Tornado reports with softball size hail MO, KS, OK, AR

[HeeBGBz]

Heads up midwest. This is one nasty line of storms. Confirmed tornados, injuries, huge hail, etc.

http://www.wunderground.com/radar/radblast.asp?ID=SGF

I'm gonna have to duck and cover soon. Good luck all.

[lost-in-nj]

1. Stay safe

we have oodles of DUers in these states


I hope they all will check in!!!!!


you to!!!



:hug:



lost

[greenbriar]

9. nothing here yet or planned so far

I am glad because I hate HATE storms

[coriolis]

2. The one just north of Springfield came through here about an hour ago.

Nothing bad -right here- but there were several tornados just a few miles away. We had nickel size hail and some wind but that was it. Nasty storms for sure...they're still going strong.

[malaise]

3. Stay safe

:grouphug:

[hokies4ever]

4. How does the government warn the public

about tornadoes that might be coming? I'm guessing they can put out a TV alert, but what if you're not watching TV?

[LiberalArkie]

5. In Arkansas just about every one I know has NOAA weather radios, and we have good TV weather alerts

[HeeBGBz]

11. I have a weather radio and a police scanner

Not to mention my computer weather software and radar images.

[tblue37]

29. I am severely hearing impaired. We had a tornado here in Lawrence,

KS, about 5 years ago, around 7 in the evening. I had fallen asleep after a long night of grading papers and a long day of more grading papers. My daughter came in around 8:30, rather late from her job. She woke me up and said, "Mom, do you know you just slept through a tornado?!" (I never heard the warning siren. I can't hear warning sirens at all.)

She was late because when the weather got really bad, her employers wouldn't let anyone leave the building, so they took shelter there. Fortunately for me, the tornado's damage was confined to the southwest part of town, while I live in the center of the town's area. Actually, thus far all of our tornadoes have hit the southwest part of town. One week after my daughter was born by C-section, we were still in the hospital when a tornado hit Lawrence and we mothers and babies had to be evacuated to a center hallway.

That tornado, in June of 1981, killed a bicyclist who had taken shelter in the local Kmart. A wall of the building fell down on him and crushed him.

I slept through the tornado in 2003 because I can't hear warning sirens. I watch TV sometimes, but not all that much, and I use closed captioning. If there is a warning, they do notify us with a crawl across the TV, but sometimes the power goes out before that--and often I am just not watching TV.

I don't have radios, because, well, I can't hear them well enough to understand words, and there is no closed captioning on radios.

So if weather gets ugly, and if I am aware of it, I just watch it closely and hope for the best.

Last evening I was coming back from a tutoring session about 4 miles from home--out in the southwest part of town. The weather looked pretty iffy. I stopped at Target to pick up some coffee, and I was almost blown off my feet! I was actually glad at that moment that I am a bit overweight, because if I had weighed less, I doubt that I could have stayed upright! We didn't have a tornado, but our winds were fierce enough to be scary.

A few years ago we also had a microburst--sort of like a tornado, but instead of a spiral cloud, the high winds (about 100 mph that time) go straight down. I was in the yard watching the weather (because fierce weather is beautiful to me) when it happened. A microburst is VERY sudden--you don't have time to see the clouds begin to form a spiral as with a tornado. The wind ripped off about half of my neighbor's tree and threw it right at me! I scrambled backwards with a shriek, and it missed me by barely a foot. I realized immediately that I was being an idiot standing out there watching the weather. At that point I raced back inside, gathered up my cats, and hid inside the bathroom for a bit.

When I came out, I saw people's trees and porch furniture littering the street as far as I could see. And our neighborhood was one of the more lightly hit ones. I did a drive around later and saw roofs ripped off of houses, trees that had pierced walls of houses, etc. The Kansas University campus had severe damage to roofs all over campus, and many old, beautiful trees had been pretty badly shredded. And Lawrence is actually a very lucky town where tornadoes and such are concerned, because our geography tends to hold tornadoes to the outskirts of town rather than to the heavily occupied parts.

Violent weather is very beautiful to me, but it is also very dangerous, and I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a whole lot more of it everywhere because of global warming.

[uppityperson]

6. I just checked NWS tornado page and noticed a bunch. Good luck all

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/080510_rpts.html

[Mabus]

7. Stay safe everyone

I miss Kansas but I don't always miss the storms. I do miss sitting on the front porch in east Lawrence and watching thunderstorms come in but I was never a fan of large hail or tornadoes. You know the drill. Be prepared. Make sure you've got a place to go and get there asap.

[mnhtnbb]

8. We had hail here in Chapel Hill, NC last night--midnight. We've lived here 8 years

and never had hail.

I was in the basement for tornado warnings several times when we lived in St. Joseph, MO and Lincoln, NE.

Stay safe!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Lighting and power flickers here

Luckily, we're in our apartment on the east side of a mountain in a basement apartment. At 2:30 this afternoon, it was almost pitch black. We stayed indoors and listened to the thunder. Didn't hear wind or hail (and it would have echoed in our stovepipe), but it sure looked bad. Right now, there's a storm with 60 mph winds just south of our home in southern Newton County, heading east.

[HeeBGBz]

12. I heard there were deaths from this storm in Newton Co.

Hope all is well with you.

There are some deaths in the Joplin area and/or Neosho, I think.

I took shelter for a while. There was a tornado warning with some funnel clouds reported from storm spotters. It's okay here now. Just raining a bit.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. Newton County MO or Newton County AR?

Newton County MO gets hit a lot with bad weather, but Newton County AR, which was the one I was talking about (sorry for not being specific)usually doesn't have casualties--not many people live there. Back to MO--I've got friends in Joplin, and I hope they are ok.

[malaise]

19. Quite a few fatalities -watches for Atlanta

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24558648/
<snip>
Thunderstorms and tornadoes tore across the nation's heartland Saturday evening, killing at least 11 people, mangling buildings and trapping people in rubble in areas still reeling from other recent bouts with severe weather.

A twister killed at least six people in the northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher, then skipped over the Missouri state line to wreak further death and destruction, authorities said.

-------------
several people trapped in homes according to NBC news

Watches for Atlanta as well.

[ensho]

27. I read this a.m. of 11 deaths in one place - don't remember where

I might have read it at RSOE

and grapefruit sized hail

[jimshoes]

13. Why isn't one of those preacher TV types

out there blaming these storms on the typical midwest lifestyle. Gawd hates the typical midwest lifestyle.
P.S. Just kidding, :evilgrin: But seriously, please be careful out there in tornado alley.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Take care, everyone!

[lonestarnot]

16. 28 reported tornadoes. 8 dead so far.

[fed-up]

17. stay safe and report in when you get the all clear nt

[phantom power]

18. damn, the severe weather map looks nasty.

[L. Coyote]

20. I awoke to 4 inches of snow this morning in North Dakota. Went fishing anyway!!

[lonestarnot]

21. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Catch any?

[L. Coyote]

25. An 18" walleye. Delicious!!

[lonestarnot]

30. mmmmm.mmmm. mmm.

[uppityperson]

24. What are you doing NoDaking?

[L. Coyote]

26. What can I say. Everybody was born somewhere!!

A great place to be from .... LOL .... http://jqjacobs.net/photos/regent.html


Panorama of idyllic Regent, North Dakota, 58650, home of Senator Byron Dorgan.


The Tin Family sculptures on the Enchanted Highway

How many of you were in a 4-H club with a US Senator?

[uppityperson]

28. I love those sculptures, have wanted to check out the town/hwy

driving by but never have. Fargo is a great place to be from also and they've had an extended cold snowy spring there this yr for sure.

Being in 4-H with Byron Dorgan is an ok guy, better than in school with Steve Sydness as I was. (we are dating ourselves) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sydness

[superkia]

22. Luckily our government is on this and were just running drills to...

protect us. If they would could stop with the chemtrails and fucking with mother nature maybe she wouldn't get as upset. I never liked the idea of pumping other pollutants into the air, we do a good enough job in this area and I don't think there is a need for our tax dollars to add to this. Leave mother nature alone damn it!

"The Department of Homeland Security's National Exercise Program (NEP), the nation's overarching homeland security exercise program, will conduct a combined exercise in May 2008 that will test hurricane preparedness planning, assess federal interagency Continuity of Operations (COOP) procedures, exercise a response to terrorist attacks in Washington State and test Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA). These linked exercises are referred to as National Level Exercise 2-08 (NLE 2-08).

The exercise takes place May 1-8 with a wide range of participants from federal and state departments and agencies."

[uppityperson]

23. 18 dead so far.

http://www.southernledger.com/ap/129550/At_least_18_dead_in_Central_US_in_new_round_of_tornadoes

A tornado that spun across the Oklahoma-Missouri border killed at least 18 people as severe storms raked the nation's heart Saturday, injuring many and mangling buildings in the storm-weary region.

At least 12 people were killed after severe storms spawned tornadoes and high winds across sections of southwestern Missouri, the State Emergency Management Agency said. Ten of the dead were killed when a twister struck near Seneca, near the Oklahoma border.

At least six people were killed as the tornado flattened the northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher, authorities said.

"They're going over the hard-hit area and turning over everything and looking," SEMA spokeswoman Susie Stonner said of emergency workers' search for victims and assessment of damage. "It's hard to do in the dark."..

Glenn Waggoner surveys a hole torn into the roof of the Pinecrest Private School by a severe storm Saturday, May 10, 2008, in Bentonville, Ark. There were three adults and six children inside the building seeking refuge from the storm when the tornado stuck. Eyewitnesses said they saw a funnel cloud over the location at the time it was damaged. There were no injuries. (AP Photo/The Morning News, Marc F. Henning)

[lonestarnot]

31. Damn! Are we going to have anything left of OK and MI if this keeps happening?