With the talk of warning devices

[BR46]

What's the closest you came to a tornado? 

We have had two EF1's come within 2 miles of the house.

 

[Razors Edge ★]

We had one touch down locally a few years ago (very rare here).  Weakest category, but at only 100 yards away, it sounded like a freight train running through the house, and that was before it was officially snapping trees and moving things like garden sheds further down the path.

[Longjohn ★]

In 1985 we had a tornado come through the edge of our property. It knocked a big tree down in our garden and destroyed our roof. The houses and businesses that took a direct hit were gone including the truck terminal I had just left and the truck I had just parked.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

3 hours ago, BR46 said:

What's the closest you came to a tornado? 

Mrs. TK and I have at least one the grandkids over about once a week.

[KA CHAVA Kzoo]

Drove past one once.  I missed by several hundred yards.  I didn't know it was a tornado until later in the day.  My POV - It was just a bad storm that was mostly behind us.

Strangest one was back in 1983.  It was a Saturday afternoon, WoKzoo and Daughter#1 were in the house.  There was a tornado warning that came across the TV.  Confirmed tornado 2 miles NE of a small town.  We lived 2 miles NE of that small town.  I went outside to clear skies and neighbors playing horseshoes.  I sake them if they had seen a tornado go through.  Right - clear skies...  I never figured that one out.

[Ralphie ★]

Aboot Half a mile. We could see the very tall trees across the street bent over to aboot half their normal height. Hard to believe they didn’t snap like the ones a just little Further away did. Made the National news. 

[Razors Edge ★]

3 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

We had one touch down locally a few years ago (very rare here).  Weakest category, but at only 100 yards away, it sounded like a freight train running through the house, and that was before it was officially snapping trees and moving things like garden sheds further down the path.

So, we were an EF0 which seems correct.  

[jsharr ★]

3 hours ago, BR46 said:

What's the closest you came to a tornado? 

We have had two EF1's come within 2 miles of the house.

 

Too damn close.  Had one tear down the homes on either side of our in Edmond Oklahoma when an F4 hit in 1978.  
Was living in Wylie Texas in 1993 when an F2 hit.  I sheltered in a bathtub.  Could feel the air pressure change.  Took roofs off buildings and blew a rock threw the drivers side rear window of my car.  Did lotsof damage to  the marina I worked at.
Was close to several others.  We were on Lake Eufala in Oklahoma when a storm blew in.  Out ran it in a jet boat with friends but mom and dad ran our boat ashore and sought shelter in a house they saw from the water.
Been close to three others, but did not see them or suffer damage.

[jsharr ★]

5 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Too damn close.  Had one tear down the homes on either side of our in Edmond Oklahoma when an F4 hit in 1978.  
Was living in Wylie Texas in 1993 when an F2 hit.  I sheltered in a bathtub.  Could feel the air pressure change.  Took roofs off buildings and blew a rock threw the drivers side rear window of my car.  Did lotsof damage to  the marina I worked at.
Was close to several others.  We were on Lake Eufala in Oklahoma when a storm blew in.  Out ran it in a jet boat with friends but mom and dad ran our boat ashore and sought shelter in a house they saw from the water.
Been close to three others, but did not see them or suffer damage.

So I would say I was within a mile of at least 5 that I know of, possibly 6.   I have heard the tornado sirens go off a LOT and have sheltered in place a lot as a kid and a few times as an adult.  The only tornado I actually saw was the one in Wylie.  I was in a closet for the one in Edmond.

[Parr8hed]

Drove down I264 in Louisville on our way home from the Zoo and saw one about a mile away heading toward us.  Passed right by it close enough to see cows swirling in it. 

[jsharr ★]

19 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

Drove down I264 in Louisville on our way home from the Zoo and saw one about a mile away heading toward us.  Passed right by it close enough to see cows swirling in it. 

[Parr8hed]

2 minutes ago, jsharr said:

[jsharr ★]

1 minute ago, Parr8hed said:

[goldendesign]

Tornados are only a threat when they spin off from Hurricanes. 

Hurricanes, I've been very fucking close.

[JerrySTL ★]

In 1974 I was driving between Cincinnati and Indianapolis when tornadoes destroyed part of Xenia Ohio. There was debris all over the road and I thought that I heard a tornado, but visibility was down to nothing.

I saw a long tornado touch done in New Mexico but it was probably at least 5 miles away. It wasn't even that stormy of a day.

In 1976 I parked my 1964 Chevy station wagon at the Amarrillo TX Airport and flew back home to Cincy for Christmas. When I got back to Texas there was a small telephone pole stuck in the roof and many windows, including the windshield, knocked out. A tornado had hit the car park. It was rather cold driving the 100 miles back to where I lived in New Mexico. When I got up to around 50 mph, shards of glass from the broken windshield started to pelt me in the face and hands. I stopped at a hardware store and bought some safety goggles and gloves. I eventually replaced all the glass and used rivets and RTV to fix the hole in the roof.

[jdc2000]

In 2000 on Valentine's Day, a line of 5 tornadoes formed up about 15-17 miles south of my town.  They were only on the ground for about 3 miles before they hit the foothills and dissipated,  Two of them were F2s and they took out 3 towers supporting the high tension power lines from the Jim Bridger power station in Wyoming to the main regional substation, knocking out power for several hours.

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

April 1973, a rare F3 tornado went through Fairfax VA. Tore part of the roof off of Woodson High School. Pushed a school bus across a parking lot and into the State ABC store window. I don't recall any looting but I was 13. We were just down the street at an ice rink and saw the trees in the back bent sideways. Lost power and the ice started melting. That's all I recall from 50 years ago.

[bikeman564™]

I'd guess about 15-20 miles.

[Razors Edge ★]

3 hours ago, Parsnip Totin Jack said:

April 1973, a rare F3 tornado went through Fairfax VA. Tore part of the roof off of Woodson High School. Pushed a school bus across a parking lot and into the State ABC store window. I don't recall any looting but I was 13. We were just down the street at an ice rink and saw the trees in the back bent sideways. Lost power and the ice started melting. That's all I recall from 50 years ago.

College Park and Univ of MD had that twister that tossed a car into a tree and killed the women in it 

COLLEGE PARK - A tornado blazed a 10-mile-long path of destruction through Central Maryland at rush hour yesterday afternoon, killing two Howard County sisters and injuring dozens of people while ripping the roofs off buildings and flinging cars through the air.

The storm - whose winds were clocked as high as 206 mph - touched down in College Park at about 5:20 p.m. and tore north into Beltsville, Laurel and Savage, flipping trucks off of roads, shredding trees and twisting the goalposts at the University of Maryland's Byrd Stadium.

The tornado displaced 3,000 students from Maryland dorms and left at least 16,300 residents, mostly in Howard and Prince George's counties, without power last night.

"It started out like it was going to be a strong thunderstorm and then you heard the wind start howling like I've never heard it before," said College Park Home Depot manager Eric Ziolkowski, who had about 100 employees and customers with him in the store when the storm hit, taking off the roof. "You could then start hearing and seeing the skylights start shattering, and then the front windows started blowing in."

Two students were killed when the storm picked up their car near the Easton Hall dormitory on the University of Maryland campus and threw it into a tree in a parking area, said Mark Brady, a spokesman for Prince George's County Fire and EMS.

A family friend, Dr. Clifford Turen, confirmed last night that the victims were sisters, Colleen Patricia Marlatt, 23, and Erin Patricia Marlatt, 20, of Triadelphia Mill Road in Clarksville.

The girls' father, F. Patrick Marlatt, is chief of the Fifth District Fire Department in Howard County and deputy director of the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute, whose trailers on the campus were destroyed by the tornado. He was taken to Washington Hospital Center with minor injuries.

It was there, according to Turen, that the father was notified that his two daughters, who had left the trailers where they were visiting their father moments before the storm hit, lost their lives in the tornado.

Colleen was a senior studying environmental policy due to graduate in January, and Erin was a sophomore studying sociology.

'The entire family is devastated," Turen said

Jason Gleeber, 19, a student from Elkton, raced outside the Easton dormitory to see if anyone was hurt. He saw the car about 75 feet above his head, he said.

"I saw the car flying in the air. I could see the bottom of it," Gleeber said. "It dropped. It just hit the ground."

Gov. Parris N. Glendening declared a state of emergency in Prince George's and Howard counties last night, calling the storm the worst natural disaster he has seen since taking office seven years ago.

"It is far more extensive than I think was initially reported," he said.

University President C.D. Mote Jr. canceled today's classes, saying, "We're in no position to conduct business as usual."

The storm touched down at the northern end of campus, near the football stadium and the dormitories where many freshmen live.

It destroyed the trailers used by the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute outside the university's new performing arts center, trapping five people who were pulled out with minor injuries, Prince George's County fire spokesman Chauncey Bowers said.

Those in the trailer learned of the storm when one employee received a report of a tornado in Hyattsville on her pager. Two minutes later, they heard the wind, and everyone dove under tables.

 

 

[KA CHAVA Kzoo]

20 hours ago, JerrySTL said:

In 1974 I was driving between Cincinnati and Indianapolis when tornadoes destroyed part of Xenia Ohio

They destroyed most of Xenia.  I did some product repair work there in a new city works building in 1978.  Most of the city center was brand new.  You couldn't tell where a tornado went through.  There was no 'path of destruction' - there were several tornados and they just took out the city.

[MickinMD ★]

On 1/9/2023 at 9:34 AM, BR46 said:

What's the closest you came to a tornado? 

We have had two EF1's come within 2 miles of the house.

 

I've never been close to anything more than a small one that ripped up a few trees and some roof shingle.  There was a bigger but still relatively minor one on the outskirts of Annapolis last year, but that was about 20 miles to my south.

In fact, before the 2000's, I never heard of a tornado in Maryland.  We surely had minor ones before then, but the radars and weather news sensationalism weren't designed to pick them up them.

[Bikeguy]

At our old home....  

We had an EF2 tornado go by about 1 1/2 miles to the south.

An EF4 that destroyed about 600 homes in Washington IL (about 40 miles SW of the old home) the tornado lifted... but was a funnel cloud that passed over or home.  LOTS of roofing material, insulation, plywood (yeah 2 X 3 parts) all fell into our yard.   We heard the ROAR of the wind.... and figured it was time to hide.  

At our new home location, before the home was built, an EF 3 was about 1/2 mile (or less) from our lot. 

[Prophet Zacharia]

We don’t get many where I live currently. So maybe these from Lake Erie.

[maddmaxx ★]

Not very close.  In the same state at best. (worst?)

[Tizeye]

All when stationed a Maxwell AFB, AL.

Closest - At church on Easter Sunday gave new meaning to “deliver us from evil” as the warning sirens blared. Had one touch done and damage buildings just outside the base, and could see the path it took across the flight line and golf course.

Visual - another time during warning left my remote office/clinic for more secure hospital. Standing under the ER covered drive through and looking at the clouds, didn’t see a funnel, but see the clouds split with a clearing between then and suddenly I see a commercial jet thanking off from Montgomery Airport about 5 miles away and shooting the gap. Those passengers had to be on the plane awaiting taxi during the height of the storm.

Funny? - My flight instructor took an aero club plane to the time trials at Talledega. Enroute receives weather notice from Birmingham of tornado, and calculated path and speed would be a Talledaga about the time he arrived. Turned around aborting the trip. As he was landing at Maxwell, the tornado warning sirens were going off. Skipped refueling and parking on tarmac, taxied straight into hangar, jumped out and closed hangar door.