For those of you who aren't familiar with tornadoes and are hearing news
coverage of this, here is a short glossary to help you understand.
Fujita Scale: Scale used to measure wind speeds of a tornado and their
severity.
F1: Laughable little string of wind unless it comes through your house,
then enough to make your insurance company drop you like a brick. People
enjoy standing on their porches to watch this kind.
F2: Strong enough to blow your car into your house, unless of course you
drive an Expedition and live in a mobile home, then strong enough to blow
your house into your car.
F3: Will pick your house and your Expedition up and move you to the other
side of town.
F4: Usually ranging from 1/2 to a full mile wide, this tornado can turn an
Expedition into a Pinto, then gift wrap it in a semi truck.
F5: The Mother of all Tornadoes, you might as well stand on your front
porch and watch it, because it's probably going to be quite a last sight.
F6: The reason why all the tornado movies in 1999 were really lookeddown
upon in Oklahoma. This bad tornado will rip the roof off your house but
leave your $3000 china cabinet unharmed. It will rip out your oven and sling
it halfway down the street but leave the macaroni and cheese still
piping-hot on the kitchen table for you. It will tear out the wall to your
bedroom and pull out all of your kinky underwear for all of the neighbors to
see in your backyard. Don't worry too much though because although it does come with winds in major excess of 300 miles an hour, there has only been one and Oklahomans were made fun of it for years about telling everyone how it sounded. Also known as May 3rd, state holiday. Everyone gets in their house after work or school and locks themselves in the bathroom for hours. You won't see them again until May 5 when they come out starving and 35 pounds lighter.
Meteorologist: A rather soft-spoken, mild-mannered type person until severe
weather strikes, and they start yelling at you through the t.v.: "GET TO
YOUR BATHROOM OR YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"
Storm Chaser: Meteorologist-rejects who are pretty much insane but get us
really cool pictures of tornadoes. We release them from the mental
institution every time it starts thundering, just to see what they'll do.
Tranquilizer: What you have to give any dog or cat who lived through the
May 3rd, 1999 tornado every time it storms or they tear your whole house up freaking out of their minds.
Moore, Oklahoma: A favorite gathering place for tornadoes. They like to meet here and do a little partying before stretching out across the rest of the Midwest.
Bathtub: Best place to seek shelter in the middle of a tornado, mostly
because after you're covered with debris, you can quickly wash off and come out looking great .
Severe Weather Radio: A handy device that sends out messages from the
National Weather Service during a storm, though quite disconcerting because the high-pitched, shrill noise just as an alarm sounds suspiciously just like a tornado. Plus the guy reading the report just sounds creepy.
Tornado Siren: A system the city spent millions to install, which is really
useful, unless there's a storm or a tornado, because then of course you
can't hear them.
Storm Cellar: A great place to go during a tornado, as it is almost 100%
safe, though weigh your options carefully, as most are not cared for and are
homes to rats and snakes.
May-June: Tourist season in Oklahoma, when people who are tired of bungee jumping and diving out of airplanes decide it might be fun to chase a
tornado. These people usually end up on Fear Factor.
Barometric Pressure: Nobody really knows what this is, but when it drops a
lot of pregnant wom en go into labor, which makes for exciting moments as
their husbands are trying to drive them to the hospital and dodge tornadoes
at the same time.
Cars: The worst place to be during a tornado (next to a mobile home). Yes,
you can out run a tornado in your car...unless everybody on the road decides to do the same thing, and then you're in grid-lock.
A Ditch: Supposedly where you're supposed to go if you find yourself without shelter or in your car during a tornado. Theoretically the tornado is
supposed to pass right over you, but since it can lift a 20 ton truck and
up-root a three hundred year old tree, bet your life on out-running it in a
car.
Mobile Home: Most people are convinced mobile homes send off some strange signal that triggers tornadoes, because if there's one mobile home park in a hundred mile radius, the tornado will find it.
Earthquake: What any Californian would rather go through on any scale of
severity than face a tornado.
Tornado: What any Oklahoman would rather go through on any scale of severity than face an earthquake.
Twister: Slang for 'tornado' and also the title to a movie starring Helen
Hunt, which incidentally everyone thought was corny and unrealistic until
May 3rd, 1999.
Power Flash: One of the most reliable ways to track a tornado at night, it's
the term used when the tornado hits a power line and a bright light flashes.
It's also the emotion experienced by meteorologists when they get to make
the call to interrupt Prime-Time Must-see t.v. and a million dollars worth
of advertising to track a storm for viewers.
Here are some phrases you might want to learn and be familiar with:
"We'll have your electricity restored in 24 hours," which means it'll be a
week.
"We're going to be out for a week, so buy a lot of supplies and an expensive
generator," means it's going to be on in twelve hours, probably as soon as
you return from Wal-Mart.
"It's a little muggy today." Get outta town. It's getting ready to storm.
"There's just a slight chance of severe weather today, so go ahead and make your outdoor plans." Ha. Ha Ha Ha Ha.
And the BIG TIP of the day:
When your electricity goes out, and you go to bed at night, be sure to turn
off everything that was on before it went out, or when it is unexpectedly
restored in the middle of the night, every light, every computer, your
dishwasher, your blow dryer, your washing machine, your microwave and your fans will all come on all at once.
1) You'll just about have a heart attack when they all come on at the same
time, waking you from a dead sleep.
And 2) Your breakers will blow, leaving you in the dark once again.
Topic: Tornado (Read 746 times)