A lot of Europeans will say that if we built our homes from brick instead of wood that we would have less damage, which goes to show they have NO IDEA what living in Tornado Alley is like. Bricks can become missiles at 300 mph. If it can throw a car into the side of a building, it can decimate a brick building.
@@agirlnamedbrett. It picked up and moved those concrete blocks on parking spots that are heavy and have two rebar bars that go into the ground a few inches. Insane low level speeds.
The crazy thing is the Joplin tornado was not even the strongest tornado of the outbreak. The strongest tornado (not on this list) is the 2011 El Reno (not 2013) tornado which is cobsidered the 2nd most powerful tornado documented. This tornado has 296mph winds measured by a mobile dopplar radar truck and it pushed over a 2 million pound oil Derrick and rolled it 3 times.
I visited Joplin after it was hit. I'll never forget being surrounded by flattened homes, the occasional stairways alone still standing, and in front of an absolutely decimated home, was the perfect little mailbox out front, untouched.
I actually volunteered as a nurse in Joplin after their 2011 tornado. These pics don't do justice to the emotional and physical detriment of those in the disaster. It's something I will never forget and never regret volunteering to help.
Warm air comes north out of the Gulf of Mexico. Cool air comes over the Rocky mountains into the lower plains. When winds converge at high altitude winds start spinning. So warm and cold air meet in an area that is flat .
THat's a lot of it but there's a little more to it as well that factors in if you want to get the super technical explanation. But this is basically how it works
@@JabrenHarris98 It really depends on the system... Sometimes it comes over the rockies, and sometimes it sweeps down(but those arctic surges are usually more significant in the winter)
@jefftodd6384 Which dead man walking >:) (there is 8 dead man walkings in the history of tornados, fun fact the El reno Ef3 was a dead man walking tornado/was classified)
Fyi fun fact. Im from Xenia and the local legend says that in the old days when native Americans lost the land to the European settlers they told them that the area was called "the land of the devil winds. Xenia has been hit 4 tornadoes in modern times alone.
I used to race at Kil-Kare in Xenia alot. When a storm was approaching, the whole horizon seemed like it "funnelled down" and took aim at Xenia. It was super creepy!!
In the Jarrell tornado, after they could not find any bodies, they could not figure it out, until they started finding pieces of people ... they had been shredded by the winds.
I live in Jarrell, TX. That tornado left a permanent imprint on the town. There are memorials to the families lost, including an elementary school named after one of them.
This, very much this. People who design nuclear weapons are fully aware of just how destructive a malfunction could be, so they have so many layers of failsafes that it's not even funny. That said... if they were picked up by this thing, they would've been thrown around, likely heavily damaged, and flung off who-knows-how-far, leaving two (or more) lumps of radioactive material just lying around in random locations, to either cause harm, or be stolen. Wouldn't have nuked anyone, but... still wouldn't have been great.
@@wavelengthrenegadereef9143 People say this, and it's true, but we dropped the bomb on the east coast a good while back and it/they almost activated. The failsafes worked but only just. The device had not been armed.
Yes... but they worked. All but one of them failed... which is why we had that last one. That is the point of a multiple-redundancy system. The multiple failures is a scary situation, but those multiple failsafe failures are why there are so many failsafes.
@@wavelengthrenegadereef9143 It was great that they worked because the bomb was one failsafe away from detonation despite it not having been intentionally armed. Just wanted to get that info into this chain. It's not necessarily to refute what was stated so much to provide additional information for a similar case.
Yes. And to be fair, it's not like the idea of the bombs being thrown in the tornado scenario and then all of the failsafes screwing up is impossible, especially given that the weapon would've been heavily damaged by its time in the vortex. It's just unlikely that it would've been damaged in such a way as to specifically bypass the failsafes, rather than such a way as to break so much of the structure that it became impossible for it to activate at all.
There’s not a more helpless feeling than being in your house with a tornado heading your way. It happened to me years ago, I saw the tornado coming and grabbed my dog and got into a small bathroom in the middle of the house. We didn’t have a basement. All you can do is wait for your house to fall on you. Luckily the tornado heading my way turned at the last minute, it destroyed the houses across the street but only knocked down some tress in my yard. I was lucky, my neighbors not so much.
The reason tornadoes happen is four factors hot air from the gulf and Atlantic, cold air from the arctic, the lower ground level, and the right spots away from atmospheric disturbances. It all collides right in the area we call tornado alley. You literally don’t know when it will strike or the conditions are right but when it happens it’s dangerous and you hear the sirens blaring for people to immediately get underground or find shelter. Europe has too many mountain ranges for tornadoes to form properly.
There are tornados all over the world including Europe. Yes, you accurately explained how tornados form in the plains of USA, but you make it sound like tornados can only form from Gulf of Mexico air mixing with arctic air. That’s not accurate because tornados can form in places that are nowhere near the air from Gulf of Mexico.
I also heard that the way the Appalachian and rocky mountains are positioned, they play a role in the formation of tornadoes in the middle of the country. Weather is fascinating.
In a tornado I have seen a plastic straw get embedded into a concrete wall over 6 inches deep. It was in the wall straight. Not bent or curved. STRAIGHT!! !! HOW THAT IS POWERFUL!!!
Yes! I have seen straw in the side of telephone poles after tornadoes. I was contracted under FEMA working for the NC Office of Emergency Management until my retirement last year. The power of tornadoes are unreal.
I lived in the US my whole life and experienced my first tornado a little over a year ago. EF3 (although almost an EF4). Its an experience that is truly ingrained in my memory. Forever. The most grateful thing to me after the fact are the advances we have come in tornado tracking. Between the air sirens and your phones going off, you are alerted with enough time to shelter in place. I was able to grab my shoes, keys and ID and my cat and hide in my bedroom closet. When a tornado happens, its ideal to be as close to the ground as you can. If that's not possible (I was in a third floor apartment), you find a place like a bathroom or closet away from windows and debris. The thing that is scariest about a tornado is the silence. Right before it hit, there was this eerie silence. Then the lights flickered off like in a horror movie and then the sound of a moving train. It lasted in the span it would take to snap my fingers at the most and then it was over. We stayed in the closet until the sirens stopped. When I finally felt safe enough to wander outside I saw trees uprooted from the ground, power lines lying in the middle of the street and property damage to the buildings. But I also came to realize that tornados are unpredictable. They don't run through like a straight line, they bounce like a ball, almost. Our building mostly had tree and mild property damage, however the apartment complex across from us was completely flattened. Surveying the damage afterwards there were areas that were completely spared but others absolutely destroyed. There really is no such thing as a tornado safe build. Its all down to luck to be honest. Its also a reason why in areas where tornados frequent you will see more wood buildings than brick. A torando will destroy either. However, flying wood causes less damage than flying brick would and its much easier to rebuild. The whole tornado lasted about 30 minutes but traveled over 150 miles and over four towns. One person died, 50 or so injured and almost half a billion dollars in insurance claims. We live in a highly populated area and there hadn't been a tornado in over 20 years here. Downed power poles, lines, damage to the grid left some people without power for a week. However, the human response was amazing to behold and not just with emergency responders. While the national guard and police were dispatched to help with rescue efforts and clean up, they also patrolled the streets at night since many homes were without power. What really helped me was how the community came together. The day after it happened there were food trucks from local restaurants giving out free plates of food, dry cleaners offered to wash people's clothes for free, the local LA fitness offered people a place to shower, Verizon gave all its customers free ulimited data and calls for a month, and after power was restored local businesses like Target and Loews came together to drop off care packages of food and cleaning supplies to local apartment complexes. It really helped as we lost all the food we had and we had just went grocery shopping before it happend. The entire experience was traumatic and I still get a trauma response anytime the sirens go off (even though they go off for a tornado that is miles from where I live). However, it has made more prepared. I have an container in my closet filled with everything I could need if I have to spend a few days without power and things I own that are irreplaceable or have some sense of meaning to me. I hope to never have to use any of it, but whatever happens, I know going forward I am ready and that gives some type of peace of mind.
I would add that for slow moving F5 tornados, you're only safe underground. When they sit over an area with winds that speed, no building can protect you. None. Close to the ground isn't enough. Under it is the only way to survive. So I can't fathom why every building in Tornado Alley doesn't have a storm shelter or underground bunker.
F-5 tornados can be as big as one mile or two miles wide! Columbus Ohio where I live is not as State in "Tornado Alley" but we get our share of tornado warnings when hot and cold weather occurs at the same time. Every single wednesday at 12 noon sharp, tornado alert sirens all over the city are tested for about one minute for maintenance and checking.
Every single Wednesday? That sounds incredibly frustrating! I'm about two hours southwest of you (ie closer to the plains overall) and it's just every first Monday of the month here.
@@LauraSti Nothing frustrating about it when it is EVERY single Wednesday at 12 noon sharp. More routine actually.. When you hear the siren, you know it is Wednesday 12 noon sharp LOL! It is only activated for about one minute.
I used to live in an apartment building where a tornado siren was like 100 yards away. When they tested it first wednesday of every month, it literally felt like it was shaking our apartment building it was so loud
Just be happy there's a Gulf Stream. The gulf stream that goes from the gulf of Mexico around Florida and up the coast and over to the UK and down. This is what gives the UK temperate weather. If the gulf stream stopped the UK would have artic weather and feet of snow.
I've lived in Oklahoma City for 26 years I remember the Moore tornadoes and one that didn't make this list is the EL Reno tornado just west of OKC that was over a mile wide and took the lives of some storm chasers
El Reno was not a mile wide. It was 2.6 miles wide, the largest tornado ever recorded. It had potentially dozens of subvorticies and windspeeds of at least 295mph. But because it didn't hit anything, it was rated EF3. Had it's official rating been EF5, It absolutely would have been on this list.
El Reno was actually 2.6 miles wide & a lot of EF3 & EF4 tornadoes are just as destructive & terrifying as the EF5’s but every video I see is only about the EF5’s. Same as hurricanes, anything category 3+ is considered major, it’s the same with tornadoes. 🌪️🌀
22:44 it's hard to comprehend what we're looking at here because when you see stuff blowing in the wind you immediately think of leaves, maybe clothes, generally small and light objects. But that is wooden beams, bricks, car doors, etc. Imagine being near that, it's like a blender.
You mentioned insurance payouts - my hometown and mother’s house were hit by a tornado in 1996. The next day the insurance companies set up tents on the street corners and just started doling out money so people could get started buying supplies to clean up and to pay for food and motels. Though a surprising number of people who owned their homes outright didn’t have insurance b/c they didn’t want to spend the money on premiums. Quite a gamble.
5:28 lot of houses in Oklahoma have basements or separate storm shelters that are underground, if you don’t have a basement or storm shelter, the best way to survive a tornado is getting in the most interior room in your house, like a closet or bathroom.
Joplin is special for another specific reason - its hospital was destroyed, it had one or more fire stations destroyed, a popular gas station that had a alcohol fridge was mostly destroyed, but patrons were allowed to go into the fridge because it was strong. Tornadoes can destroy most above ground structures, but there are in building structures that can be mounted to the foundation that are welded steel tornado safety "buildings". If a house doesn't have a basement, they should get one of these to protect their lives.
Even a well built home wouldn’t stand unfazed against an F5 if hit directly, not just the wind but the debris that is flung around will damage it enough for the wind to do more damage.
I drove through Moore, Oklahoma after the tornado and it leveled every building. Even brick buildings with thick walls were almost completely gone. It was terrifying to look at - it literally made my hands shake to look at the power it took to wipe a brick downtown away. I would answer your question by saying the building that could withstand such a force, would have to have the shape of a geodesic dome and made using reinforced concrete.
Living in Oklahoma City, we're well-prepared for tornadoes. Most of us have weather radios to alert us and storm shelters for safety. We usually know days in advance when a tornado might hit, giving us time to either evacuate or find a safe spot. For those without storm shelters, the safest place is the innermost part of the house, away from windows-often a bathroom. Cover yourself with a mattress to protect against falling debris. It’s dangerous to be out driving or seeking shelter under an overpass during a tornado.
My church and I went out to Joplin to help clean up and render aid to all that were injured. I remember going out there and helping them seeing all the destruction is something you never forget.
Nothing will beat the Jarrell tornado as far as damage. First responders to that scene initially couldn't recognize human remains because the victims were so "chewed up". The after assessment was that those that were in the "F5" level wind zone died if not underground. 100% fatality rate for anything sheltering above ground in that wind zone. That's insane.
You gotta remember too that on these days where you get huge tornados that just straight line winds will do massive damage as well. I've seen strong gusts of wind blow around anything that isn't tied down like leaves and can easily take off parts of your roof.
I lived in Oklahoma City just a street away from the Del city area of May 3, 1999 I saw the tornado behind my house it was huge it destroyed a neighborhood that I once reside in about 4 blocks away from me.
5:35 One terrifying fact about Texas homes is that even though we are in Tornado Alley, the bedrock and water table are so close to the surface of the ground that most homes DON'T have basements or storm cellars. So if a tornado is coming at us, we really do just have to get into an interior room or closet and hope for the best.
And in Central Texas, the limestone ground is too resistant, and/or covers massive caves. They had to pause working on one of my company's new offices a couple of years ago because they dug right into (and discovered) a whole new cave underneath. In SE Texas you'd really just end up digging below sea level.
That is horrible! The death count from an EF5 will be tremendous. EF5 tornadoes wipe well built homes off their foundation. Luckily, as said in the video, it had been years since the last EF5.
Hi! Just to give you a bit of a detailed answer to the question of why in America we receive a lot more tornado activity then other countries. First, and foremost, a very significant amount of tornadic activity is centralized in a few different zones referred to as tornado alleys. The big one, with the name "Tornado Alley" specifically, is over Kansas, Oklahoma, North Texas, and adjacent states. This region is south of the rocky Mountains and north of the gulf of Mexico. The massive mountain range creates a large mass of cool, dry air, which clashes with the hot moist air from the gulf. This causes the hot air to rise and cool air to fall in a rotating fashion, creating tornadic supercells that hit the plains. Geography-wise, this region is the perfect birthplace for tornados.
It's topography, basically. When cold, dry air (from the Rocky Mountains meets warm, moist air from The Gulf Of Mexico. The set-up is perfect for a tornado. Other countries don't have the same components arranged the same way.
I don't know how old this video is but we just had a f4/f5 here in Nebraska. The Midwest has been getting slammed the last week. 4/26/2024 we had a series of tornados that day. There has been an outbreak this year
Any tornado EF3+ is considered major just as any category 3+ hurricane is considered major but everyone focuses on the 5’s, I don’t get it… hurricane Katrina made landfall as a category 3 but is in the top 5 most catastrophic hurricanes in US history. The El Reno should have been a EF5 but was later downgraded but was one of the worst in history & holds the spot as the largest in US history at 2.6 miles wide. The UK reports anywhere between 80-90 tornadoes a year, every year. My point is that EF3+ tornadoes & category 3+ hurricanes can be just as catastrophic. A lot of tornadoes aren’t even recorded if they don’t hit towns or structures, if they only hit forests or farmland, they’re mostly completely missed so we’ve most likely had so many more EF5 tornadoes.
@@FamousNya Well, we have they just don't call them EF5s anymore. They call them "high end" or "high level" EF4 tornadoes. Sometime around 2014 someone in the federal government sent out a memo or some kind of verbal order that no tornado would be rated EF5 no matter what kind of damage it did. There have probably been somewhere between five and ten EF5 tornadoes that were not rated that way for one reason/excuse or another. Sometimes they will claim that anchor bolts were not installed properly on homes that were swept completely away, sometimes they will say the damage was caused by something the tornado threw into the building instead of the tornado itself, sometimes they will claim that because one tree did not get destroyed the damage could not be EF5 level even if the entire house and every other tree was gone, sometimes they will just flat out not survey locations with the heaviest damage. I don't know exactly who is making the call or what their angle is but the NWS has absolutely refused to give out an EF5 rating for over a decade now and some tornadoes in that time have been pretty obvous EF5s. (Vilonia, Arkansas in 2014, Chapman, Kansas in 2016, Bremen, Kentucky in 2021are three that immediately pop into my head and there have been others in Texas and Mississippi where the exact location and year I can not recall off the top of my head.)
What they don’t mention about the Moore, Oklahoma Tornado is that is hit 2 Elementary Schools where several children died. This storm hit the community especially hard. I highly recommend a show called Tornado Alley (can be found here on TH-cam). They give a real time account of a tornado as told by eyewitnesses that lived through it. Each Tornado Alley episode features a different Tornado, usually EF4 or EF5.
Need to remember that the one mentioned was the May 3, 1999 tornado which happened during the evening hours. The one which hit the schools was several years later and took place in the mid-afternoon during school hours.
There is a YT channel called Geography King. He has an excellent video explaining why the US weather/climate is the way it is in various parts of the country (excl. Alaska and Hawaii).
I live in Missouri and we are in tornado alley and if you're lucky you have a storm cellar. Or as you heard bathtub with mattress over you or stand in heavy doorway and pray like you never have and hope you come out the other side
People in other countries have their own weather and national disasters, in the USA we have tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, dust storms, earthquakes, blizzards, floods and tsunamis! People who go through these disasters have to be prepared,be aware, strong and humble if not it’ll break your spirit! It’s great to be an American 😂
I live in Illinois and we get lots of tornados. My son's friend lost his house to a tornado several years ago. It took out their entire subdivision. If you live in a tornado area, you know what to do depending on your circumstances. Basements, rooms without windows, etc. If on the road you lay down in a ditch. You know they are coming and there are sirens to give you time to get somewhere.
I grew up just outside Wichita, KS and went through tons of tornadoes. The closest one I remember was an F5 that came about 1/3rd mile south of our house that went on to hit Andover, KS really hard. I was living in Pittsburg, KS when the F5 tornado hit Joplin, MO which is plenty close enough to be a "puckering event".
I just subscribed I survived a tornado when I was 15 I was walking home from my grandmother's when i saw a huge wall of black coming towards me luckily I was near a ditch and took shelter there until it passed but as long as I live I will never forget that sight and sound of the tornado while it passed me in the ditch it was deafening.
the reason the US gets so many tornadoes is that there is a wide stretch of flat land from near tropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico in the South to the Arctic in the north. Flat as a pancake. No other place on Earth has that set up. So the wet, warm tropical air goes north while the cold arctic goes south. Where it meets you have enormous storms.
The flatness has nothing to do with it. Tennessee, Arkansas, northern Alabama, and eastern Oklahoma are not close to flat and they all get plenty of tornadoes every year.
@@88wildcat you don't understand what I mean. The REASON that the warm and cold air can MEET is BECAUSE there is FLAT terrain all the way to the North pole from the USA and FLAT to the Gulf of Mexico.. That ALLOWS the cold aid to move SOUTH into the USA UNIMPEDED and run into warm moist air coming UP from the Gulf. Always fcking amazed how people
I live in Kansas. I have a basement. Newer homes may have a concrete reinforced room instead of a basement. If you don't have either, go to the lowest level in your home and put as many walls between yourself and the outside. If you live in a mobile home, leave! If you live in a mobile home park, go to its shelter. If you are in a car, leave, get to a ditch or culvert and cover your head.
Lived about 30 minutes from Joplin, my girlfriend at the time lived in Joplin and had just got a new car and they found it about half a mile away. They were okay just lost chunk of roof at least.
I live not far from Joplin Mo. That Tornado 🌪 was absolutely Breathtakingly Mind-blowingly Insane !! The way it gutted the Hospital was insane ! Ive been in many Tornados just this week we had 2 Tornado 🌪 🌪 That hit our small town in Arkansas, it did allot of Damage... All i can say for those in the UK 🇬🇧 You better be glad you don't have these, Your definitely not missing anything but Heartaches! 😢😞😪
My house is built into a hill so only the front is open faced, we were hit in 2009 by a F3 and all I lost was one window and the top of wood stove and vent caps that stick out of the ground, Quite lucky compared to others.
Rocky Mountains, Canadas cold air and the warm air pushing up from the gulf all play significant roles in forming tornadic weather. It causes rotation.
The Moore, OK tornado hit two elementary schools, Plaza Towers elementary had 7 children get killed. Because of that day, they now have tornado shelters at all Elementary Schools in that county. Also, in Oklahoma whenever the Storm Prediction Center predicts a "Particularly Dangerous Situation" severe weather day all of the schools in the state shut down just like if it was a snow day. It's kind of creepy. I was storm chasing in Oklahoma City about four years ago and they had a Particularly Dangerous Situation day and the entire city was shut down, it was a ghost town. The only businesses open were like bars, gas stations, etc.
The one mention here was the May 3, 1999 storm that happened in the evening hours. The one that hit the schools was several years later and happened in the mid-afternoon during school hours. I know, I live in OKC and used to work at KFOR.
Wish I could say something more cheerful but I really can't. They will wipe out your sense of security and the ptsd they leave behind will last sometimes for decades. It does get better though. Unless, god forbid, you get hit with a second one. In which case all the progress you've made with self therapy goes right out the window the tornado just smashed How bad was the leak?
This is how the scientists explain our tornado situation. Our mountain ranges run north and south, where most mountain ranges run east to west. So when spring comes around we have 2 different weather patterns we deal with, the arctic and Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean which is tropical. The arctic comes down from the north and the tropical comes up from the Gulf, where they meet is the tornado zone. They can smash into each other from Wisconsin to Georgia and anywhere in between. That's a large crap shoot. If our mountains ran east to west those 2 weather systems would rarely meet, which means very few tornadoes. I hope I made that seem easy to understand.
A lot of Brits on here always talk about how our houses are made of wood and that’s why they get destroyed so easily. Let me tell you: it doesn’t matter. We do have houses that are made of brick, stone, or whatever the case, it still gets demolished by these terrifying phenomenas.
We, here in the states, have 2 distinct jet streams that run from West to East, across our country. It's because of this that the environment becomes ripe for tornadoes. The Southern jet stream often forces warm air up into the states, and the Northern jet stream allows for cold air to come in from Canada.
I was in Oklahoma for #9 and #2. I was in a closet for #9, it hit a little south of our house. I was not a work that day at a huge theater in Moore. The theater was built by a guy from Kansas so it was built with tornados in mind. We had mild damage, but it destroyed the hospital next door.
Most of the tornadoes happen in an area of about 12 states that have flat plains between mountain ranges. Warm air from the Gulf coast comes up and mixes with cool air from the north and create a hook/spiral of wind that picks up and keeps moving, gaining speed and debris to cause more damage until one of the mix of air is thrown off and fizzles out. The winds are so fast that it will break apart ANYTHING, wood, brick, metal, etc... and they become projectiles that can literally tear a person apart.
I know this isn't tornado related, but I literally had a heart attack when I saw the thumbnail thinking that Cardi B and Eminem were covering tornadoes now
9:00 No. Nukes aren't that sensitive. They won't go off unless activated. At least that's what I understand from information I've heard. 14:40 He makes a mistake right here saying "1966". He means Twister was released in 1996.
There have been three instances where nuclear bombs were accidentally dropped from American bombers, or the bombers crashed with the bomb on board. None of them ever exploded. In fact, one of those bombs is still sitting on the ocean floor off the coast of Spain. They have never been able to find it. It is unclear if the Soviets have ever accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb, but the odds are high that they have had similar events, again, with no detonations.
Ive had the displeasure of driving through and around tornadoes in my travels. The rain shrouded and night ones are def most terrifying. You cant see em till they are right there. Always check your radar folks
I have a neighbor who actually lived tho the moore f5 tornado she is a wonderful person but is so scared when we have storms with tornado warnings, hear in northeast texas
From what I understand(because its happened before)nukes have to be armed to detonate. It happened in Spain when the US lost 2 nukes in a midair collision. They were recovered. The danger of even a non detonation is that radioactive material could leak or spill out which is hazardous too but not at the level of a detonation
The humidity in the American South is quite high. And the cold upper atmospheric air/winds in the Rocky Mountains that flow down towards the central/southern US is a PERFECT recipe for violent interaction between the two opposing air types. High velocity, dry air meeting humid air, and weird stuff happens.
the weather service has developed a theoretical F6 definition, but one has never happened in recorded history. An E.F. 6 tornado is one that sucks up concrete foundations and road pavement.
Honestly the scariest thing about a tornado is the sound, imagine standing, watching one in the distance and all you hear is the wind and a tornado siren, it's akin to watching those kaiju movies.
EF-5s do tend to pull the ground up beneath them, a phenomenon known as ground scouring. One tornado dug up 2 feet of earth below its funnel (can’t remember which one this was but you can find it in one of TornadoTRX’s videos. I believe it was an EF-4 during the 2010s)
I was in grade school when the Xenia tornado happened.. we were at school on a beautiful sunny day that turned to midnight in minutes at 2 o clock in the afternoon. Xenia was about 20 min from my school.. it was scary as a child
Tornadoes are an interesting phenomenon. In simple terms, a tornado is an abnormal thunderstorm. In a regular thunderstorm, there is a circulation of air that operates as a horizontal system. But in a tornado storm, the normally horizontal system becomes vertical, allowing the heart of the storm to reach the ground rather than just stay in the sky. As a consequence, all of that released energy from hot air and cold air causes destruction on the Earth's surface.
Tornado Alley occurs when warm Gulf air meets fronts from the north on the vast plains, and then the jetstream steers it along that path more frequently. There are a lot of topographical reasons.
I was in Oklahoma City (moved there from New Jersey about a year before) when the 2013 tornado hit Moore. It was terrifying. All my friends and their families made it out OK (Thank goodness), but it changes you. They don't lie when they say the people from the midwest are made of strong stuff. The aftermath, though heartbreaking, had its silver lining. Seeing everyone come together to help rebuild and provide aid was something I wont forget. Once you deal with a tornado like that, any other storm is just a nice day with a bit of rain.
I was about 50 miles away form Xenia when it got hit. I live in Wichita now. What was said about being screwed if you can't get underground is spot on, if you can't get underground you're proper stuffed. Incidentally, I designed a house that several architects have told me would take a direct F5... 3.5 foot thick poured concrete walls sloped in at 30 degrees, with heavy steel window shutters and doors based on naval designs. I'd have to win the lottery to ever build it.
Because of the Andover tornado McConnel Air Force Base has gotten into the habit of putting that stuff up when there are threats of tornados happening. Last couple bad storms we've got I seen posts of them putting the planes and stuff away. It's scary living in tornado alley. I also remember the Greensburg Kansas tornado and how it just leveled that town. Was so weird driving through it with my family going to Guymon Oklahoma.
Our mountains run north to south so cold air from Canada collided with moist hot air from gulf leading to tornadoes … in Europe most mountains run east to west and block cold air from south hot air preventing tornadoes
Nuclear bombs are unlike traditional bombs. There will be no explosion if they hit the ground. However with the sheer amount of radiation that is inside the bombs and the possibility of it breaking open. It could make a large irradiated area.
Peak tornado season is during the spring. Winter is coming to an end but there is still some activity with cool air from the arctic as it passes over the Rocky Mountains and moves southeast into the central plains. As temperatures continually rise in the south from warmer months, warm tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico is introduced as it moves north. As the cold and warm air combine, it creates a dangerous mix. All it really needs is a good jet stream to essentially stir it up and make it spin. The area where most activity exists is known as "Tornado Ally".
A lot of Europeans will say that if we built our homes from brick instead of wood that we would have less damage, which goes to show they have NO IDEA what living in Tornado Alley is like. Bricks can become missiles at 300 mph. If it can throw a car into the side of a building, it can decimate a brick building.
You can put rebar in brick walls and install iron girders in the roof. Make the whole house like a tornado celler.
@@MikeyA5693 Tornado cellars are built underground, hence the name CELLAR. Dumbass. Don't listen to people on the internet, folks.
@@MikeyA5693 That can't survive an EF5. THe JOplin tornado wrecked a hospital made of reinforced concrete.
@@loosilu still standing tho.
@@MikeyA5693 Nope, it had to be bulldozed.
Joplin was so strong that it twisted the hospital off it's foundation, it had to be bulldozed and rebuilt.
Joplin was a absolute beast and to me I think one of the strongest tornadoes to ever touch earth
i still think about the fact that you can see the scar in the Earth from the path of that tornado from space still.
@@agirlnamedbrett. It picked up and moved those concrete blocks on parking spots that are heavy and have two rebar bars that go into the ground a few inches. Insane low level speeds.
The crazy thing is the Joplin tornado was not even the strongest tornado of the outbreak. The strongest tornado (not on this list) is the 2011 El Reno (not 2013) tornado which is cobsidered the 2nd most powerful tornado documented. This tornado has 296mph winds measured by a mobile dopplar radar truck and it pushed over a 2 million pound oil Derrick and rolled it 3 times.
I visited Joplin after it was hit. I'll never forget being surrounded by flattened homes, the occasional stairways alone still standing, and in front of an absolutely decimated home, was the perfect little mailbox out front, untouched.
I actually volunteered as a nurse in Joplin after their 2011 tornado. These pics don't do justice to the emotional and physical detriment of those in the disaster. It's something I will never forget and never regret volunteering to help.
Thank you so much. I am from the KCMO area, but I have been to Joplin many, many times. It still brings me to tears.
Warm air comes north out of the Gulf of Mexico. Cool air comes over the Rocky mountains into the lower plains. When winds converge at high altitude winds start spinning. So warm and cold air meet in an area that is flat .
THat's a lot of it but there's a little more to it as well that factors in if you want to get the super technical explanation. But this is basically how it works
The cold air comes from
Canada
@@JabrenHarris98 It really depends on the system... Sometimes it comes over the rockies, and sometimes it sweeps down(but those arctic surges are usually more significant in the winter)
Yeah but you forgot about the rotation of the earth 🌎
That’s a very specific information
The Dead Man walking Tornado scoured the Earth up to 18 inches deep and ripped the Asphalt off the Roads.
That is crazzy strentght of an tornado...i cannot imagine that wind power.
Smithville did the same depths but with 6x the forward speed!
@@CrazyWeatherDudeRainville was absolutely horrid too, it ripped shelters out of the ground.
I heard it also basically skinned cows and did some…insanely horrifying things to victims because the winds were so strong 😶
@jefftodd6384 Which dead man walking >:) (there is 8 dead man walkings in the history of tornados, fun fact the El reno Ef3 was a dead man walking tornado/was classified)
Fyi fun fact. Im from Xenia and the local legend says that in the old days when native Americans lost the land to the European settlers they told them that the area was called "the land of the devil winds. Xenia has been hit 4 tornadoes in modern times alone.
I used to race at Kil-Kare in Xenia alot. When a storm was approaching, the whole horizon seemed like it "funnelled down" and took aim at Xenia. It was super creepy!!
Your Native info is seriously lacking.
In the Jarrell tornado, after they could not find any bodies, they could not figure it out, until they started finding pieces of people ... they had been shredded by the winds.
When bodies have been dismembered or severely mangled, that is nothing less than 5
Yeah, that blew my mind and was absolutely horrifying to me when I heard about that. Truly a horror movie!
FYI - The movie "Twister" came out in 1996, not 1966. I think he didn't catch himself making the mistake.
I was thinking that maybe the 1996 movie was a remake.🤦🏾♀️😂
Im Glad you looked this up lol.
Was getting ready to search for an original 30years Earlier than the one i remember 😂😂🎉
@@andi5262same 😂
I live in Jarrell, TX. That tornado left a permanent imprint on the town. There are memorials to the families lost, including an elementary school named after one of them.
The Joplin ef5 tornado was so powerful it literally sandblasted the skin off of cows and a few unfortunate people
Indeed
Nuclear weapons have to be armed if they are not armed they are just oversized paper weights, they have five failsafes in them
This, very much this. People who design nuclear weapons are fully aware of just how destructive a malfunction could be, so they have so many layers of failsafes that it's not even funny.
That said... if they were picked up by this thing, they would've been thrown around, likely heavily damaged, and flung off who-knows-how-far, leaving two (or more) lumps of radioactive material just lying around in random locations, to either cause harm, or be stolen. Wouldn't have nuked anyone, but... still wouldn't have been great.
@@wavelengthrenegadereef9143 People say this, and it's true, but we dropped the bomb on the east coast a good while back and it/they almost activated. The failsafes worked but only just. The device had not been armed.
Yes... but they worked. All but one of them failed... which is why we had that last one. That is the point of a multiple-redundancy system. The multiple failures is a scary situation, but those multiple failsafe failures are why there are so many failsafes.
@@wavelengthrenegadereef9143 It was great that they worked because the bomb was one failsafe away from detonation despite it not having been intentionally armed. Just wanted to get that info into this chain. It's not necessarily to refute what was stated so much to provide additional information for a similar case.
Yes. And to be fair, it's not like the idea of the bombs being thrown in the tornado scenario and then all of the failsafes screwing up is impossible, especially given that the weapon would've been heavily damaged by its time in the vortex. It's just unlikely that it would've been damaged in such a way as to specifically bypass the failsafes, rather than such a way as to break so much of the structure that it became impossible for it to activate at all.
There’s not a more helpless feeling than being in your house with a tornado heading your way. It happened to me years ago, I saw the tornado coming and grabbed my dog and got into a small bathroom in the middle of the house. We didn’t have a basement. All you can do is wait for your house to fall on you. Luckily the tornado heading my way turned at the last minute, it destroyed the houses across the street but only knocked down some tress in my yard. I was lucky, my neighbors not so much.
The reason tornadoes happen is four factors hot air from the gulf and Atlantic, cold air from the arctic, the lower ground level, and the right spots away from atmospheric disturbances. It all collides right in the area we call tornado alley. You literally don’t know when it will strike or the conditions are right but when it happens it’s dangerous and you hear the sirens blaring for people to immediately get underground or find shelter. Europe has too many mountain ranges for tornadoes to form properly.
There are tornados all over the world including Europe. Yes, you accurately explained how tornados form in the plains of USA, but you make it sound like tornados can only form from Gulf of Mexico air mixing with arctic air. That’s not accurate because tornados can form in places that are nowhere near the air from Gulf of Mexico.
@@christoffesedao3579I believe they were just stating the extremity compared to others places.
I also heard that the way the Appalachian and rocky mountains are positioned, they play a role in the formation of tornadoes in the middle of the country.
Weather is fascinating.
In a tornado I have seen a plastic straw get embedded into a concrete wall over 6 inches deep. It was in the wall straight. Not bent or curved. STRAIGHT!! !! HOW THAT IS POWERFUL!!!
Yes! I have seen straw in the side of telephone poles after tornadoes. I was contracted under FEMA working for the NC Office of Emergency Management until my retirement last year. The power of tornadoes are unreal.
I lived in the US my whole life and experienced my first tornado a little over a year ago. EF3 (although almost an EF4). Its an experience that is truly ingrained in my memory. Forever. The most grateful thing to me after the fact are the advances we have come in tornado tracking. Between the air sirens and your phones going off, you are alerted with enough time to shelter in place. I was able to grab my shoes, keys and ID and my cat and hide in my bedroom closet. When a tornado happens, its ideal to be as close to the ground as you can. If that's not possible (I was in a third floor apartment), you find a place like a bathroom or closet away from windows and debris.
The thing that is scariest about a tornado is the silence. Right before it hit, there was this eerie silence. Then the lights flickered off like in a horror movie and then the sound of a moving train. It lasted in the span it would take to snap my fingers at the most and then it was over. We stayed in the closet until the sirens stopped. When I finally felt safe enough to wander outside I saw trees uprooted from the ground, power lines lying in the middle of the street and property damage to the buildings. But I also came to realize that tornados are unpredictable. They don't run through like a straight line, they bounce like a ball, almost.
Our building mostly had tree and mild property damage, however the apartment complex across from us was completely flattened. Surveying the damage afterwards there were areas that were completely spared but others absolutely destroyed. There really is no such thing as a tornado safe build. Its all down to luck to be honest. Its also a reason why in areas where tornados frequent you will see more wood buildings than brick. A torando will destroy either. However, flying wood causes less damage than flying brick would and its much easier to rebuild.
The whole tornado lasted about 30 minutes but traveled over 150 miles and over four towns. One person died, 50 or so injured and almost half a billion dollars in insurance claims. We live in a highly populated area and there hadn't been a tornado in over 20 years here. Downed power poles, lines, damage to the grid left some people without power for a week. However, the human response was amazing to behold and not just with emergency responders. While the national guard and police were dispatched to help with rescue efforts and clean up, they also patrolled the streets at night since many homes were without power.
What really helped me was how the community came together. The day after it happened there were food trucks from local restaurants giving out free plates of food, dry cleaners offered to wash people's clothes for free, the local LA fitness offered people a place to shower, Verizon gave all its customers free ulimited data and calls for a month, and after power was restored local businesses like Target and Loews came together to drop off care packages of food and cleaning supplies to local apartment complexes. It really helped as we lost all the food we had and we had just went grocery shopping before it happend.
The entire experience was traumatic and I still get a trauma response anytime the sirens go off (even though they go off for a tornado that is miles from where I live). However, it has made more prepared. I have an container in my closet filled with everything I could need if I have to spend a few days without power and things I own that are irreplaceable or have some sense of meaning to me. I hope to never have to use any of it, but whatever happens, I know going forward I am ready and that gives some type of peace of mind.
I would add that for slow moving F5 tornados, you're only safe underground. When they sit over an area with winds that speed, no building can protect you. None. Close to the ground isn't enough. Under it is the only way to survive. So I can't fathom why every building in Tornado Alley doesn't have a storm shelter or underground bunker.
F-5 tornados can be as big as one mile or two miles wide! Columbus Ohio where I live is not as State in "Tornado Alley" but we get our share of tornado warnings when hot and cold weather occurs at the same time. Every single wednesday at 12 noon sharp, tornado alert sirens all over the city are tested for about one minute for maintenance and checking.
Hello from Zanesville! Stop sending us your leftover tornado warnings. 😛
@@americansmark haha.. Same feeling for people in Dallas Texas after tornados or hail storms hit Fort Worth! :)
Every single Wednesday? That sounds incredibly frustrating! I'm about two hours southwest of you (ie closer to the plains overall) and it's just every first Monday of the month here.
@@LauraSti Nothing frustrating about it when it is EVERY single Wednesday at 12 noon sharp. More routine actually.. When you hear the siren, you know it is Wednesday 12 noon sharp LOL! It is only activated for about one minute.
I used to live in an apartment building where a tornado siren was like 100 yards away. When they tested it first wednesday of every month, it literally felt like it was shaking our apartment building it was so loud
Just be happy there's a Gulf Stream. The gulf stream that goes from the gulf of Mexico around Florida and up the coast and over to the UK and down. This is what gives the UK temperate weather. If the gulf stream stopped the UK would have artic weather and feet of snow.
The deadman walking is so eerie
I've lived in Oklahoma City for 26 years I remember the Moore tornadoes and one that didn't make this list is the EL Reno tornado just west of OKC that was over a mile wide and took the lives of some storm chasers
El Reno was insane.
El Reno was not a mile wide. It was 2.6 miles wide, the largest tornado ever recorded. It had potentially dozens of subvorticies and windspeeds of at least 295mph. But because it didn't hit anything, it was rated EF3. Had it's official rating been EF5, It absolutely would have been on this list.
El Reno was actually 2.6 miles wide & a lot of EF3 & EF4 tornadoes are just as destructive & terrifying as the EF5’s but every video I see is only about the EF5’s. Same as hurricanes, anything category 3+ is considered major, it’s the same with tornadoes. 🌪️🌀
@@amandataylor1166 usually the biggest difference between a 4 and a 5 is location and 5s happen in heavily populated areas causing more damage
it was demoted to an ef3, so its not in the list.
22:44 it's hard to comprehend what we're looking at here because when you see stuff blowing in the wind you immediately think of leaves, maybe clothes, generally small and light objects. But that is wooden beams, bricks, car doors, etc. Imagine being near that, it's like a blender.
You mentioned insurance payouts - my hometown and mother’s house were hit by a tornado in 1996. The next day the insurance companies set up tents on the street corners and just started doling out money so people could get started buying supplies to clean up and to pay for food and motels. Though a surprising number of people who owned their homes outright didn’t have insurance b/c they didn’t want to spend the money on premiums. Quite a gamble.
5:28 lot of houses in Oklahoma have basements or separate storm shelters that are underground, if you don’t have a basement or storm shelter, the best way to survive a tornado is getting in the most interior room in your house, like a closet or bathroom.
Joplin is special for another specific reason - its hospital was destroyed, it had one or more fire stations destroyed, a popular gas station that had a alcohol fridge was mostly destroyed, but patrons were allowed to go into the fridge because it was strong. Tornadoes can destroy most above ground structures, but there are in building structures that can be mounted to the foundation that are welded steel tornado safety "buildings". If a house doesn't have a basement, they should get one of these to protect their lives.
Even a well built home wouldn’t stand unfazed against an F5 if hit directly, not just the wind but the debris that is flung around will damage it enough for the wind to do more damage.
That as well as the pressure drop blowing all the windows out.
EF5 tornados actually have scoured the ground on numerous occasions
I drove through Moore, Oklahoma after the tornado and it leveled every building. Even brick buildings with thick walls were almost completely gone. It was terrifying to look at - it literally made my hands shake to look at the power it took to wipe a brick downtown away.
I would answer your question by saying the building that could withstand such a force, would have to have the shape of a geodesic dome and made using reinforced concrete.
Living in Oklahoma City, we're well-prepared for tornadoes. Most of us have weather radios to alert us and storm shelters for safety. We usually know days in advance when a tornado might hit, giving us time to either evacuate or find a safe spot. For those without storm shelters, the safest place is the innermost part of the house, away from windows-often a bathroom. Cover yourself with a mattress to protect against falling debris. It’s dangerous to be out driving or seeking shelter under an overpass during a tornado.
Yep. I've lived here since the 80's
My church and I went out to Joplin to help clean up and render aid to all that were injured. I remember going out there and helping them seeing all the destruction is something you never forget.
Are you Mennonite by any chance?
Surprisingly, large cities haven't had much history with tornado damage. The one that hit Joplin, Missouri, in this video, is one of the exceptions.
Nothing will beat the Jarrell tornado as far as damage. First responders to that scene initially couldn't recognize human remains because the victims were so "chewed up". The after assessment was that those that were in the "F5" level wind zone died if not underground. 100% fatality rate for anything sheltering above ground in that wind zone. That's insane.
You gotta remember too that on these days where you get huge tornados that just straight line winds will do massive damage as well. I've seen strong gusts of wind blow around anything that isn't tied down like leaves and can easily take off parts of your roof.
The UK reported around 80 tornadoes per year
for usa thats rookie numbers.
I lived in Oklahoma City just a street away from the Del city area of May 3, 1999 I saw the tornado behind my house it was huge it destroyed a neighborhood that I once reside in about 4 blocks away from me.
5:35 One terrifying fact about Texas homes is that even though we are in Tornado Alley, the bedrock and water table are so close to the surface of the ground that most homes DON'T have basements or storm cellars. So if a tornado is coming at us, we really do just have to get into an interior room or closet and hope for the best.
And in Central Texas, the limestone ground is too resistant, and/or covers massive caves. They had to pause working on one of my company's new offices a couple of years ago because they dug right into (and discovered) a whole new cave underneath. In SE Texas you'd really just end up digging below sea level.
That is horrible! The death count from an EF5 will be tremendous. EF5 tornadoes wipe well built homes off their foundation. Luckily, as said in the video, it had been years since the last EF5.
Hi! Just to give you a bit of a detailed answer to the question of why in America we receive a lot more tornado activity then other countries.
First, and foremost, a very significant amount of tornadic activity is centralized in a few different zones referred to as tornado alleys. The big one, with the name "Tornado Alley" specifically, is over Kansas, Oklahoma, North Texas, and adjacent states. This region is south of the rocky Mountains and north of the gulf of Mexico. The massive mountain range creates a large mass of cool, dry air, which clashes with the hot moist air from the gulf. This causes the hot air to rise and cool air to fall in a rotating fashion, creating tornadic supercells that hit the plains. Geography-wise, this region is the perfect birthplace for tornados.
It's topography, basically. When cold, dry air (from the Rocky Mountains meets warm, moist air from The Gulf Of Mexico. The set-up is perfect for a tornado. Other countries don't have the same components arranged the same way.
I don't know how old this video is but we just had a f4/f5 here in Nebraska. The Midwest has been getting slammed the last week. 4/26/2024 we had a series of tornados that day. There has been an outbreak this year
I live in Iowa, and those storms have caused several Tornadoes here as well. Greenfield Iowa was wiped out.
Those were all EF 4’s, they were close but not EF 5’s. We still haven’t had one since 2013
Any tornado EF3+ is considered major just as any category 3+ hurricane is considered major but everyone focuses on the 5’s, I don’t get it… hurricane Katrina made landfall as a category 3 but is in the top 5 most catastrophic hurricanes in US history. The El Reno should have been a EF5 but was later downgraded but was one of the worst in history & holds the spot as the largest in US history at 2.6 miles wide. The UK reports anywhere between 80-90 tornadoes a year, every year. My point is that EF3+ tornadoes & category 3+ hurricanes can be just as catastrophic. A lot of tornadoes aren’t even recorded if they don’t hit towns or structures, if they only hit forests or farmland, they’re mostly completely missed so we’ve most likely had so many more EF5 tornadoes.
Also EF5 tornadoes do tear into the ground & leave scars on earth that are still visible YEARS sometimes over a decade later on google earth.
@@FamousNya Well, we have they just don't call them EF5s anymore. They call them "high end" or "high level" EF4 tornadoes. Sometime around 2014 someone in the federal government sent out a memo or some kind of verbal order that no tornado would be rated EF5 no matter what kind of damage it did. There have probably been somewhere between five and ten EF5 tornadoes that were not rated that way for one reason/excuse or another. Sometimes they will claim that anchor bolts were not installed properly on homes that were swept completely away, sometimes they will say the damage was caused by something the tornado threw into the building instead of the tornado itself, sometimes they will claim that because one tree did not get destroyed the damage could not be EF5 level even if the entire house and every other tree was gone, sometimes they will just flat out not survey locations with the heaviest damage. I don't know exactly who is making the call or what their angle is but the NWS has absolutely refused to give out an EF5 rating for over a decade now and some tornadoes in that time have been pretty obvous EF5s. (Vilonia, Arkansas in 2014, Chapman, Kansas in 2016, Bremen, Kentucky in 2021are three that immediately pop into my head and there have been others in Texas and Mississippi where the exact location and year I can not recall off the top of my head.)
What they don’t mention about the Moore, Oklahoma Tornado is that is hit 2 Elementary Schools where several children died. This storm hit the community especially hard. I highly recommend a show called Tornado Alley (can be found here on TH-cam). They give a real time account of a tornado as told by eyewitnesses that lived through it. Each Tornado Alley episode features a different Tornado, usually EF4 or EF5.
Indeed
Need to remember that the one mentioned was the May 3, 1999 tornado which happened during the evening hours. The one which hit the schools was several years later and took place in the mid-afternoon during school hours.
wasnt it at ef5 rating when it started to hit one of the schools?
@@athenaaxrs I believe so & it was 2 miles wide. Just a monster of a storm.
We just had a strong tornado in Barnsdal, Oklahoma
There is a YT channel called Geography King.
He has an excellent video explaining why the US weather/climate is the way it is in various parts of the country (excl. Alaska and Hawaii).
I live in Missouri and we are in tornado alley and if you're lucky you have a storm cellar. Or as you heard bathtub with mattress over you or stand in heavy doorway and pray like you never have and hope you come out the other side
I was paralyzed and lost both my legs in a F5 tornado in Tuscaloosa Alabama on April 27th 2011. The very first outbreak they showed.
God bless
People in other countries have their own weather and national disasters, in the USA we have tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, dust storms, earthquakes, blizzards, floods and tsunamis! People who go through these disasters have to be prepared,be aware, strong and humble if not it’ll break your spirit! It’s great to be an American 😂
I live in Illinois and we get lots of tornados. My son's friend lost his house to a tornado several years ago. It took out their entire subdivision. If you live in a tornado area, you know what to do depending on your circumstances. Basements, rooms without windows, etc. If on the road you lay down in a ditch. You know they are coming and there are sirens to give you time to get somewhere.
Many communities in tornado ridden areas have neighborhood tornado shelters. You can find one easier than you think.
We saw one in Kansas the other day as we were driving home from vacation.
The Moore Oklahoma tornado you can still see the scars left in the land. EF-5 can rips apart the ground and pull pavement for the roads.
I grew up just outside Wichita, KS and went through tons of tornadoes. The closest one I remember was an F5 that came about 1/3rd mile south of our house that went on to hit Andover, KS really hard. I was living in Pittsburg, KS when the F5 tornado hit Joplin, MO which is plenty close enough to be a "puckering event".
Eyyyyy I was at Andover road and Harry for that one. Were you south of there? Were you here for 2022? I got a tree through the door!
I just subscribed I survived a tornado when I was 15 I was walking home from my grandmother's when i saw a huge wall of black coming towards me luckily I was near a ditch and took shelter there until it passed but as long as I live I will never forget that sight and sound of the tornado while it passed me in the ditch it was deafening.
Just don't go sheltering under any bridges
I live in Oklahoma, it’s been tornado season this month and last. I graduated after the Moore EF5 Tornado in May 2013. It can be beautiful and scary
the reason the US gets so many tornadoes is that there is a wide stretch of flat land from near tropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico in the South to the Arctic in the north. Flat as a pancake. No other place on Earth has that set up. So the wet, warm tropical air goes north while the cold arctic goes south. Where it meets you have enormous storms.
The flatness has nothing to do with it. Tennessee, Arkansas, northern Alabama, and eastern Oklahoma are not close to flat and they all get plenty of tornadoes every year.
@@88wildcat you don't understand what I mean. The REASON that the warm and cold air can MEET is BECAUSE there is FLAT terrain all the way to the North pole from the USA and FLAT to the Gulf of Mexico.. That ALLOWS the cold aid to move SOUTH into the USA UNIMPEDED and run into warm moist air coming UP from the Gulf. Always fcking amazed how people
I live in Kansas. I have a basement. Newer homes may have a concrete reinforced room instead of a basement. If you don't have either, go to the lowest level in your home and put as many walls between yourself and the outside. If you live in a mobile home, leave! If you live in a mobile home park, go to its shelter. If you are in a car, leave, get to a ditch or culvert and cover your head.
And stay away from bridges
Lived about 30 minutes from Joplin, my girlfriend at the time lived in Joplin and had just got a new car and they found it about half a mile away. They were okay just lost chunk of roof at least.
That EF5 tornado lifted off the ground right before it got to my house in Oklahoma. I thought I was screwed, but then got extremely lucky.
I live not far from Joplin Mo. That Tornado 🌪 was absolutely Breathtakingly Mind-blowingly Insane !!
The way it gutted the Hospital was insane !
Ive been in many Tornados just this week we had 2 Tornado 🌪 🌪
That hit our small town in Arkansas, it did allot of Damage...
All i can say for those in the UK 🇬🇧 You better be glad you don't have these, Your definitely not missing anything but Heartaches! 😢😞😪
My house is built into a hill so only the front is open faced, we were hit in 2009 by a F3 and all I lost was one window and the top of wood stove and vent caps that stick out of the ground, Quite lucky compared to others.
Rocky Mountains, Canadas cold air and the warm air pushing up from the gulf all play significant roles in forming tornadic weather. It causes rotation.
The Moore, OK tornado hit two elementary schools, Plaza Towers elementary had 7 children get killed. Because of that day, they now have tornado shelters at all Elementary Schools in that county. Also, in Oklahoma whenever the Storm Prediction Center predicts a "Particularly Dangerous Situation" severe weather day all of the schools in the state shut down just like if it was a snow day. It's kind of creepy. I was storm chasing in Oklahoma City about four years ago and they had a Particularly Dangerous Situation day and the entire city was shut down, it was a ghost town. The only businesses open were like bars, gas stations, etc.
The one mention here was the May 3, 1999 storm that happened in the evening hours. The one that hit the schools was several years later and happened in the mid-afternoon during school hours. I know, I live in OKC and used to work at KFOR.
i help in the clean-up of the 2011 Joplin Missouri tornado. I've seen damage from a few tornadoes in my time, but NEVER on the scale of Joplin...
I can't imagine living through a tornado... I had a leak in my roof and since then I have major anxiety even when it rains.
Wish I could say something more cheerful but I really can't. They will wipe out your sense of security and the ptsd they leave behind will last sometimes for decades. It does get better though.
Unless, god forbid, you get hit with a second one. In which case all the progress you've made with self therapy goes right out the window the tornado just smashed
How bad was the leak?
That bloody storm blew me crumpets over into the next village, govnuh.
I live in the Midwest and have thought about nuclear weapons being triggered by wind or a tornado. Always wondered about this.
Not how nukes work. Even without all the failsafes, they aren't really something that just "goes off."
This is how the scientists explain our tornado situation. Our mountain ranges run north and south, where most mountain ranges run east to west. So when spring comes around we have 2 different weather patterns we deal with, the arctic and Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean which is tropical. The arctic comes down from the north and the tropical comes up from the Gulf, where they meet is the tornado zone. They can smash into each other from Wisconsin to Georgia and anywhere in between. That's a large crap shoot. If our mountains ran east to west those 2 weather systems would rarely meet, which means very few tornadoes. I hope I made that seem easy to understand.
A lot of Brits on here always talk about how our houses are made of wood and that’s why they get destroyed so easily. Let me tell you: it doesn’t matter. We do have houses that are made of brick, stone, or whatever the case, it still gets demolished by these terrifying phenomenas.
Plus I don't think most people can even guess the amount of damage a brick can do when it's going 200 miles an hour
Grew up in Alabama. Watched one pass our house during the April 27, 2011 outbreak. Will never forget that day.
We, here in the states, have 2 distinct jet streams that run from West to East, across our country. It's because of this that the environment becomes ripe for tornadoes. The Southern jet stream often forces warm air up into the states, and the Northern jet stream allows for cold air to come in from Canada.
I was in Oklahoma for #9 and #2. I was in a closet for #9, it hit a little south of our house. I was not a work that day at a huge theater in Moore. The theater was built by a guy from Kansas so it was built with tornados in mind. We had mild damage, but it destroyed the hospital next door.
In Missouri we have root cellars that are great shelter for tornadoes.
😮 tornado winds are so strong they can put a piece of hay with a straw through a solid board they can pick up a semi truck and toss it like it's a toy
Tornados sound more like a train when they are passing overhead 😊
Nice to hear y'all listening to Swegle Studios! My favorite tornado is the Dead Man Walking twister.
The cold winds from Canada hit hot winds from the south on open plains it's a perfect storm for this
Most of the tornadoes happen in an area of about 12 states that have flat plains between mountain ranges. Warm air from the Gulf coast comes up and mixes with cool air from the north and create a hook/spiral of wind that picks up and keeps moving, gaining speed and debris to cause more damage until one of the mix of air is thrown off and fizzles out. The winds are so fast that it will break apart ANYTHING, wood, brick, metal, etc... and they become projectiles that can literally tear a person apart.
I know this isn't tornado related, but I literally had a heart attack when I saw the thumbnail thinking that Cardi B and Eminem were covering tornadoes now
🤢
9:00 No. Nukes aren't that sensitive. They won't go off unless activated. At least that's what I understand from information I've heard.
14:40 He makes a mistake right here saying "1966". He means Twister was released in 1996.
There have been three instances where nuclear bombs were accidentally dropped from American bombers, or the bombers crashed with the bomb on board. None of them ever exploded. In fact, one of those bombs is still sitting on the ocean floor off the coast of Spain. They have never been able to find it. It is unclear if the Soviets have ever accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb, but the odds are high that they have had similar events, again, with no detonations.
Ive had the displeasure of driving through and around tornadoes in my travels. The rain shrouded and night ones are def most terrifying. You cant see em till they are right there. Always check your radar folks
I remember the Moore, Oklahoma tornado. It was devastating.
joplin missouri is hundreds of miles from me… and something from joplin was found in my town…. rode the tornado all the way here lol
I have a neighbor who actually lived tho the moore f5 tornado she is a wonderful person but is so scared when we have storms with tornado warnings, hear in northeast texas
From what I understand(because its happened before)nukes have to be armed to detonate. It happened in Spain when the US lost 2 nukes in a midair collision. They were recovered. The danger of even a non detonation is that radioactive material could leak or spill out which is hazardous too but not at the level of a detonation
Yes, the people who build nukes aren’t stupid, they’re not going to go critical just by getting knocked around.
Indeed
The humidity in the American South is quite high. And the cold upper atmospheric air/winds in the Rocky Mountains that flow down towards the central/southern US is a PERFECT recipe for violent interaction between the two opposing air types. High velocity, dry air meeting humid air, and weird stuff happens.
the weather service has developed a theoretical F6 definition, but one has never happened in recorded history. An E.F. 6 tornado is one that sucks up concrete foundations and road pavement.
Xenia and Lubbock received F6 ratings for a time before it was abolished.
Honestly the scariest thing about a tornado is the sound, imagine standing, watching one in the distance and all you hear is the wind and a tornado siren, it's akin to watching those kaiju movies.
EF-5s do tend to pull the ground up beneath them, a phenomenon known as ground scouring. One tornado dug up 2 feet of earth below its funnel (can’t remember which one this was but you can find it in one of TornadoTRX’s videos. I believe it was an EF-4 during the 2010s)
Hey i live in princeton! Great grandma used to tell me horror storys from that tri state tornado
I was in grade school when the Xenia tornado happened.. we were at school on a beautiful sunny day that turned to midnight in minutes at 2 o clock in the afternoon. Xenia was about 20 min from my school.. it was scary as a child
Had Tornado warnings last week here in Southeastern Nebraska early at 1am Those nighttime warnings and tornados are scary.
Yeah those storms continued over to me in Iowa.
A tornado that destroyed Greenfield, Iowa, in May this year, set the record for strongest tornado on record. It had winds of 318-335 miles per hour.
I have an extreme fear of tornadoes. Always have lol.
Same.
Tornadoes are an interesting phenomenon. In simple terms, a tornado is an abnormal thunderstorm. In a regular thunderstorm, there is a circulation of air that operates as a horizontal system. But in a tornado storm, the normally horizontal system becomes vertical, allowing the heart of the storm to reach the ground rather than just stay in the sky. As a consequence, all of that released energy from hot air and cold air causes destruction on the Earth's surface.
I've been in 3 tornados in my life and 15 hurricanes I never want another one
Don't go jinxing yourself
Tornado Alley occurs when warm Gulf air meets fronts from the north on the vast plains, and then the jetstream steers it along that path more frequently. There are a lot of topographical reasons.
I was in Oklahoma City (moved there from New Jersey about a year before) when the 2013 tornado hit Moore. It was terrifying. All my friends and their families made it out OK (Thank goodness), but it changes you. They don't lie when they say the people from the midwest are made of strong stuff. The aftermath, though heartbreaking, had its silver lining. Seeing everyone come together to help rebuild and provide aid was something I wont forget.
Once you deal with a tornado like that, any other storm is just a nice day with a bit of rain.
We had an EF2 at our town week before last. Still cleaning up.
I was about 50 miles away form Xenia when it got hit. I live in Wichita now. What was said about being screwed if you can't get underground is spot on, if you can't get underground you're proper stuffed. Incidentally, I designed a house that several architects have told me would take a direct F5... 3.5 foot thick poured concrete walls sloped in at 30 degrees, with heavy steel window shutters and doors based on naval designs. I'd have to win the lottery to ever build it.
Because of the Andover tornado McConnel Air Force Base has gotten into the habit of putting that stuff up when there are threats of tornados happening. Last couple bad storms we've got I seen posts of them putting the planes and stuff away. It's scary living in tornado alley. I also remember the Greensburg Kansas tornado and how it just leveled that town. Was so weird driving through it with my family going to Guymon Oklahoma.
Our mountains run north to south so cold air from Canada collided with moist hot air from gulf leading to tornadoes … in Europe most mountains run east to west and block cold air from south hot air preventing tornadoes
Fun fact: the Bridgecreek Moore Tornado almost lost its world record speed (301 +/- 20mph) by a recent non-EF5 that had winds up to 318 mph.
Nuclear bombs are unlike traditional bombs. There will be no explosion if they hit the ground. However with the sheer amount of radiation that is inside the bombs and the possibility of it breaking open. It could make a large irradiated area.
Peak tornado season is during the spring. Winter is coming to an end but there is still some activity with cool air from the arctic as it passes over the Rocky Mountains and moves southeast into the central plains. As temperatures continually rise in the south from warmer months, warm tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico is introduced as it moves north. As the cold and warm air combine, it creates a dangerous mix. All it really needs is a good jet stream to essentially stir it up and make it spin.
The area where most activity exists is known as "Tornado Ally".
An EF 3 completely destroyed a very strong brick and concrete factory in my town in 2018. It looks like it was hit by bombs…