Weather: Scientist Suggests that it is safer to be in a car then a mobile home!

[tucsoncoyote]

Okay, now this is totally weird... and in fact I raise an eyebrow when I heard this tonight on the Weather Channel.

This week on The Weather Channel, they are having their annual "Tornado Week" Specials where they tell you about tornado safety. and what to do and Not to do when a tornado is on its way.

But what i heard tonight on the Weather channel did raise my eyebrow a bit.. after all I heard what was being mentioned and I thought to myself, This guy really Must be nuts!

Some scientist tonight on one of the segements had done about 10 years of research into Cars and Tornadoes. and what he suggested folks to do in case of a tornado, if they are in a mobile home, is to abandon the mobile home and seek some other shelter (now I don't have qualms with that part of the problem as Mobile homes will indeed tear apart in even a small EF1 Tornado*

But what he said next was what raised my eyebrow through the roof.

If you are in a mobile home, and there is no other safe refuge from the oncoming tornado, it is best suggested you get into your car.

WHAT THE????!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Yes you heard me correctly. This guy wants to have you get INTO your car. to ride out a tornado, rather then staying in your mobile home if there is no other option(s).

Apparently the scientist claims that a car can survive even stronger winds then a Mobile Home can, and that the optimal windspeed to overturn a car is on the order of an EF3 Tornado*...

and he has proof of this by doing 10 years worth of research he claims...

Yet it is funny... This idea thinking goes against what even NOAA recommends when a tornado threatens...

According to NOAA, they suggest:

That you abandon your mobile home and You find the Lowest Available ground and lay as flat as possible protecting your head with your hads. (if there is a Culvert nearby crawl into that. if there is a ditch get into it and hunker down as perscribed.

but this... This just literally floored me. This scientist wants you to crawl into your car, hunker down and hang on... all because he thinks a car is safer than a mobile home.

But it got me to thinking... which logic is really correct here? And what if folks take this guy's advice and the do this and they still get killed, rather then following what NOAA suggests?

I can see Legal Eagles lining up on this one already... Just like a line of tornadoes.

So then my question to the audience out there tonight is this:

Which do you think is safer? Staying in a Mobile Home? Abandoning the Mobile Home for a Car? or the so called "preferred method", by finding the lowest spot you can find away from the mobile home, lay flat, put your hands over your head to protect it, and hang on for dear life?

Okay I'm done talking here, time to open this up for Discussion.

*Edited Note: As of February 1st, 2007, Tornadoes are now rated on a New and Improved Fujita scale that is called the Enhanced Fujita (or EF) Scale. (http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/ef-scale.html) Just like the old Scale, the range runs from EF0 to EF5, with 5 being the worst. But this new scale is based on Structural damage based on 28 different types of structures and objects. and in fact Engineers are now finding that an EF5 Storm has lower wind speeds but still wreaks as much damage as one of the older F5 storms. But if you have questions just click on the link above and you can see what I am talking about.

:coyote:

[Captain Highwind]

I will definately not stay in a mobile home if there is a tornado. Nor would I for a car, since it is small, compact, and able to be picked up and thrown.

[purplehairedwonder]

I know they say a car is one of the safest places to be during a thunderstorm... so I guess it doesn't surprise me all that much.

But I'd prefer to be in some kind of actual shelter. Yeah.

[Dead_Ninja_000]

Sweet looks like I hit right on with the poll without reading the first post:D

But I would I guess go into the car and try to get away. It's hard to say...

[XOMiss_Samantha]

During storms I always used to run to the car and hide. I guess it's just a safe feeling inside it, though I dont own, nor have ever been, in a mobile home so who knows.
I wonder if thats why my cousin lived in his car for a month...:sweat:

[tucsoncoyote]

Alright I'm going to show a couple of pictures here that might explain something.

What this scientist suggests is that if you live in a mobile home in a tornado prone area, and you have no other place to hide (like a basement or another house with a basement or small room or even a nearby ditch or culvert, he's suggesting you get into your car and hang on for dear life.

But here are a couple ideas of why you shouldn't.. and these are graphic:

http://www.brynosaurus.com/album/Tornado-Car.jpg

This is a car that was caught in an F2 storm that struck Salt Lake City Utah during July 1999, and this is just your typical Honda Accord. You think you would like to be pulled out of this car with the 'jaws of life'? and this was just an F2...

Then there's this one.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/50/126488572_b22f9502f6_m.jpg

This one is a Saturn SL3 and the tornado hit it was an F3... and this is what it would look like..(and this is a larger car then a Honda Accord, so in a way, this car got thrashed.


and then there is this picture and it's the Most graphic of all.

http://www.tornadoproject.com/graphics/auto2rb.jpg
This is a car that was in an F4 or F5 tornado.. and this is what is left of it.. In fact, during the May 3rd 1999 Oklahoma City Tornado, some cars that were in home garages, ended up being tossed up to one quarter of a mile away! (and a lot of them that started out as cars, ended up looking more like crumpled balls of aluminum and Steel.. and when you think about that.. you would be in the middle of this..

and in lower speed storms... anything can be a projectile... here's what a steel beam did to a car in a tornado..(more then likely an EF3 storm..but it would be hard to tell.

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/weather/0209/gallery.tornado/gallery.ladysmith.car.jpg
Try imagining yourself lying in the back seat of this car when the steel beam comes crashing down on you...

The Pont is this: I say that if this were the case and you even didn't know what kind of tornado were coming towards you I would always assume it was the worst possible case (an F5 or EF5) thus when you get to this size I would say get underground.. barring that, find a culvert or a low spot.. Just ditch the mobile home, avoide the car, and by all means follow the NOAA rules... until this can be proven otherwise... I would say, it's not worth losing your life.

:coyote:

[bluedeucedodge]

I'd take the car. But I wouldn't just sit in the car, I would drive as fast as I could away from the twister.

[William C. Maune]

Your best bet is to ditch the mobile home and the car and instead lie flat in the nearest ditch.

- William C. Maune, Meteorologist

[MeggieMay]

This reminds me of a WKRP in Cinncinatti Episode where one of the DJs (IIRC, Johnny) mentions in a episode about a tornado hitting the station that God hates mobile homes. What made it the scene funny was he was right - mobile homes are death traps in a tornado. Now, I don't think a car is really a better option here but I sure the heck wouldn't stay in a mobile home if I knew a tornado was on the way.

[Kagetsu]

I would tend to concur. Mobile homes, even doublewides just aren't built very strong. While a car is lighter, even thrown you have a good chance of living through it. Having a tree land on you is a problem no motter what you're in.

In some states, with enough warning, it is possible to drive out of a tornados path. Often you only have a few moments and driving isn't really an option.

Driving in a thunderstorm with heavy rain, a dumptruck stopped dead in the road as the rain drove sidways and debris flew past. I thought sure he stopped us right in a tornados path and was going to get us killed. There is more comfort in moving into what you can't see rather than waiting for it to jump you. But there was no way I was wading into some ditch :p i'll take my chances with cars if I must. Though I'm very fond of bunkers.

[tucsoncoyote]

And now time for some rather interesting commentary...

Your best bet is to ditch the mobile home and the car and instead lie flat in the nearest ditch.

- William C. Maune, Meteorologist

I'm one of the amateur Meteorologist, and I'm in agreement with you here Will. After all, mobile homes are not a safe place to be (I've heard of stories of folks staying in their mobile homes and after the tornado hit, they ended up laying or sitting tens if not hundreds of feet away from where they started. (In Some cases, they even ended up under debris piles that landed upon them when the debris fell out of the tornado. And in fact sometimes folks end up just plain dead (in one case an elderly couple stayed in their mobile home and the husband ended up 300 feet away from his mobile home, alive but in serious condition, and his wife ended up 100 feet farther away and was dead or dying by the time the paramedics arrived. In short folks, if you are going to stay in a mobile home, you best have your last will and testament written out and have your affairs in order.

This reminds me of a WKRP in Cinncinatti Episode where one of the DJs (IIRC, Johnny) mentions in a episode about a tornado hitting the station that God hates mobile homes. What made it the scene funny was he was right - mobile homes are death traps in a tornado. Now, I don't think a car is really a better option here but I sure the heck wouldn't stay in a mobile home if I knew a tornado was on the way.

It's funny you mention this episode of WKRP, but in the reality of all fairness. it wasn't until that time that folks were just starting to understand what Tornadoes did to structures (Meteorological Engineering was at the time in its infancy. and no one had ever seen the damages a tornado could do. (let alone know all the Fallacies. And yet Mobile homes were at the time one of the structures being studied by Civil engineers who were studying the effects of buildings and tornadoes. and they were surprised to learn that these buildings (Mobile homes) came apart rather easily (usually the first thing to fail in any structure is in fact the Roof (it's nothing more than a Large airfoil holding up 4 walls. so one good storm would be able to lift the roof off the mobile home, and the rest of the structure would fail.

Also as a side note, Tornadoes are NOT selective in their targets either.. (Tornadoes don't seek out mobile homes, in fact one of the worse death counts this year didn't come from Mobile homes either. Just back on 1 March 2007, 8 deaths that were caused were due to a School building being collapsed by an EF3 tornado. (and this was in Enterprise Alabama). So remember tornadoes are NOT selective.. they just move as the storm does, and whatever is in the way usually is the target.. be it mobile home, school, or large office building (After all in that same episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, the Windows of the WKRP building were blown in (and Johnny got hit by flying debris, because he was standing next to a window that got blown in by the tornado. (And yes folks Tornadoes do strike high Rise Office buildings as well.)

I would tend to concur. Mobile homes, even doublewides just aren't built very strong. While a car is lighter, even thrown you have a good chance of living through it. Having a tree land on you is a problem no motter what you're in.

In some states, with enough warning, it is possible to drive out of a tornados path. Often you only have a few moments and driving isn't really an option.

Driving in a thunderstorm with heavy rain, a dumptruck stopped dead in the road as the rain drove sidways and debris flew past. I thought sure he stopped us right in a tornados path and was going to get us killed. There is more comfort in moving into what you can't see rather than waiting for it to jump you. But there was no way I was wading into some ditch :p i'll take my chances with cars if I must. Though I'm very fond of bunkers.


That's very true Kagetsu, and in fact I'm going to put up another bit of fallacy here and this is even more recent.. Most folks think that it's safe to abandon your car and get under a highway overpass and hunker down as the tornado passes over you.. Well I hate to say this, but this was because of a couple of News reporters who during the 1991 Andover, Kansas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENOp4HFLh7A)event, decided to take refuge under an overpass with a father and his two daughters. (Luckily the storm was an F2 and they were able to surivive).
(and in fact in that same video which they edited out a portion of.. the same tornado picked up a 1999 Chevy Astrovan off the side of the road and tumbled it with 11 people inside. Luckily they did survive as well but with some injuries.)

But it was this fallacy that eventually lead to deaths 8 years later.

On May 3rd, 1999, during the Oklahoma City Tornaod outbreak, an F5 Tornado raced up the I35 Turnpike and in fact a lot of folks decided it was best to abandon their cars and hide under overpasses. Unfortunately, the tornado was able to suck all of those folks right out from under the overpasses (why? Well because when tornado Speed winds pass through an overpass structure, they tend to "Accelerate" rather then slow down. and this was an F5, top of the scale with wind speeds well over 300 mph.

so in the end, a number of people got injured, and sadly for one family, one person died (A woman who was scrambling with her husband and baby up under one of the overpasses got blown/sucked out of the region and ended up in a ditch some 400 yards away under a pile of debris (including a twisted Car).

The point is this... A lot of fallacies are made by what people think. Thinking about opening that window to save you house from a twister? Don't even think it.. Go to the southwest corner of the house and hunker down? (The new rules say find a Small room on the lowest floor with the most walls between you and the storm, and hunker down).

In short some myths that started as thinking they could save you could actually kill you. In fact one of the saddest stories I have heard was about 3 people dying in a solid rock building In Stratford Illinois when the roof caved in and collapsed the entire 3 story structure. 3 people died and 13 were injured... all because they still followed the rules and in the end, the building failed them. (and this proves the issue further about other structures. No building is really truly safe..

(oh and for the 2 persons who voted 'Tornadoes? We don't get tornadoes where I live (yeah right)'. I think you don't know anything about tornaoes.. Tornadoes can in fact hit anywhere, any time, in any state (even Alaska and Hawaii... They can hit the United Kingdom, they can hit South Africa and Austrailia, in fact no place in the world is in fact tornado proof. rather tornadoes in those areas are usually rare occurrences.. But in the end, they still do occur... and when they do, it's best to know what to do, then to not know anything and end up a fatality.

and that concluded this part of the discussion.

:coyote: (Amateur Meteorologist)

[Juu-kuchi]

Where's the choice that I try to stop the tornado as if I were like Storm?

[Kagetsu]

I was looking to vote "film with video camera from picture window". [/lol]

But I'm sure you also know that it takes a strong thunderstorm to create the up drafts needed to produce a tornado. No storm, no tornado. Though it can happen before the rain.

[tucsoncoyote]

I was looking to vote "film with video camera from picture window". [/lol]

But I'm sure you also know that it takes a strong thunderstorm to create the up drafts needed to produce a tornado. No storm, no tornado. Though it can happen before the rain.

Actually Kagetsu, Tornadoes can form when you have a number of key conditions and a lot of times these things do come together, sometimes they don't... but here they are...


(1) Temperature and Humidity differences at ground level and aloft. This is perhaps the first "Trigger" that starts the events of forming a tornado into motion.. you have to have warm moist (humid) air near the bottom and Cold (Dry) air Aloft... and with those first two things in motion you can get what is called

(2) Instability When you have condition (1) in Place a thing called "Instability" occurs, and what this means is all it takes is anything really to get the warm moist air moving upwards through the colder drier air. And the Greater the Difference between the levels the greater the "Instability" this tend leads to

(3) Thunderstorm Cloud Formation by having (1) happen and (2) occur this is where a thunderstorm builds.. and if Instability is great you can have quick violent buildup of thunderstorms in under a couple of hours. But even this isn't enough to start a tornado forming.. The next thing in this is in fact

(4) Rolling Low level wind shear What is Low level Wind Shear you ask? Well it's the wind moving at two different levels in the atmosphere that causes sort of a "Rolling" Effect (imagine the air like a coil of iron and it's spinning around an horizontal axle.. this usually is caused when Wind aloft at low levels causes air to overturn from near ground level. This causes that "Rolling" effect...

But then you have to also have..

(5) Mid Level Jet Stream Wind Shear This is much like (4) but usually is when you have the Low Level Jet Stream (at about 10-15,000 feet) and the Upper Level Jet (at 18000-32000 Feet) cross each other this sets up a midlevel horizontal spin, and when you combine (3) with this you get

(6) Mesocyclonic Rotation. When you get to this point Most Thunderstorms are in fact very strong if not severe, and in fact when (5) occurs it starts the actual storm to turn along a vertical axis, much like a top... but even at this point there needs to be just one final thing that will make a storm produce a tornado and that is..

(7) A cold Dry Downdraft behind the Thunderstorm. A lot of Meteorlogists as of late have been hypothesizing and theorizing that when an older storm falls apart it's cold air aloft tends to create a downdraft ahead of it, and in this case if there is a mesocyclonic thunderstorm ahead of it, by doing so this downdraft from the dying storm, causes the events in (4), The Rolling Low Level Shear, to have its axis go from Horizontal to Vertical, and when you add in the Mesocyclonic Rotation of (6) in with this effect you can get an ever tightening sprial that is much like a figure skater pulling it's arms inwards.. the sprial shear is now vertical and is Spining faster and faster and usually if it gets tight enough fast enough you finally get...

(8) A tornado... This is perhaps the full expression of a tornadic storm.. and in fact the size of a tornado is in fact related to all of the previous 7 events.. but size is the key here as to how strong the tornado will be.. if say the Storm's mesocyclonic rotation (6) was well over 5 miles wide a very strong tornado on the order of an F4 or F5 storm that is at least a mile wide is possible. (in fact the mesocyclonic Rotation of the May 3rd 1999 storm was 6 miles across and it produced a huge wedge tornado over 1 mile wide.

so in a way, what are the basics for Tornado formation? These are them.. these are the steps to go from a clear sunny day to that of a raging thunderstorm complete with destructive tornado(s).

:coyote:

[MeggieMay]

And now time for some rather interesting commentary...


Also as a side note, Tornadoes are NOT selective in their targets either.. (Tornadoes don't seek out mobile homes, in fact one of the worse death counts this year didn't come from Mobile homes either. Just back on 1 March 2007, 8 deaths that were caused were due to a School building being collapsed by an EF3 tornado. (and this was in Enterprise Alabama). So remember tornadoes are NOT selective.. they just move as the storm does, and whatever is in the way usually is the target.. be it mobile home, school, or large office building (After all in that same episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, the Windows of the WKRP building were blown in (and Johnny got hit by flying debris, because he was standing next to a window that got blown in by the tornado. (And yes folks Tornadoes do strike high Rise Office buildings as well.)

Actually it was Andy (the station manager), not Johnny, who got hit by the flying debris in that episode (Andy then thought he was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz for a bit after that :sweat:). As for the opening windows issue - that wasn't as much a fallacy as official Government policy that was later proven to be wrong. When I was growing up opening the windows was what the U.S. Government was telling people to do so their houses wouldn't implode (the theory was it would equalize the air pressure). The Government then changed its mind about the windows in the late 1980s, after they had done a number of studies that proved it not only didn't work but people were getting hurt more by trying to get the windows opened before the storm hit. However, you can't tell the American people something for almost 30 years and then tell them "hey, we were wrong" and expect them to stop doing it in mass. That's why the U.S. Government is currently reminds everyone, every chance they can, to not open their windows if a tornado is coming to this day.

Oh and it is highly unlikely there was a 1999 Astrovan involved in the 1991 Andover tornado unless the Astrovan was a TARDIS in disguise (I think you typoed that) ;). BTW, I live in Kansas so I know quite a bit about tornados (and have been through several personally)

[MeggieMay]

But I'm sure you also know that it takes a strong thunderstorm to create the up drafts needed to produce a tornado. No storm, no tornado. Though it can happen before the rain.

Actually no, you don't have to have that for a tornado - just ask the windshield of my car ;).

Last October we had a tornado where I lived (that's way outside of tornado season for Western Kansas). I thought it was too cold and there was little rain that day (less thunder and lightening - but the cold is what was really throwing me off, I've seen plenty of no thunderstorm tornados, though usually it has to be warmer and we get hail with tornados), so I thought they were kidding when someone said they saw a tornado when I came out of the grocery store. I guess I just missed seeing what they were seeing because by the time I got half way home one had dropped on the mainstreet behind me (I live about 15 blocks from the store). I thought we were getting straightline winds, though I was also thinking I'd never seen debris picked up and tossed horizontally like that (it was throwing rocks sideways at me (they just oiled and graveled the road)). Good thing I didn't look back because it was actually a tornado flatting part of the Hosipital which I had just driven past :ack:. As it was I just sped up the car to try and get out of the flying rocks and tree limbs and prayed I didn't get my windshield taken out (which it later turned out it had gotten a chunk taken out of it by one of the rocks (took a bit to split the glass)) but I never thought I was in danger.

Anyway, I felt like a big idiot looking back. I could have gotten killed but at the time I just parked and calmly hauled in the groceries and didn't realize what was going on until I got in the house and my dad mentioned we'd had a tornado (the fricking sirens didn't go off for another 15 minutes). So I would suggest not lulling yourself into the idea that the weather has to be a certain way to have a tornado because tornado's don't realize they are suppose to be following rules and just happen when they happen, IMO.

PS: This tornado event last October was really crazy. East of where I live, over by Dodge City, I heard that they had multiple funnels on the ground and they were going in in different directions, following the swirling center of the low pressure system that had caused all of this in the first place.