Billings Video

[Tim Balassie]

Had not seen this posted in other section. Wasn't sure where it should go, so I'll put it here.

Link to "LiveLeak" site of Billings Mt tornado:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=72e_1277148464

 

[jeremy wilson]

Insane!!!!!

Look at all the cars casually driving down the road right next to the tornado!

When did this happen cause I must have been on Mars that day? Haven't heard a thing about this one...

 

[Mark Blue]

I think it was on Father's Day a week ago from yesterday. That was crazy how the cars were totally oblivious to the tornado that was oh so close.

 

[Dave Kaplow]

There was some discussion of this, with some pretty cool video posted, over in Target Area, see the 6/20 Discuss thread, but I personally haven't seen this particular video before, although now I wonder if maybe it was the one on Facebook that I couldn't access. Pretty amazing stuff. I too am mystified by all the cars casually cruising through, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening... Are people that wrapped up in their own affairs that they simply ignore something like that happening right outside their vehicle? Big pieces of debris are landing right in the street! Very strange...

 

[rdale]

Are people that wrapped up in their own affairs that they simply ignore something like that happening right outside their vehicle? Big pieces of debris are landing right in the street! Very strange...

I agree - kind of weird. Many people preach that the only thing to do when you are in a car and in a tornado warning polygon is to immediately abandon them for a ditch. That's even the policy of the office that covers Billings

IF IN MOBILE HOMES OR VEHICLES...EVACUATE THEM AND GET INSIDE A SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. IF NO SHELTER IS AVAILABLE...LIE FLAT IN THE NEAREST DITCH OR OTHER LOW SPOT AND COVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS.

...even though the NWS changed along with Red Cross last year - http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/severeweather/resources/NWS-ARC%20Revised%20Joint%20Statement%20on%20Tornado%20Safety_062209.pdf

Seems like that phrasing might need to be investigated, because it doesn't seem as applicable to the real world as some believe. This video should be the final axe in that claim.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

While we can't necessarily know what was exactly going through the minds of some of the folks driving right next to the Billings tornado without social science surveying - and note that some of them are driving VERY fast presumably to get away - there is one factor that might explain the behavior. If you look at the location of the Metra on Google Earth, the very southeast end of "The Rims" ends just a few 100 feet north of the Metra (45°47'57.34"; -108°28'56.04"). I know because I've been on that road myself. It is quite possible that the topographic feature was blocking the view of the debris cloud.

 

[Nick Nolte]

It is strange, for sure. One thing I wonder, while it's obviously a tornado, there isn't the stereotypical condensation envelope that the general public associates with a tornado. I wonder, absent that, if a lot of people were just like "wtf is that?" and didn't realize what it actually was.

 

[Steven Williams]

Montana doesn't see many tornadoes so people wouldn't be alert for them like they are in kansas. We got a bit of that clip on TV news in New Zealand.

 

[Dann Cianca]

Being a Montana native, I can tell you that the general population of the larger cities (which are mostly in the mountains... even Billings being on the edge) do not consider tornadoes much of a threat as they don't happen too often or in high visibility areas. Most Montana tornadoes are typically to the north and east where the land is much more flat. Perhaps that explains the apparent complacency of the drivers. I have a lot of friends in Billings and one told me that she had told her daughter not two days before that tornadoes don't happen in the area.

As an aside, this tornado case is interesting to me because of the topography. I've spent a lot of time in Billings and the area that the tornado formed is basically a pass or canyon where the Yellowstone river flows through higher terrain. To the north and west are the Rimrocks, basically a cliff that lines the north edge of the city. To the south and east are another set of cliffs, bluffs if you will, adjacent to the Yellowstone.

The storm formed and was rather stationary for a while. I wonder if tornadogenesis was aided by the inflow coming up the Yellowstone river valley (out of the ENE) while rain cooled air drained into the canyon from WSW. Another interesting thing is that the 88D is near the airport, atop the Rims and though quite close to the tornado, may have been scanning fairly high into the storm even at that proximity.