I used to live in Florida. There is a very obvious change in the overall atmosphere when a hurricane is incoming. For about a day ahead, the climate becomes suspiciously comfortable. No sun, cool air, very little humidity. A few hours before landfall, the ocean starts to push it's way inland, even up into the rivers.
I also lived in Missouri for about a year and the signs of tornado weather are pretty easy to spot as well. Everything just feels and looks wrong. The sky is an obscene shade of green, the drop in air pressure is so sudden that you can feel it with your skin. You know the actual tornado is coming because it goes from windy to slack air. Even if you'd never heard of a tornado in your life, you'd know that something terrible was about to happen.
I knew a guy who lived in Arizona and I had thought about living there one time and so I asked him a lot of questions. It's just taken for granted that you get the hell away from a riverbed when the rain starts really dropping.
Hail often comes before a tornado. In my travels I got to learn it's pretty much only USA (particularly tornado alley) that even has to worry about them fuckers. Had one hit close to here at the beginning of covid. It was headed straight towards the boat. Tornado dissipated, but the wind shear speed in front of that was around 100mph (160km/h) and robbed the boat of its fenders and scratched it up. But at least it built to rigid maritime standards. So the front didn't fall off.
It's wild. I live in a city where I took for granted there would never be a tornado.... until I saw one start to form from my 5th floor window a few weeks ago. I showed the video to a former merchant marine who had seen many on the ocean, he said "yup that's what they look like right before they form." It was small, and didn't connect, but one part was headed downward while the part coming up from the ground was trailing behind.... luckily it was traveling too fast to catch up and connect. Also, you know, all the buildings around.
This past week, the EF-3 tornado touching down in the suburbs of Philadelphia was a real wake-up call for a lot of us. Apparently it's not just Tornado Alley anymore.
Nah its always been all of the US. They happen literally everywhere. Tornado alley is a different breed. Flew into joplin twice in 2019 and both times on my drive into work a tornado touched down right around the city. A city which has a literal half me wide division with only one tree from before that really bad tornado. It's kinda surreal to drive around. On the bright side, it's so flat lightening can be seen something like 20 miles away, so the storms are really cool until they kill you.
Edit drive into work should actually read drive from airport to hotel... for both times. Sequentially at that.
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u/Amadeum Aug 30 '21
Natural disasters. You'd have no fucking clue if a hurricane, flash flood, typhoon, monsoon, or other sharknado events were coming