#funnel clouds

Funnel clouds that aren’t touching the ground aren’t dangerous. They are, however, a sign of serious potential danger. Don’t get closer to them.

Once a funnel cloud touches the ground, it still may not go full tornado. In all cases, treat it like it’s gonna be a real asshole of a tornado. Stay the fuck away from it and stay the fuck inside. 

If the funnel cloud does become a tornado, you want a room or space with no windows or minimal windows as close to the center of your home as possible. This is why it’s common for people who live in tornado alley to hunker down in the bathroom. Bathrooms are usually somewhere within the interior walls of the house and have no windows. You want this because if the tornado goes full asshole and tries to take your house apart, it’s gonna have to work to actually get to you. And the number one way people get injured in tornados is when shit goes flying. Like window glass. Or the front door. 

You wanna be in the lowest part of your home. If you’ve got a basement that’s properly underground (not a walkout basement), that’s gonna be super safe because tornados go across, not down. If you DO have a walkout basement (a basement that you can exit to the yard without having to go upstairs), it’s still going to be the lowest point in the house. Just stay the fuck away from anything that can shatter or snap hinges. 

If you have time (you may not), hang blankets over the windows. If they get blown out by the tornado, the blankets will help contain the glass. 

For fuck’s sake, do not leave the safe spot until an all clear is signaled. Tornados can turn around. They’re dicks like that. 

If you’re outside near a ditch, jump in that thing. Lay flat. Cover your head with your arms. Tornados jump ditches. Culverts are a very iffy possibility because tornados throw shit around, and you could get stuck or flooded. Ditches are safer in this case because they’re open. 

Stay the fuck away from structures. Don’t hide under cars. Don’t hide under an overpass. Anything above you could fall on you. Anything next to you could stab you. Whole trees can get uprooted. Do not trust trees in a tornado. 

The usual emergency supplies rules apply during tornados. Hand-cranked radios. Back-up batteries for your phone. Flashlights, fresh water, canned food, blankets, etc. 

so many things to say but the first is if you haven’t done any storm chasing or learnt anything about storms and ever see something like any of these pictures, head the other way, this guy came very very close to dropping tornado. the funnel was there, the rotation was.. intense.. and by chance I was way too close to it to be safe. be smarter than me. 

This was pure luck. the storm gods smiled on me in a way I hadn’t fully realized I needed till it was happening. There’s something almost holy about being right in the eye of all that violence and tumult. It’s sacred for a moment or two while everything churns and it’s like the whole of all our gadgets and cleverness never existed. it’s base and raw and sublime and also often utterly terrifying as you make safety calculations on 20 min old radars and past similar experiences but you can never know when things are going to suddenly go out of control, and the truth is the more you flirt with it, the more likely you’re going to get burnt one day. I get this logically but I feel almost manically driven to stay in that air when it’s happening. I can’t explain it with words but it’s as close to religious as I’m able to get. 

I left with no plan, only knowing something was brewing west after a quick radar check and I barely made it out of town when I came across the first shot you see there. I’ve learnt those rough edged flat bottoms are gold but I've probably never been able to watch it go from that to what it went to before and I definitely had no time to look at radar between multiple cameras and a time-lapse (which I will figure out how to get on here at some point). 

it was all over in about 45 mins and I was 2 mins from home. Some days are like that. some days you drive 1000k and spend the entire day in the car and see nothing exciting. 

last bit to say is my health is dramatically improved. It took a literal cohort of doctors but we’ve landed on what’s going on and it’s being treated now, quite painfully, and slowly, but I’ve so (no words for how so) happy to report that I am able to get back out and make pictures again. to chase storms and sunsets and drive for long periods. that in itself is a miracle. a literal undeserved miracle. 

I sleep until eight and it feels great – I needed a lie in. 

It’s raining again today. I’ve had several cold and rainy days in a row and am hoping to hit better weather soon.  I leave the Hotel Granluca and Austin with regret and add them to my list of places I want to revisit.  It’s a late start—I don’t get away until about 9:30 and waste another 30 minutes looking for a Starbucks.  A cold brew, breakfast sandwich, and banana bread are just the ticket.  As I’m leaving the drive-through I think to look at the mileage and it’s 2655.  

I head southeast out of Austin on Hwy 290 and at I-10 head east. When I stop for gas, I find a text from my husband warning me about bad weather in Houston.  Must be exceptionally bad if it made the national news.  Sure enough right before I get to Houston the rain cuts loose – downpour doesn’t do it justice – we’re talking deluge  – with windshield wipers on high and barely coping.  I and the rest of the bumper-to-bumper traffic creep carefully through downtown Houston – it’s a total white-out with a few vaguely visible outlines of random skyscrapers.  

East of Houston the weather gets scarier—with several dark funnel shaped clouds hovering just above the car– and me trying to decide what to do if one of them touches down.  Then the rain gets even heavier (but the funnel clouds disappear, thankfully). I move to the right lane and slow to a crawl, take the first exit, and wait out the downpour at a gas station.  

Even with rain and storm delays it’s looking like I’ll be in NoLA a day early and I am so ready to be there. I had hoped to make it to Lake Charles tonight, but the storm messed up that plan--I will have to stop in Beaumont instead.  I try to get a room at a Hilton Garden Inn, but they are booked solid due to the storm, so I end up in a marginal Holiday Inn Express. The best part of the day ends up being a meal at a Mexican restaurant called Amacate that is walking distance from my room.  It’s super cheap and good – a decent margarita, great salsa and chips, and tasty chicken mole enchiladas.  

The room is not the best, but at least there are no bugs in the bathtub.   Man oh man, I am so happy to be close to New Orleans.  I call and book an extra night with the Hotel Mazarin.  Four nights in one spot with no daily loading and unloading of bags and cooler.  What a concept.  I can’t wait.

Im pretty postivie us and maybe a dozen cars got pretty lucky that tornado didnt finish forming. Something about manitobans. We all kept driving the highway till we couldn't see in front of us. Joined a bunch of people pulled to the side with their hazards on and waited. Once it cleared enough to see we all took off.

Severe weather in Upstate, western North Carolina

1 of 10 Freightliner funnel cloud WYFF News 4 viewer Boone Morgan shared this photo with us of a funnel cloud near Freightliner in Gaffney. PHOTO: WYFF 2 of 10 Greenwood storm WYFF News 4 viewer Bill Hensley sent us this photo form the Westside community of Greenwood as storms moved through. PHOTO: WYFF 3 of 10 Funnel cloud in Cherokee County WYFF News 4 viewer Darlene Higginbotham sent this…