"Being in a Tornado Got Me Started Chasing"

[Bob Hartig]

I've just read a forum member's account of being in a tornado as a kid, and how that experience sparked his interest in chasing later in life.

I wonder how many others here have a similar account. I know there are a few. As a child, you experienced a tornado "up close and personal," and the impression it left helped form you into the storm chaser you are today. What is your story, and how has it influenced you as a chaser?

 

[Jerry Prsha]

About Seven...

I was about seven years old driving to Grandma's house in a 1968 VW Bug. I was in the back with my early teenaged sister as a tornado touched down in the field on the driver's side of the car.

Branches and grass was blowing across the road, dad was shifting like a fool trying to get out of there and my sister was screaming like a banshee.

Payback! She always claimed that side of the back seat... That will teach her to be ornery to me!

Yeah.. I'd say that he experience stuck with me. I had no fear as I didn't know what it could do...

 

[Clarence Bennett]

Here is what I wrote in my personal blog quite some time ago..

This image is a map of the West Virginia tornados that occured in the early morning hours of April 4th, 1974. The longest of tornado paths you will see happened between the hours of 4am and 5am and passed through the small town of Meadow Bridge, WV. An F3 at the time, it leveled a good portion of the town, killed a small child, and blew the roof off of my great grandmothers house. How her house was not destroyed is a miracle, as it leveled everything around her. Also, my great aunt and uncle had there home destroyed. My aunt Peggy was blown about 400 yards away and suffered multiple broken bones. My cousin Brian was also blown into a field and was uninjured. The tornado continued on a path to near Crawley, WV or about 3 miles from my house. I was two and a half years old at the time, but do have faint memories of this morning as I was in bed with my parents and remember my mom waking up and speaking of a loud noise just over the hill. It was this F3 going through and geographically speaking was just over the mountain from our small town of Rupert. This, I believe, is where my interest and fascination with the weather initially began.

 

[Jeff Smith]

It all started when...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8vm3bo5-J4&feature=related

December 5, 1975. a day forever etched into my memory. I was 5 years old, and my mom called to my brother & me, "boys, come and see this!" and when I got to the window, standing on a stool, there it was! It was black from my perspective, and that, my friends, is what started my fascination with storms...

BTW...most of my childhood, I was terrified of nighttime storms, and still am uncomfortable chasing after dark..

 

[david diehl]

for me I had two incidents.
in 1997 a tornado hit the air port about half a mile from my house, I remember laying in bed after my mother left for work, and looked out the window and saw a tornado in the lightning.
then in 1998 I was in my last year of 4-h and had a storm come through the fair grounds. while there was no tornado about 10 people were injured when lightning hit one of the buildings, and here I was up on the hill in the horse barn at the grounds thinking here we go again.
after that, it was about 2 or 3 years before I started getting into chasing

 

[Shane Adams]

I've just read a forum member's account of being in a tornado as a kid, and how that experience sparked his interest in chasing later in life.

I wonder how many others here have a similar account. I know there are a few. As a child, you experienced a tornado "up close and personal," and the impression it left helped form you into the storm chaser you are today. What is your story, and how has it influenced you as a chaser?

Polar opposite for me. Wanted desperately to see a tornado all my life and never did. Got sick of waiting for one to come to me and just flipped the script.

 

[Howard Robinson]

Living in Georgia for most of my life, you learn to get use to having tornados around, especially around the changing of the seasons. What got me hooked on storm chasing was back around 1996, there was a supercell that spawned in Alabama and came across to Marietta Georgia where I happen to be living. The storm was tornado warned and while I was not in the tornado path, I chould hear the awesome thunder and the hail hitting the roof of my apartment. Turns out the tornado was about 3 miles from my apartment and was an f3. While I didn't get to see the tornado, I was hooked and wanted to start learning about storm chasing.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

In May 1998 in Sunnyvale California.
That's right; I said California.
I watched a HUGE super cell form over the Bay Area - moving over Sunnyvale. I had taken a meteorology course at the local college some years before and recognized the features of the storm. In all of the time that I have lived here - I had seen nothing like it here before - or since.
It finally produced a tornado with anti-cyclonic rotation - a rare event in North America.
Even a rarer event for the California coast; usually the Central (San Juaquin) Valley & SoCal gets a dozen or so tornadoes a year.
But RARE on the coast.

A friend of my Mom was in a convalescent home when it was hit by the twister - it took part of the roof off.
I only got to see only a small portion of it, but it was just too cool for school!
Here's some detals:
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/divisions/warning/swat/Cases/980504/case.html

The other very significant event that took place was the destruction of our barn and the death of our hired farnhand - by the horrendous "Pomeroy Cyclone' that killed about seventy people in this NW corner of Iowa.
My Great-Granddad James Wadsworth was a part of that story. My Dad used to tell me all about it when I was a kid. That REALLY got me interested in tornadoes and severe storms...
Here's that link:
http://www.iagenweb.org/calhoun/story.html

 

[Kathy Velasquez]

My first tornado

Our home in Plover, Iowa was hit by a tornado in 1952 when I was only a few months old. I don't remember it (of course not!) but heard the story many times from my mom how she picked me up out of the crib and headed for the basement- just before a tree crashed through the window!

I always have enjoyed thunderstorms, but didn't see another tornado until I started chasing storms in 1994. I have chased every year since then with Linda Kitchen (friends since third grade). This was probably one of our best years- with a couple of close tornado encounters ( Wakeeny, KS and Aurora, NB).

 

[Sam Stone]

http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?wwevent~ShowEvent~210476

I was 5 years old at the time, playing Legos with my friend one afternoon on a gloomy, rainy, stormy day. I had to go pee, after which I open the door to my mom running across the kitchen with my friend in tow telling me to go to the basement because of a "tornado". I had no idea what it was, but it sounded ominous. The picture on the front page of the paper showed 3 funnel clouds in the same frame roughly a half mile west of our house. Never really satisfied knowing what tornadoes were, even with the release of the movie Twister (I wore the VHS tape out and the cheesy soundtrack cassette tape, complete with Van Halen!), they kind of haunted me through my youth...pretty much any bad dream I've had in the last 15 years involves a tornado coming towards a house in some form or another. Thankfully, now when the sirens go off, the sensation in my stomach is informed curiosity rather than absolute terror of the unknown...hope to finally see one in person in the next year or two.

Sam

 

[Laura Duchesne]

Mine wasn't really a tornado encounter per say... I was in gr 3 - I think it was in 1990. Our class was in one of those portables. Well we had an indoor recess due to the severe weather happening outside. It actually terrified me, I hid behind my desk peeking up at the window, I remember the howling winds and driving rain. The next day, the teacher said there was a tornado, but didn't say where. All I remember is my jaw dropping after she told the class that. After school I went home, telling my mother that we had a tornado.

Now that I know MORE about storms, it seemed to be more of a squall line type of storm given its characteristics and that the wind was a straight line wind event. Plus, being in a portable just made the whole situation seem more severe than it really was. If there was a tornado, it wasn't nearby so I am not sure where my teacher got that from. I think it helped peak my interest in tornadoes though but I was still afraid of nocturnal storms and I would pack my things in a back pack during a tornado watch.

I am one of those post Twister chasers... I started in March 1998 and saw a funnel cloud on our first chase. I will be honest, and please don't shun me, but I never really knew chasing existed until that movie came out. I didn't grow up with the internet and was not made aware that others actually did this kinda thing. So that gave me the idea to research everything I could on chasing, safety and structure once we went online. As a kid, when we were camping, I did enjoy watching lightning over the lake as a storm was coming in. I always had an eye on the sky.

It must be in my blood... my mother says that when I was 6 (a year after the May 31, 1985 outbreak) I drew pictures of tornadoes/storms. That worried my teachers, but my parents just told them that I was into that stuff. LOL.

 

[Jason Foster]

Yeah...that was it for me exactly

I've just read a forum member's account of being in a tornado as a kid, and how that experience sparked his interest in chasing later in life.

I wonder how many others here have a similar account. I know there are a few. As a child, you experienced a tornado "up close and personal," and the impression it left helped form you into the storm chaser you are today. What is your story, and how has it influenced you as a chaser?

I started the thread: http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=14998
some time ago...perhaps you are speaking of this one.

Here's the quote from the original thread:

For me, chasing was a evolution from my interests in tornadoes after I was in one in back in 1990.

I almost got killed by it because it had only been a minute or two since I walked home from the school bus stop. I commonly took a short cut through the woods and I would not have seen the tornado coming, not to mention the trees were completely torn up by the 'nado. I got on the news with my friend because our two-story tree house got torn down as well.

Anyway, I was wondering how many other's have been in a tornado, either chasing or not (hopefully not while chasing). I'll bet many early experiences prompted interest in severe weather for many of us.

 

[Daniel Christianson]

Mine was a tornado encounter back when i was about 5 years old in the little town of Leshara NE. They didnt have sirens in the town back then, it seemed like an ordinary day i was out playing on my plastic hotwheels bike pedaling around with a balloon in my hand. Now given i dont remember each and every second i do remember my balloon popping when i reached the end of the sidewalk and the wind just picked me up. literally my mom came rushing out grabbed me and we hit the ditch. I remember being pelted with rocks and debri, all i could see was this tall skinny black rope looking thing in the field and hitting tree's. I didn't even know what a tornado was at the time, no one ever told me. After that fear hit me real big time, everytime there was a bad storm in town i wanted to go to my grandma's because she had a cement basement. The sound of the thunder that literally shakes windows and floors i hated it. But somehow years later i find myself looking up storms and stuff and i thought it was interesting, i had 2 funny school encounters when i was supposed to be in the library doing work i was looking at tornadoes and the sirens went off. The next thing you hear over the speaker was to get to a designated tornado shelter area immediately lol. The whole experience alone meeting chasers and watching storms has taught me alot... it taught me that there was more to it out there then just the storm, there's beauty, relief, not to take things for granted, adrenaline rushes... even if its a storm a measly thunderstorm i find myself out there , just watching and listening. Some are out there for certain things, tornadoes, hail, lighting etc im out there for every part of it.. Sometimes its that lone storm out there that can be the highlight of your whole season even if it wasn't severe.

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Incredible stories everyone... Mine sounds cliche' but then again, aren't most coming from those not quite aware of what is happening? I was chatting with a friend near our cars shortly after leaving work. I was a clerk at the Cracker Barrel restaurant which was my first IL job for having recently moved from PA. In spite of having taken my first basic spotter class just three weeks prior, I was still quite ignorant to Midwest wx. Everything was relatively calm despite some lightning that for whatever reason, I don't remember too well. Almost instantly, ridiculously strong E to W winds began to blow and I was like "wt#?". Moments later sirens began to sound and even though we really couldn't see anything since it was late at night, my friend hollers "tornado!" Hand in hand, my friend and I fought our way against the wind towards the building. Upon arriving at the doors, they were locked so we crouched down and held on to each other. The pressure change was quite significant as evident by the need for our ears to *pop* and neither of us could hear the other over the sound of rushing wind. Time seemed like an eternity and there were things flying all over including steel trash cans and small debris. As the tempest passed and the rains set in, we noted a change in wind direction. My friend knew a bit about tornadic wx for having been a lifelong resident and explained in basic terms what happened with respect to being under a meso. What she said didn't make much sense to me but from the experience, it's suffice to say I was genuinely hooked. Despite being a "newbie", the winds were much stronger than any i've experienced in any storm since. The only visual from the night was seeing the rfd and anvil lightning at a distance. Hindsight being what it is for recalling the high contrast of it all was wishing I had a 2008 SLR . Jokes aside, for being trapped outside, it is among the scariest moments of my life.

From ILX, Our cell was the one to hit Cisco which was a few miles due NE of our location.

April 8, 1999
Several tornadoes touched down across central Illinois, as a complex of severe thunderstorms moved across the region. In Hancock County, the town of Hamilton had significant damage, with 144 homes destroyed or damaged by a tornado of F3 strength. Two radio and TV towers were also destroyed. Damages totaled to about $10 million. In far southeast Cass County, one person was killed in Ashland, when a tornado hit a trailer park. Damage in Ashland was estimated around $1.8 million. Further east, another tornado destroyed a trailer north of Cisco, killing a second person.

 

[Dan Melby]

In (1985 or 86?), I watched a small tornado with my dad about a mile away from our house. I remember my mom yelling at us to get to the basement, and my dad telling me that it was moving away from our house and we would be alright. So we ignored my moms advice and survived.. HA!
Ever since that day I was an avid weather watcher, then eventually emerged into chasing. I can remember watching storms for years as a kid on my porch hoping that I would see something. Of the countless hours I spent watching storms I can remember 4 events that I will never forget. Of course, the first tornado with my dad. Then I witnessed my first wall cloud which went right over our house that dropped a tornado about 2 miles later that I couldnt see, but I saw the damage later that day. I can also recall watching out the window a couple years later and all of a sudden a very low, rotating wall cloud emerged from the woods behind our house and buzzed right by the window, it was surreal. The last, was when I was out on the porch watching a storm, then all of a sudden I see a bright flash hear a sizzling sound and the loudest clap of thunder that I have ever heard .. It hit the powerline on the edge of the porch less than ten feet away from me.
Needless to say, I spent the rest of my childhood watching storms from inside the house..