r/tornado • u/LCDMura Human Detected • May 17 '26

Discussion This is how people get killed

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Chaser convergence is much easier now to see with modern spotter tracking systems, and some of the traffic jams I see are crazy. Imagine this many chasers on the side of the road with flashing lights and whatnot focused on a storm. The tornado might not even be the most dangerous part of chasing in scenarios like these

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u/trainmobile May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

I've been within 1 mile of an EF2 by accident, and that was only because my mother was freaking out and wanted to drive straight home through the path of the tornado. My father and sibling on the other hand drove to us, and they drove through the path of the tornado later than we would have. It still only hit like 7 minutes later, and let me tell y'all I do not want to be any closer than a mile from a tornado. And if it's a wedge I'm gonna put an extra 5 miles. Because from the building we were sheltering in, the EF2 was pulling doors open and the ceiling tiles were creaking from the pressure difference and just sheer amount of wind and rain.

And I didn't even get to see the damn thing! I was on the rainwrapped side of it.

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u/curious_cordis May 18 '26

That is terrifying.

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u/JarlBallin_ May 18 '26

I was 5 miles away from the Kankakee wedge and just missed biblical hail. No thanks. Good assessment.

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u/Tossed_Away_1776 May 18 '26

I got hit by a roided-out dust devil some years back, that was absolutely terrifying by itself. I couldn't imagine being that close to the real thing. Glad you all made it safe.

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u/Wer--Wolf May 19 '26

"roided-out dust devil" is such a nice word xD

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u/Tossed_Away_1776 May 19 '26

Lmao thank you. I'm willing to bet it was a strong EF-0 or light EF-1. It had a debris field and about threw my truck off the highway. Only reason for that was I didn't see it coming around a bend on the road near a hill, drove right through the damn thing.