeXwdtPw

Ajax

[Viking]

Perfect weather to be warm and cushy inside I guess.
Sometimes I wish we got more of them actually.


When there are thunderstorms, there is usually about equally warm outdoors as indoors to my experience. :inquisitive:

Fun they are, yes (otherwise you were using the TV or PC).

[Owen Glyndwr]

Lightning is nothing to be afraid of, so long as you don't stand under a tree, and so long as you aren't the tallest thing around then you will be fine. I quite like sitting out the back in the rain when there is an afternoon thunderstorm after a hot day and watching the lightning overhead. I've even had it strike within metres of me before. ~D

Ordinarily I'm not too worried about thunderstorms. I find them pretty neato, and absolutely spectacular. Like I said, though, that national weather service is really good at scaring the crap out of you. Their exact words (repeated three or four times over the course of about 5 mins): "Lightning is one of natures biggest killers. Stay indoors. Remember: if you can hear thunder, you are close enough to get struck by lightning."

[miotas]

http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lls/fatalities_us.html

The numbers are a little old, but California had 8 deaths from lightning from 1990 to 2003, even Florida, the state with the highest number of deaths has less than 10 a year. So long as you don't stand under a tree ,and you don't stand up in the middle of an open field then you won't have a problem.

[Strike For The South]

In the event of a tornado, go to the smallest, center-most room of the home. A bathroom or closet is usually the best bet. Getting in a bathtub/closet and covering yourself with a mattress may sound silly but it works.


This is like second nature to me.

Some fond memories having my whole family crammed into one tub.

[Major Robert Dump]

This is like second nature to me.

Some fond memories having my whole family crammed into one tub.

Memories....ah yes. Was in a minor earthquake in California once, and I got in the bathtub and the motel and took the mattress with me. No one got the joke except the native midwesterner

[Ibrahim]

We even had one hit downtown Salt Lake City about a decade back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2gTeXwdtPw

Ajax

I'm well aware of it. but thanks for the video.:2thumbsup:

[KukriKhan]

We got the tornado warning as far south as my town (Escondido). A waterspout was sighted at Lake Hodges, 2 miles southeast of my place. We live in a geological "bowl", so weather swirls around us all the time. Unnerved the missus for a couple minutes. Fortunately, we were at the Post Office at the time, built 15 years ago to exacting OSHA and Cal-OSHA earthquake-fire-flood standards.

I admit I worried about 2minutes about my mobile home. What is it about 'nado's and their attraction to affordable housing for senior citizens? All that metal in one place?

[Samurai Waki]

I live about 3500 ft above sea level, in the Rockies and I can remember at least once in my life there being a tornado warning. Not that it ever touched down, but if has the potential to happen here I guess there only few places in the world it can't happen.