[m1903a3]

I lived in Midwest City Oklahoma when I was a schoolboy. We had tornado warning sirens and most homes had tornado shelters. When I lived there we would see frequent tornadoes, but generally they went around us. In 1999 the city was obliterated by the strongest tornado in US history, so strong they had to rewrite the scale used to describe them, now the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

I do not miss them.

The Summer after her Junior year at Virginia Tech my daughter called to let us know she wasn't coming home for the summer. She and several classmates were going storm chasing with their Meteorology Professor. I though it was pretty cool. They had two vans with a lot of instrumentation, including doppler radar, on both. I could go on their system remotely and see their location live thanks to GPS as well as seeing the radar images. One day, when I was in the yard playing with the dog, she calls all excited. Dad! Dad! Go inside and save screenshots of the radar and gps.

So, I go inside, log on, and start saving. She's talking to me on the cellphone while she's talking to the other van on a radio. She's pointing out to me that they are between two areas that have all the earmarks of becoming tornadoes. Then she yells on the radio to the other van Look, look straight up. You can see they are both rotating!

Now I'm freaking out. Wait! You're in the middle between TWO FREAKING TORNADOES??? You're supposed to say Look, way over there on the horizon, not STRAIGHT UP. Get out of there!


It's not easy having a daughter.