Tornado Watch

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Hey gang!

Our county is under tornado watch until 8:00 PM.

I got caught in the rain with no umbrella this morning. Gonna happen again, maybe.


UPDATE: Tornado video from Springfield

Comments

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

It's looking mighty dark outside right now...

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I may ride it out here at MIT rather than go home in the thick of it.

All of my hanging planters at home are probably going to be toast, though.

[ron_newman]

I hope your windows are closed.

[tater1112.livejournal.com]

I'm somewhat new to town - does Cambridge have tornado sirens?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I don't think so, but a Cambridge resident could tell you for sure. I can tell you, though, that dramatic weather is rare around here.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

It seems unlikely given the odds of a tornado around here, but what do I know. Right now it's not even a warning for this are, just a watch. (Though there is a warning in effect further west and there was a tornado sighted near Springfield.)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

A co-worker's mother just called him from Springfield. She said one touched down near her property.

[ominousspectre.livejournal.com]

We're Middlesex, right? It's been upgraded to a Warning for Middlesex County although there's really no detail for specific cities on Weather.com that includes us.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

In case you don't have access to a weather radio, you can get live streaming of WX1BOX at wunderground.com (http://www.wunderground.com/wxradio)

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the midwest, where Watch meant "go to your basement immediately, do not pass go." That's not happening here on any of the severe weather warnings I've seen.

Anybody know why not? Possibilities:
1. Tornados are rare enough in Boston that we underestimate the threat?
2. Tornados tend to do less damage here, for reasons unknown?
3. Certified Smart People have changed the guidelines in the many years since I moved here?

...reporting live from my basement.

NB: IIRC, "watch" means favorable conditions, while "warning" means a tornado has been spotted.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Combo of 1 and 2. I'm from Alabama, tornadoes kill people as far as I'm concerned.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Tornadoes are very rare in Massachusetts, and when they do appear it tends to be in Tornado Alley (approximately between Springfield and Worcester). Bostonians don't tend to consider them a significant threat.

The National Weather Service is right now tracking a tornado spotted this evening in Bellingham, which is the closest I've ever heard of one coming to Boston in twenty years.

[ron_newman]

I'm from Ohio, and I recall watch meaning "don't do anything special", while warning meant "go to the basement".

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

Since I'm the only person in Boston in the basement right now, I wonder if you're right. But tornadoes can form in seconds, just as fast as the water swirling in your sink.

[tater1112.livejournal.com]

At our house a watch meant "put your shoes on" because the basement was unfinished and fairly dirty. :)

[notpiecebypiece.livejournal.com]

I'm from Indiana, and that's how it was for me.

[ifotismeni]

it's definitely #1 mostly. i'm from around here and was at a work function in burlington when a warning went out - we were sitting near windows and going about our business. nobody batted an eye that we should be going to a window-less area/preferably a basement. honestly i think it's overall ignorance - we know how to handle snow but definitely tornadoes are super rare here.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the most tornado-y part of the state, and we were taught that "watch" meant "pay attention" and "warning" meant "find a secure location, preferably a basement". There are probably different interpretations of what you do in response to those terms depending on how damaging to life and limb the weather in question has been in that area?

We had a few tornados in my childhood, and IIRC there were no fatalities and it was mostly property damage. Church steeples were particularly hard hit (as in today's south central Mass/northwestern Conn tornados).

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'm looking at my basement with some skepticism -- it has windows, and there's enough random junk in it that if i was in it and a tornado did hit, I'd probably be skewered by flying cruft or buried in bricks from the chimney. 'course, being upstairs wouldn't be any better.

aaa! there's nowhere safe! run for your lives! ;)

It not underestimating...

[mjperson.livejournal.com]

1. Tornados are rare enough in Boston that we underestimate the threat?

Not having shelters and sirens and all that other tornado protection stuff here doesn't mean we underestimate the threat. It means we properly estimate it as incredibly rare.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

seems like MOST of it is scudding under boston...

http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/northeast_lite_loop.php

#

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Looks like we got off easy. Nothing like that huge storm a few years ago that blasted a whole in one of the streets.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

a whole what? o.O

[bex77]

Amazing footage. Hope I never see that out my office window! Thanks for sharing it.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine being bold enough to stand there at the window videoing a tornado. If I saw that sight out of my office window, I would be under my desk with pants peed in, frantically saying the atheist prayer ("In case I'm wrong and there's ANYTHING out there listening...")