Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Official Okie Quarter (not)
'Cause if'n ya cain't laugh at yer selfs, then you have no room to laugh at anybody else'ns. What a hoot. No idee who came up with this. Note the detail. That there is one of them silver loaf-of-French-bread type trailer houses up in that tornado! And a cow! :-)
(F6, to any of y'all not acquainted with Tornado Alley, is a measurement of a tornado's damage. An F6 would be a bad sumbitch.)
--ER
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Oh boy, several subjects dear to my shriveled heart all on the same blog.
The "F" in the "F-Scale" stands for Fujita the guy that invented the scale. An F-6 by definition is:
F6-Inconceivable tornado-319-379 mph-These winds are very unlikely. The small area of damage they might produce would probably not be recognizable along with the mess produced by F4 and F5 wind that would surround the F6 winds. Missiles, such as cars and refrigerators would do serious secondary damage that could not be directly identified as F6 damage. If this level is ever achieved, evidence for it might only be found in some manner of ground swirl pattern, for it may never be identifiable through engineering studies.
Now the rest of the story:
After the May 5, 1999 tornado in Oklahoma City, Fujita visited the site and declared that the tornado was an F-6. He said that it was the Only F-6 he had ever seen. For example the winds pulled the grass from the ground by its roots, and the tonage of debris collect only equaled 60% to 65% of the debris that should have been there. How do you "lose" several hundred thousand tons of stuff? And the wind speed at one point was recorded at 322 mph. Unfortunately the U.S. Weather Service only allows for the scale to go up to F-5 so they disagreed with him and officially declared it to be an F-5. Ah Government.
AirStream.
Check out this site for the 10 finalist for the real coin:
http://www.poncacity.com/coins.htm
The "F" in the "F-Scale" stands for Fujita the guy that invented the scale. An F-6 by definition is:
F6-Inconceivable tornado-319-379 mph-These winds are very unlikely. The small area of damage they might produce would probably not be recognizable along with the mess produced by F4 and F5 wind that would surround the F6 winds. Missiles, such as cars and refrigerators would do serious secondary damage that could not be directly identified as F6 damage. If this level is ever achieved, evidence for it might only be found in some manner of ground swirl pattern, for it may never be identifiable through engineering studies.
Now the rest of the story:
After the May 5, 1999 tornado in Oklahoma City, Fujita visited the site and declared that the tornado was an F-6. He said that it was the Only F-6 he had ever seen. For example the winds pulled the grass from the ground by its roots, and the tonage of debris collect only equaled 60% to 65% of the debris that should have been there. How do you "lose" several hundred thousand tons of stuff? And the wind speed at one point was recorded at 322 mph. Unfortunately the U.S. Weather Service only allows for the scale to go up to F-5 so they disagreed with him and officially declared it to be an F-5. Ah Government.
AirStream.
Check out this site for the 10 finalist for the real coin:
http://www.poncacity.com/coins.htm
# posted by 
: 8:14 PM
: 8:14 PM 
Will do the "project" you asked me to do tomorrow... sorry I didn't do it tonight, but I just couldn't handle the same place I've been in for 5 days! lol Send it to you tomorrow after class.
# posted by : 11:08 PM
: 11:08 PM
I got the chance to see an F4 up close and personal in Wichita, Kansas. I believe it was April, 1991. Or 1990. I really don't remember which.
I was working in an office and we saw the tornado form and dip down to the ground. My co-workers and I stood in the office door, poised to run to the deepest interior of the building should the storm turn and head directly for us. It didn't, and we stood and watched it go by less than 1/2 mile away from our vantagepoint. It did go through my childhood neighborhood, though, which was only about a mile from where I worked.
Many people in the area got some good video footage of the same storm. One of the videos taken of it is probably one of the most often shown. You have probably seen it. The group of people hiding under a highway overpass as the storm went by directly above them. It was taken on I-35 just outside of Andover Kansas, which was almost completely destoyed. That is the same storn that I saw personally, and watched as buildings, houses, and trees were blown apart.
Awesome sight, and a good reminder of God's awesome power.
I was working in an office and we saw the tornado form and dip down to the ground. My co-workers and I stood in the office door, poised to run to the deepest interior of the building should the storm turn and head directly for us. It didn't, and we stood and watched it go by less than 1/2 mile away from our vantagepoint. It did go through my childhood neighborhood, though, which was only about a mile from where I worked.
Many people in the area got some good video footage of the same storm. One of the videos taken of it is probably one of the most often shown. You have probably seen it. The group of people hiding under a highway overpass as the storm went by directly above them. It was taken on I-35 just outside of Andover Kansas, which was almost completely destoyed. That is the same storn that I saw personally, and watched as buildings, houses, and trees were blown apart.
Awesome sight, and a good reminder of God's awesome power.
Oh, I was going to mention that tornados are not classified higher than an F5, but I see Drlobojo has already mentioned that.
Actually, I think the mysteries and majesties of tornados and the systems that spawn them are dear to the hearts of lots of Okies. My wife is one. Think of the character played by Helen Hunt in "Twister." She was obsessed because she saw her dad get sucked away by a tornado; but it went byond obsession to serious study and life pursuit. ... If Dr. ER had her way, she'd be a storm-chasing meteorologist.
There were 6 DOWs out during the 1999 May 3rd tornado. DOWs are Dopplers On Wheels. The Tornado was on the ground for 3 hours and was tracked live by 2 TV helecopters, both of which had to land to refuel during the chase. The DOWs registered the wind speed inside the tornado during that 3 hours as everything from a F-1 to the F-6. We were glued to the TV as the thing came towards us. It not only had our hearts, but our souls, and our gonads engaged. When I saw that it was going to miss us and my daughter's and son's homes I walked out into the sunshine of the front yard, I couldn't see it on the ground, that was below my horizon about 8 miles away, but I could see the top and clearly hear it as it rip the hell out of Moore, and South Oklahoma City. The TVs were reporting, among other things, the chatter between the DOWs and the Weather Service and that is when they said it was an F-6 wind speed of 322 mph. Later the Weather Service said it was a mistake and was only 319 mph, still later it was lowered again to 318 mph which is the top of the F-5 scale.
That one tornado cost OKC alone 1.2 billon dollars. That same day Oklahoma had 46 other tornados as well.
That one tornado cost OKC alone 1.2 billon dollars. That same day Oklahoma had 46 other tornados as well.
# posted by : 7:03 PM
: 7:03 PM
OK. Thanks for clarifying. I guess if you look at it that way, one could say they are dear to the heart.
And I agree. If I had my way, I'd be a storm chaser, too. They are fascinating, for sure.
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And I agree. If I had my way, I'd be a storm chaser, too. They are fascinating, for sure.
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