Count me in as a thunderstorm lover.
I live in rural Georgia in a house surrounded by open fields. So whenever a nice thunderstorm rolls by, I have an unobstructed view of the action. The only bad part is that my house is a lightning magnet, as it sits on top of a hill. My antenna has been struck numerous times. Once I was sitting at my kitchen table and lightning struck the antenna at the back of my house. The antenna was only about 10 ft. away from the kitchen, so I actually felt the electricity in the air. Very scary. What was even scarier was having to replace all the burned coaxial cable that was destroyed.
I've also seen a small tornado in the field across from my house. We had a nice supercell passing by one day with lots of rotation and a nice wall cloud. As usual I was sitting on my porch watching the show. Suddenly, a small funnel started forming at the base. It slowly began descending until it made a touchdown, kicking up lots of dust in the dry field. It only lasted about a minute, but it was exciting to say the least. It was probably only an F0, but it was the real deal. Ahhhh, living in the south. We get lots of this type of weather here.
I also missed a very large and destructive tornado by a matter of minutes once driving home for the weekend from college. It was at night and I was driving through a very bad storm. It was very intense, with lots of lightning, wind, and hail. I eventually made it home. When I got there my Mom was worried. She said there was a really bad tornado south of Athens. Turns out if I had left for home a few minutes later, I probably would have driven right into the thing. On my way back to school I passed where the tornado struck. The damage was incredible. You could see the damage path cut across the road I was on. Houses were gone. A church had been destroyed. Trees were twisted like bow-ties. It did a lot of damage and was rated an F3 I believe. The damage is still visible to this day.
I've always wanted to take one of those tornado chasing tours. Two weeks of chasing storms in the spring-early summer in tornado alley. Maybe next year.
I live in rural Georgia in a house surrounded by open fields. So whenever a nice thunderstorm rolls by, I have an unobstructed view of the action. The only bad part is that my house is a lightning magnet, as it sits on top of a hill. My antenna has been struck numerous times. Once I was sitting at my kitchen table and lightning struck the antenna at the back of my house. The antenna was only about 10 ft. away from the kitchen, so I actually felt the electricity in the air. Very scary. What was even scarier was having to replace all the burned coaxial cable that was destroyed.
I've also seen a small tornado in the field across from my house. We had a nice supercell passing by one day with lots of rotation and a nice wall cloud. As usual I was sitting on my porch watching the show. Suddenly, a small funnel started forming at the base. It slowly began descending until it made a touchdown, kicking up lots of dust in the dry field. It only lasted about a minute, but it was exciting to say the least. It was probably only an F0, but it was the real deal. Ahhhh, living in the south. We get lots of this type of weather here.
I also missed a very large and destructive tornado by a matter of minutes once driving home for the weekend from college. It was at night and I was driving through a very bad storm. It was very intense, with lots of lightning, wind, and hail. I eventually made it home. When I got there my Mom was worried. She said there was a really bad tornado south of Athens. Turns out if I had left for home a few minutes later, I probably would have driven right into the thing. On my way back to school I passed where the tornado struck. The damage was incredible. You could see the damage path cut across the road I was on. Houses were gone. A church had been destroyed. Trees were twisted like bow-ties. It did a lot of damage and was rated an F3 I believe. The damage is still visible to this day.
I've always wanted to take one of those tornado chasing tours. Two weeks of chasing storms in the spring-early summer in tornado alley. Maybe next year.