Tornadoes Are Serious Business. I Don't Care How "Baby" They Are

I was going to post earlier today, but most of my day was spent checking the Weather Network for satellite and radar maps, and watching out the windows for signs of nasty weather that would involve me needing to take cover in the basement. I was going to post about the 100 Mile Challenge, but that can wait until the next post. I shall post, obviously about the weather. I wasn't going to, but well, it's on my mind right now, so I shall. Ontario is on the northern tip of Tornado Alley. A lot of people will disagree because, well, obviously, Canada, as the Great White North is not far enough south to be in Tornado Alley! Either that or obviously since we have snow all year round! *sarcasm* that we can't possibly have them. On the contrary, what a lot of people neglect to notice is that Ontario dips down into the state of Michigan, which makes some Canadian cities farther south than some U.S. cities. Of course after reading Wikipedia I find Tornado Alley laughable since pretty much everywhere can have tornadoes, it's just a case of how rare they are, and apparently how severe they are. So first off, we'll look at what a tornado is. Via this Wikipedia link for the most part. The Glossary of Meteorology defines a tornado as "a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground, either pendant from cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud..." So, there you go. It's a funnel of air. They cause destruction, and death. Death is the main reason I am making this post. Hmmm am I sensing a theme in this blog? Wow, maybe I discovered another of my issues! That was actually discovered long ago...! Moving on! Ontario has been experiencing more tornadoes in the past few years. I can't recall anything beyond warnings before a couple years ago. I had one, and only one tornado drill in elementary school, and even that was near the end of that, so probably 7 or 8 years ago? And even then it was like "Yeah, when you hear this siren, crawl under the benches in the hall, hold on, and cover your heads." Anyways, last year I think we had a couple tornadoes, both within 15, 20 minutes of my house. Upon showing these to a friend who grew up in Ohio, there was scoffing and "They're just babies! F1s or F2s at best, try looking at an F5." I will admit behind his back there was a lot of "Fuck you, man, fuck you!" directed at him from me. I don't like tornadoes. I don't like them a lot. I also don't like having my fears scoffed at. Mainly because if I'm going to be afraid, there's a DAMN good reason. We never really had confirmed tornadoes - sure there was ALMOST enough damage, but never quite enough. Until recently. I think it started coming more with digital cameras and people being able to record them. Sure we only get little ones, but they still kill people.

Today's weather spanned across a large portion of the province (and we're a rather large one) and spawned about 4 tornadoes I believe. One person was killed. Oh hell, I'll say it now. That person was a child. Now, at my house, they were predicting all kinds of nasty shit, but we got a one minute downpour, then nothing, then downpour that tapered off into rain showers. A bit of thunder, the whole thing only lasted maybe 45 minutes at most, and nothing horribly nasty. The rest of the day was a bright grey day that melted into sunshine by the late afternoon. This season Ontario has had about 6 or 7 tornadoes I believe, 2 of which have been deadly. The first fatal one, ironically, claimed 3 lives, all men from the U.S., and all from a state that is more prone to nasty tornadoes. I admit, I did laugh at that one... but it was a sad, ironic laugh. I wondered though, if we would be getting weather like this today, as there was a similar number of twisters in states just across the lake, and the damage there was something to see on the news... Seriously, a fence - probably about 6 or 7 feet high, made of 10" wide planks - was knocked over, followed by a transport truck's trailer that was being used for storage was also blown over. The on scene news reporter then picked up a piece of the debris that had been flying through the air earlier. It was a broken plank from the fence - about 3-4 feet in length and it was snapped so cleanly to a point at one end it looked like someone had cut it into a shape resembling my best impression of it on the keyboard... /| A state trooper also reported being on the Interstate and seeing two people on motorcycles get sucked off their bikes (no funnel cloud visible that I remember hearing him talk about) and getting thrown off the road.

So yeah... I don't like tornadoes. Hopefully this is it for the year *bangs on wood* And I shall stop quoting the storm speech from Shakespeare's King Lear, even though I*DID* amend it to say no tornadoes... I do wonder how much of this is also being caused by the hurricane moving along the coast. And yes, that DOES affect us over here in the "inland" portion. The U.S. isn't big enough to stop it lol. Remember everyone, Canada is bigger than the U.S. and we're on top. If this was prison the U.S. would be our bitch. And moving on... the weather forecast for the next while looks nice... a few thunderstorms on Saturday, but oh well... less than 50% chance of precipitation, so I think we're good. One thing I'd also like to clear up is the humidity and pressure changes. My bum ankle is swollen painfully :-( I'd say it almost feels worse than when it's actually sprained or twisted. Except I can actually walk on this... where as the others... not so much. Hahahaha. Anyways, tomorrow's post will either be on the 100 Mile Challenge, or some knitting! YAY! Knitting! That's what I've been doing recently when it's not horribly hot and muggy. But that's another post hehe. And now I shall leave you with a photo taken by one of my friends' family (I'm not sure which member of Diane's family took it) of one of the tornadoes in our area last summer. This one damaged some land and did minimal damage to some barns, but no one was injured.

UPDATE: It took a day, but here is a link to where you can see videos and some pictures of the tornadoes from yesterday. They were confirmed as F2 category tornadoes. The one in the photo above is probably an F0 or F1 at most. The name of the 11 year old boy killed has not been released due to the family's request, but I hope he rests in peace and that the family makes it through this tough time.