TC Larry

[den]

Cyclone Larry (cat.5, 290kph winds) is battering Innisfail and Cairns right now. The eye passed ove Innisfail ay 8.30 (7.30 EST) Good luck up there.

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[weyrdbird.livejournal.com]

I have been *very* lucky. The safest place to be in a situation such as a tornado if you want to observe is a good 15-20 miles away, on the side away from the funnel development area. So they say.

One of the tornadoes I saw touch down here I saw from the side, at 7:39 a.m. on June 24, 1997. If I had had a video camera, I could have made money from the film, as they have no film of a tornado from thst close taken from a side view. I saw the wall cloud descend and form the funnel; it was flat and then suddenly rolled up and sideways creating the vortex. Thank the gods it went back up into the front and the rain hit like a wall 90 seconds later. It was in a residential area and had it stayed on the ground an entire shopping district could have been seriously damaged.

I will never forget the sight as long as I live. I was within foolhardy disance and damned lucky. I do not advocate this sort of observation. If there is storm spotting training in your area it's a must if you want to survive. I've just been caught and been lucky, and I *always* keep in mind how deadly nature can be. And these are mild compared to the ones that shaped our mudball planet:D.

Beautiful and terrible is, for me, an apt description.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Larry is a Cat 4 cyclone now and dropping, unless it swings north into The Gulf and picks up more heat.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[weyrdbird.livejournal.com]

No, not Texas. Wisconsin actually. I was citing Texas because they have had some really devastating twisters in the last 40 years, but they are not alone.I grew up in Illinois, with the tornado magnet of the central part, next door to the county I lived in growing up. I saw none in my youth; I was in the basement when there was any danger. But in summer we have as much chance of tornadic activity as any of the other states in the midwest.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]