Tornado! (Wisconsin peeps--are you ok?)

[Food Lady]

We had a line of storms smack us here in WI just a bit ago. West of me maybe 30 miles away? a tornado touched down around 2:30. The weather guys were tracking it and scaring me because it was also ripping trees out the ground. I changed my clothes and headed to the mall because they have storm shelters and I don't have a basement. Half the lights were out in the food court. I came home when it was over and that's when the twitter feed from the local police started up.
A warehouse had it's siding ripped right off and it looked familiar. I now realize it's right up the street from where I took my car to be fixed. (I just called to make sure my guys there are OK and they're fine; so relieved!) The police think it was a small 'nado that did it. It also knocked over a semi in that parking lot. A tree was knocked out the ground a few blocks from there. So it hit the east side of town pretty hard while we were OK over on the west side. I am terrified of these things and it's one of the things I hate about living here.

If you want to see the pics, here is the link to their twitter acct: https://twitter.com/AppletonPD_WI

[Kit-Ginevra]

Hope you're all OK. *so that's what happens when I click that Tornado button on Sim City....*

[mjr]

The police think it was a small 'nado that did it. It also knocked over a semi in that parking lot.

Best thing you can do is educate yourself. Read up on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Fujita_scale

It's a good read as to the strength of the tornado, and the relative damage it can cause at each level.

And I believe you're in Wisconsin.

Here are the actual tornado stats for Wisconsin:

https://www.weather.gov/grb/WI_tornado_stats

A tree was knocked out the ground a few blocks from there. So it hit the east side of town pretty hard while we were OK over on the west side. I am terrified of these things and it's one of the things I hate about living here.

A few years back, one blew right through downtown where I live (small town in Texas). I live on the northern end of town, so this was literally two or three miles (if that) from where I live. It tore up all kinds of stuff. They said it was probably an EF2 at it's strongest.

This site http://www.ustornadoes.com/2016/04/0...united-states/

Shows that Wisconsin gets approximately 23.5 tornadoes per year. Count your lucky stars you don't live in Texas like I do...we average 145.7 per year...

I'm actually terrified and fascinated by tornadoes myself. I never want to be in one.

[Food Lady]

It is rare to have one in this town and they're usually small. The guy at my car shop said at first he thought maybe one of the mechanics was frustrated about something and throwing stuff around but it was the wind. It's a 15 second drive from them to where the semi was tipped over which was in the parking lot of the warehouse. Weird; I just drove by it this morning.

[Racket_Man]

had one or two or three touch down about 15 miles north west of me. in my area we just got hit with high winds and downed trees and powerlines.

[Kit-Ginevra]

Count your lucky stars you don't live in Texas like I do...we average 145.7 per year...

That's just the effects of too many chilli and bean dishes...