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We don't get Tornadoes here
Australians are funny about tornadoes. Most of us have a strong belief that they don't occur here. It's hard to shake. Sure, we have violent thunderstorms. Hailstones as big as cricket balls. Violent winds that blow down trees over wide areas. But no tornadoes. They only occur in America -- like in the movie Twister. In America but not here.

We get tropical cyclones. They call them hurricanes in America. Everybody here who's old enough remembers when Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin on Christmas Eve in 1974. But suggest that winds from a violent thunderstorm that destroy property or take lives might be a tornado, and everyone talks about damaging wind gusts or mini-cyclones. Never tornadoes.

We have dust devils. They're know locally as willy-willies. Most of us who have driven out in the Bush during a summer drought have seen them. Columns of swirling dust being sucked high into the clear blue sky. My brother even ran into one, once. He says it was cool inside. Plenty of people have seen water spouts descending from storms out to sea. But tornadoes? No. We don't get tornadoes here.

I grew up with this belief too. A year or so ago, I learnt otherwise.

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