3 Confirmed Tornadoes on Sunday, Pushes our Twister Total to 7 in 18 days!

This video truly speaks for itself! Here is the amazing storm story from where you live. Now here is a real storm story from where you live!

My name is Jennifer and I'm from Griffith, IN. Yesterday around 6PM my friend, another Jennifer, and I were traveling down I-65 coming back home from Indy. We were in Remington, IN and we drove right into a terrible storm that formed a tornado. Now, I read on your blog that it was not a "confirmed" tornado- but when this huge wall of blackness was hurtling towards us from across I-65- to us that seemed like a tornado... and maybe it truly was. Weather or not (pun intended) it was terrifying for two folks from so close to Chicago who have never experienced a tornado before to actually see it create itself and head towards us. I took pictures, and after the fourth shot I took we grabbed our bags (go figure) and ran from the car to take cover in a ditch because it was right on top of us- we did what we were supposed to but it was hard to leave the "safety" of the car to brave the elements outside. I wanted to share the photos with you. They are not as dramatic as many others, but nevertheless- after having a "tornado" barrel directly over our heads while we clung to each other and prayed to God not to die in that ditch, small or large- I never want to be this close to a tornado (or its cousin, nephew, brother- etc.) again!

We feel lucky to be here :) But we can say- wow what a storm season this year has brought us so far!

Here are the pictures they sent in to go with the video. I must have watched this video a dozen times and the pictures are also mesmerizing. Yes, Jennifer thanks to your pictures and video I can confirm this as an EF-0 tornado with wind speeds from 65 to 85 mph.

These pictures show a type of tornado called a gustnado and I like calling the Lafayette viewing area gustnado alley because these occur more frequently here than probably any other part of the country including Oklahoma and Kansas. Illinois would probably be our only other rival in terms of sheer numbers. Remember the big difference between this tornado and the traditional tornado is that the circulation comes from the ground up and not from the cloud down to the ground. Gustnadoes rarely have wind speeds exceeding 85 mph, so they are usually considered weak tornadoes. They still can do plenty of damage, especially to rooftops, barn roofs, trees, and crops. Now I have confirmed two other gustnadoes across the area from Sunday night! The second weak tornado hit Wolcott. Jennifer was cooking up some tasty pork chops when nature decided to cook up something a little bit bigger!

The interesting part about these tornadoes is that our Live Doppler radar technology can rarely pick up on these weak low-based circulations. I can tell you our Live Doppler 18 did do a pretty fine job and did show some purple shades of wind shear in both Jasper and White Counties. It also briefly showed some purple shades in Clinton County and sure enough I did verify another gustado that hopped from Colfax into Antioch with some rooftop and crop damage. I know some video exists out there of this and will do my best to first of all find it and then show it to you. Hopefully that person reads this blog and he can send it to me at storm@wlfi.com. But in the meantime I can at least show you the way the clouds looked in Clinton County just south of Rossville which was a little farther north in Clinton County from Antioch. The storm was ominous and it made our WLFI TV-18 tower look like a toothpick. :) Pamela gives us her take on the picture she sent in.

This is a pic of the storm just before it hit just south of Rossville. It makes the WLFI tower in the lower left look pretty puny. The storm looked really ugly and the worst that we've had in a few years. We didn't see any damage in Rossville, but we didn't look everywhere either. An hour later, two county trucks and a snowplow went screaming past the house, so we figured that there was probably a tree down across the road somewhere to the north and they needed a big truck to haul off what they cut up.

Have you ever listened to the birds sing after a bad storm passes? They sound so joyous!

Pamela
South of Rossville

Thanks Pamela! Tell your son I said hi and a big hello from all the rest of the Lafayette weather bloggers to the troops serving our country in Iraq. I do have some amazing new Iraq pictures to share this week. So check back! Now back to the birds. I think the birds are losing their little singing voices because you need to check out the latest tornado tally compared to normal.

We have had almost 2 year's worth of tornadoes in less than 3 weeks here in Lafayette. We are up to 7 tornadoes and we only average 4 per season in our viewing area. We have not had a blitz of tornadoes in this short time period since our last La Nina year of 2004. We had I wanted to thank everybody for all the great pictures, stories, and video sent in to our weather team. It has made all the difference in the world with not only helping to confirm tornadoes, but helping to keep people out of harm's way. Folks see these pictures and it really helps to make them more aware of how important it is to take the weather seriously. The weather isn't trivial here in the Midwest. Just look at the 500 year floods in Iowa and amazing flood stories farther south in Indiana. Having a safety plan and staying alert can make the difference between life and death. I am relieved nobody has gotten injured or hurt in these past few wild weeks here at home and I want to keep it that way. I am lucky to have the best bloggers on earth and do not know where I would be without all your support. You truly are my eyes and ears and this weather blog proves that humans will always be more important than any computers ever made. Have a great day! Tune in tonight for a look at unusual lapse rates. What is that? I will explain.