WTF - there's a bleeding tornado warning in NYC

[shadowkat]

There's this insane storm that landed on us.

We've had not one but two tornado warnings. Both originating in Staten Island.
And there's a tornado warning in Brooklyn. Their definition of tornado warning is not the same as mine. I came from a Kansas. A tornado warning in Kansas is a tornado has hit the ground. In NYC, a tornado warning is the conditions are perfect for one but they can't tell if there is one anywhere and haven't seen one.

LOL!

NY is hilarious when it comes to weather warnings.

Also keep in mind that if a tornado hit -- what would we do? We live on a series of islands. Basements are necessarily accessible. I mean come on! Although I do live in a 77 unit apartment complex built in the 1920s with stone, brick and motar. I figure I'm safe. Also the airports are still open and running business as usual, as are the ferries and subways.

The weather people are a big indignant about it.

What happened? We had it in the 60s all day long, and then suddenly it got warmer.
Boom.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

Yeah, definitely not like tornado warnings anywhere else.

We get them in Florida, and most of the time it means there is going to be a damn tornado. But we don't get anything like Kansas and Oklahoma get. (My sister lives in Oklahoma City.) That's crazy shit.

[shadowkat]

Yeah, the New Yorkers are freaking out. I'm just laughing at them. Because I've been through real tornado warnings. When a tornado actually landed and took out buildings a few counties over.

Tornados can't really touch down in NY. We have a weird combination of river and ocean currents plus hills that sort of make it impossible for a tornado to really form or land.

Hurricanes do more damage here than severe thunderstorms.

But this was an unusual storm for NYC -- two back to back severe storms, with potential for tornadoes -- just doesn't happen in NYC.

[wpadmirer]

Yeah, and Florida is having temperatures in the low 100s and no rain. The world is wacky.

[shadowkat]

South Carolina is too. While Denver got snow last week.

[cactuswatcher]

In AZ, too, we've been unusually cool. It snowed a little last week on top of Mt Lemmon, the highest mountain very near Tucson. The Midwest has been pretty much spring as usual: cool air from the west hits hot moist air from the gulf and you get one storm after another. I heard NBC saying tonight that all the rivers around St. Louis are high. Not a big surprise. If the Missouri and the Mississippi are high, the rest of the rivers will back up above flood stage even if it hasn't rained much in the local area.

[shadowkat]

The flooding in the midwest is horrible right now. There's a town in Oklahoma that is completely shut off from the world because it's surrounded by a flooded river.

And my cousin informed us that she could see the flooding in Missouri and Kansas from the air.

Meanwhile there's a drought in the Southeastern States -- Florida to Virigina, with record temperatures in the 100s. My mother keeps telling me it is too hot to move in Hilton Head, normally it's in the 70s down there this time of year.

[conuly]

A tornado touched down in 2007, in Brooklyn. Prior to that, it took out half the trees on my block and twisted the gutter off my roof.

[conuly]

Well, it's like snow in Alabama - a quarter inch, and they close schools, because people there don't know how to deal with those.

[cactuswatcher]

Yeah, anyplace else "conditions are right" means a tornado watch not a warning. The local media weather people love to play up anything to help them get an audience. In Phoenix they'd track the dust storms in real time like they were tornadoes. The actual property damage from the dust storms is pretty trivial.

It used to be the weather bureau wouldn't even call it a tornado real time unless somebody the weather bureau trusted saw it. In St. Louis some folks would call any dark cloud they saw a tornado. I've seen a lot of ugly green clouds, but I've never seen much rotation or a tornado on the ground. I've seen the aftermath of a tornado: very bad for those who get hit. But, at least in St. Louis, you're far more likely to get serious damage in a wide area from a microburst than a tornado. Not surprisingly a lot of folks confuse microburst damage for tornado damage. (microbursts knock all manner of things over, rip off roofs and break otherwise sturdy trees, because of severe straight line winds. Tornados just demolish anything they actually hit, because of the twsiting winds.) It was watching a microburst tear a full grown walnut tree out of the ground that convinced me that it was wiser to seek shelter in severe weather, rather than try to watch the show going on outside.

Brick and mortar isn't safe against a tornado. But given the chances of a tornado hitting anything in particular in NYC, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. ;o)

[shadowkat]

This was sort of my attitude towards the whole thing. They've touched down in Brooklyn before, but the area isn't really conducive for sustained damage or a tornado lasting long. What it usually is -- is a microburst that they've mistaken for a tornado -- which can also cause a lot of destruction just not like a tornado.

Until someone actually saw one in the area -- I wasn't going to do anything drastic like try to figure out how to get to the basement -- which isn't really a basement -- basements in Brooklyn are in reality garden apartments -- they aren't underground or below ground like they are elsewhere. What was hilarious -- and they were somewhat indignant about -- was the ferries, subways, trains, buses and planes were still traveling about without any disruption. The weather men were shocked. LOL!

It's not that it can't happen -- it has, in 2007. Also Superstorm Sandy really kicked NYC's ass. But it's less likely we'll get kicked by tornados, microbursts -- yes, hurricanes - definitely, tornadoes...not so much.