29 June 2011

Tornado - too close for comfort


Our trip mileage now reads 1,874 miles since leaving Tucson and we are now in Central Time Zone, which we crossed at some point in Kansas.  Just several miles east of York, Nebraska, we stayed put for four nights because of predicted thunderstorms. 
Weather is often a major factor in our decisions of where to stay next or for how long and we knew that severe storms were forecast.  Last year in the Badlands of South Dakota, we were ready to evacuate the RV because of a tornado warning. We had no idea there was one close by even though winds were rocking our fifth wheel so much we were thinking of leaving it.  After that close call, we bought a weather radio and used it several times since. This evening when the sky grew black and the rains came with thunder and lightning overhead, we were glued to the radio listening for almost two hours to the constantly updated weather news for our area.
In the States, all but two of them (Alaska and Louisiana) are divided into counties. It’s very important to know which county we’re in, as the weather reports are so accurate they can specify just about where a tornado or hail can hit. We were on the edge of two counties. On our map of Nebraska, we followed the line of the storm and heard the warning that said a tornado had touched down just nine miles east of us. Had it been much closer, we would have heard a siren and gone immediately to the storm shelter at the Park. This year with all the winds, storms and flooding that have occurred, our weather radio is an important piece of equipment for us.

No comments:

Post a Comment