anabella

They are not uncommon in CO, I'm in the mountains so luckyly I don't have to worry about them..

paul1968mcr

errr I wouldn't be so sure if I were you!

Tornadoes have been observed up as high as 10000ft I believe.

Glad your all OK BTW - Did you have a weather radio? My little girl is terrified every time ours goes off - Hate to think what she'd be like if a twister touched down near us.

We are forcast to get some strong/severe storms monday.

SpoogleDrummer

Glad you're all ok. We get tornado warnings here quite often which worried me when we lived with my brother-in-law in a rickety old farm house. One of the main reasons for me buying this house is that it has a storm shelter, it's not very cosy but if it saves our lives I don't mind sitting in there with a few crickets. It certainly helps you relax knowing it takes less than a minute to get to cover when the sirens go off.

Arizona Wurzel

Hi Glad you came through it OK.My son lives in Suffolk Virginia and they had three tornados hit the town about four weeks ago.His house survived and did not have any damage,he was very lucky.I have been through two tornados,one was in 1976 in Virginia Beach and the other was in Shawnee Oklahoma in April 1981,scary to say the least.My other son lives in Pratt Kansas and last year the town of Greensburg was wiped out,this is only ten or so miles from Pratt.

kel.n.issy

No alarm system ?? tv power went off before we knew exactly but the hail was so big we went down anyways because we were scared of breaking glass the emergency alert system is TV based so with no power we knew nothing until it was too late neighbour from texas has lived through a few came running shouting through culdesac to get in basement!!

its pretty rare for it to travel in a northwest direction and also pretty rare nr the foothills but not unheard of we never expected it to hit us but I imagine most people who have gone through it say that the last closest tornado to us was in Holly CO last year.

paul1968mcr

GEEZ - BUY A NOAA ALL ALERT MAINS/BATTERY POWERED WEATHER RADIO - it aint rocket science.

every home in the USA should have one - DO NOT depend on sirens / TV, they fail - protect yourself - got one first week I was here!!

use this as an example - BUY A WEATHER RADIO, - THEY SAVE LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL - Neighbour from Texas probably had one - you owe him a drink, the guys a hero!!!!

In Indiana it's law, all new trailer homes have to be fitted with one.

http://www.weather.gov/nwr/

NOAA weather radios should be as common as smoke detectors in homes and public places.

yorkybar

If the power goes out, which it often does during a strong tornado, there will be no siren or TV coverage. NOAA weather radio is definitely the way to go. It will activate if there is a warning in your county. Treat every warning seriously as it is easy to get blase if you get lots of false alarms.
If there is no basement/storm shelter the bath tab covered by a mattress can be a life saver.

Strong tornadoes are not common in Colorado so it was interesting to see this one occur.

I'm a storm chaser by hobby.

kel.n.issy

I thought I was being an ignorant Brit - never heard of one of those radios but on talking to my all american neighbours from Texas, Montana, Minnesota none of them have got one either - we have never even had a false alarm before this week - we will get one I know its like closing stable door after horse has left etc but great piece if advice.....

TaffyinOK

I'm so glad you and your children came through the experience unharmed. It's certainly a wake-up call to have a tornado barrelling down you! I've been through many similar experiences since I've been in Oklahoma City. The one thing I DID learn was to get myself a NOAA Weather Radio. It annoys the crap out of me when it goes off in the middle of the night and it's only a severe storm warning, but I'd rather put up with that than be caught with my pants down, so to speak.

Bluegrass Lass

I think you'll find plenty of folks living in tornado alley that don't have weather radios. I've lived through sirens going off dozens of times throughout my lifetime, and it always scares the living hell out of me. Something about the sirens going off is just plain hair-raising. I've thought about getting a weather radio..just one of those things I haven't gotten around to yet, but definitely should. Esp since this year seems to be particularly active.

Glad to see you and yours were okay Kel. The closest I've come is seeing one go by overhead (ended up touching down a few miles after it passed over me) when I was a teenager, and I shaking in my pants (brit and american version of pants).

paul1968mcr

LMAO - All my American friends laugh at me too!!

Hey, it aint closing the door...trust me, you just never know - Theres a school somewhere thats been hit 3 times in last 10 years.

Just glad ur all safe

Terminal

Same here, but for $30, I'm not going to grumble about getting one, just to be safe! (I went for a S.A.M.E. model)

Thanks paul1968mcr for the "heads up".



So pleased you made it though ok, kel.n.issy. I'd hate to have been in your shoes.

Captain Freedom

Those NOAA weather are a bit annoying though. They go off in the middle of the night scaring the crap out of you, just to let you know that there is a flood warning in a county over 100 miles away. But if you live in the country its a nessesity. Its better to be annoyed than dead. I really don't understand why America has built most of its houses of wood instead of brick. Yeah its cheap but we all was told the story of the three little pigs. At least the basements are made of brick. I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in.

Kaffy Mintcake

Please do get one. A tornado destroyed my home 10 years ago, with me sleeping in bed. I never heard the siren, nor did any of my neighbors. It's SO important. And I do think you can customize what kind of warnings you hear and where they are - that being said - I've never bothered so I can empathize with the annoyance of it going off ... but better safe than sorry.

I didn't have one on that day, nor did I have a cell phone - and I would have done anything to have called earlier than I did to tell my parents I was okay, or to call a friend to pick me up from the Red Cross shelter. I do have a weather radio today - it's a must.

penguinsix

Might as well just post here....

We had a tornado just on Wednesday (just got my electricity back).

I knew there was a warning but it was heading for the town about 3 miles away. I ran out to pick up some tools in the yard and move my canoe so they wouldn't end up as projectiles. The sirens were going off and the volunteer fire department ran their trucks up and down the street with the sirens and announcing 'Tornado Warning--Seek Shelter Immediately'.

After I had just put the canoe down, I heard this giant roar as the storm front came into the woods around my home. They always say 'you hear the sound of a train' when a tornado comes and this was close enough for me. I sprinted into the house, grabbed the family and dragged them into our basement. The time it took me from door to the basement was about 5 seconds, but in that time the rain hit like a typhoon and we couldn't even see out the windows there was so much water coming down. Winds bent the trees around my house but didn't break, and then about 10 minutes later, it was done. No rain, no more wind. Eerie.

So like any idiot, I got in my truck to go see the damage and down in the town, about a mile and half away. I had to drive under a 100 foot tree that was suspended over the road--it fell onto the power lines and that was now the only thing holding it up. Four poles worth of line had been damaged. Ugh. I knew then the power wouldn't be coming back for awhile.

The tornado went through the heart of our little town ripping up roofs on about 14 houses and snapping a lot of trees. You can look up in the air at the tops of the trees have all be snapped right off, even phone poles lost the top parts (but the bottom remains). A bigger building had it's tin roof ripped off and thrown away, and several cars had been flipped. Ambulances were transporting folks to the hospital, and other fire and rescue trucks were coming from other volunteer companies in the county. The tornado was a small one, probably an F-1 on the scale, but it went down about three blocks, damaging a lot of things in it's path.

Anyway, all is better know that the power is back and the a/c is working (they are projecting mid-90s today for a high).

I took some pictures of the damage here though I might go back and snap a few more of the snapped trees, as that was pretty amazing.: http://gallery.mac.com/penguinsix#100030