See, this guy was a ing dumbass. Great video but still pretty damn stupid.
Brent is a chaser (ChaserTV), he was all over the Birmingham cell. Been following him pretty extensively this season, he's been doing some great spotting so far.From Brent Adair's FB:
Just got information from a search team member in Pleasant Grove, AL....well built homes are no where to be found and people died in there basements. Some basements even damaged or "gone". This tornado may do things to the EF scale we never thought imaginable.
See, this guy was a ing dumbass. Great video but still pretty damn stupid.
Death count now at 298:
http://www.waff.com/story/14532637/d...-more-than-290
This is a good point. Smaller vortices can be F5 strength as well even if they're only 100 yards across or less.
Not to mention the winds you can get from microbursts or bow echo-type storms that aren't even associated with a tornado.Also people think that the tornado is just the funnel and that irks me a lot too. Look at some of the videos and look at all the debris OUTSIDE of the actual funnel. The core of that storm isn't just the funnel, and thats why you see other vorticies flying around the exterior. Even if tornadic rotating winds don't extend that far out you can still get extremely strong RFD straightline winds in that area that are just as strong.
Edit: Also the RFD frequently has hail associated with it, especially with extremely unstable/strong up and downdrafts. Hail can kill you as dead as a tornado if you are caught out in it.
Pretty sure if they weren't in their car they wouldn't have made it through this storm.
Yeah, there's definitely a segment of the chasers that are essentially "Jackass" with a camera following a funnel cloud. , even as experienced as Timmer & Co. is, I've seen them make some very poor decisions. The difference is, if they get into a bad situation they usually know what to do to minimize their chances of dying.Some of the people shooting those videos are extremely re ed. I think viewing them from a distance is great, but too many people want to be Reed Timmer and pretty soon someone is going to die because of it.
Last edited by Cry Havoc; 04-28-2011 at 04:45 PM.
Sad thing is this video is ALL OVER the net so he's going to make a ton of money for taking his life into his hands. That tornado literally goes into the parking lot that he starts the video from. It wouldn't even have had to have changed course, just wobbled a bit, and it would have been right on top of him and he would have had nowhere to go unless he wanted to drive through the mall with his car. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Not this last season, but the season before Reed got them into that tornado that they had no business being in. Tim Samaras knew it was too violent and of course they lose their window and get glass shards all over their faces. Quick way to lose an eye.
Its dangerous no matter what, but I just don't see the point of getting that close to one without the proper equipment. The TIV and Reed's vehicle are built for that but a regular car is not. And the TIV and Reed's vehicle have valid scientific missions even if they are also selling footage.
He was in the core of that tornado. Look at the wind and the flying around him. It was the edge of the core, but he was in it. It doesn't take much to come flying through your windshield to completely you up or flip your car.
Great video, like I said, but pretty stupid to get that close.
lol as you were posting this I was editing my post to include that.I think it's the same vid you're talking about. It's from 2008 but they were definitely worried.
Octonado. Thats pretty crazy.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/28/sev...her/index.html
Photos 7 and 11 both look to be at EF4 damage, minimum.
That photo from Pleasant Grove is absolutely devastating. Reminds me of some of the famous tornadoes like Andover.
The other amazing thing about that video... about the 1:20 mark, it spins off another tornado between the twister and the camera.
The tornado was horizontal though, but you can see it rotating on its own horizontal to the ground.
Pretty amazing.
Look at #12. That goes back to my point - many people probably took shelter, but when something like clears out your neighborhood, it doesn't matter.
Think about how much debris was flying in an urban environment like that, and then just add the sheer force of over 200 mph winds....
Yeah thats all part of the same rotation of the tornado. Those are called vortices. A lot of the videos show them horizontal from yesterday. Never really remember seeing that.
That damage path picture is nuts.
Yeah, I've seen muti-vortex videos before. But can't ever remember them being horizontal.
Incredible things going on within that storm.
Yeah - apparently they do happen but they're just really rare. I had never seen one like several of the videos showed until yesterday.
Mother nature has no regard for human life, it is slaughtering masses left and right.
ridiculous. A picture is worth way more than a thousand words here, imo
I think what struck me more than anything on Wednesday were the endless reports of very large pieces of debris falling randomly out of the sky, in some cases 15 miles away from the tornado. One of the chasers had to drive around a large section of roof that was partially in the middle of the road in a neighborhood that had no damage.
Watching the footage of the destruction in T-town makes me sick. Thank goodness the NWS, local media, and storm chasers/spotters all did such a great job of getting warnings out. It could have been far worse, in terms of loss of life, without those people.
agree with you guys about those strange multi-vortice tornadoes, never seen anything like that either. Saw them on video of both the Cullman and Tuscaloosa/Birmingham storms. Wonder if any more had that same trait?
another good slideshow. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...Severe_Weather
help:http://american.redcross.org/site/Pa...FrontPagePanel
tuscaloosa
Arab, Alabama. Pretty sure this is yet another different storm, from up in the NE part of the state
rose hill MS
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