2012: The Tornadoing

April 3, 2012 4:00 PM

Dallas area Mefites: this afternoon's tornadoes were absolutely insane. Here's hoping everyone's ok. Everyone's ok, right?

We were lucky. After initial reports that the earliest of the twisters was headed straight toward our house in Oak Cliff (and after I rounded up the cats and crammed them into the closet under the stairs), we were somehow spared from even the most minor of hail. The footage that's being repeated endlessly on television is like nothing I've ever seen before, though. That shit is crazy, what with the tractor-trailers being tossed about like they're made of balsa wood.

Unofficial tornado count today in the D/FW: 12. Holy cowshit.

Again: everyone ok?

posted by item to MetaFilter-Related at 4:00 PM (25 comments total)

all is well here. that was scary.
posted by hugandpint at 4:11 PM on April 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

You're all in my thoughts.
posted by ColdChef at 4:34 PM on April 3, 2012

This has been a crazy year, weather-wise, thus far. I am fearful for what the heat of summer will bring. Dallas area folks - I hope that you are all okay.
posted by Elly Vortex at 4:35 PM on April 3, 2012

I'm posting this from beyond the grave, but good news: there's ribbon candy over here.
posted by cmoj at 4:39 PM on April 3, 2012

Mrs. Groundhog and I are fine. I've contacted some friends live in the area and no one reported any damages or injuries.

My students (high school juniors and seniors) were a little freaked out, but our tornado warning procedures went off without a hitch. Our school is built like a concrete tank though, and is one of the safer buildings in the city I work in, so I wasn't really worried.
posted by Groundhog Week at 4:43 PM on April 3, 2012

I saw the crazy footage of the tractor trailers being tossed around. I'm glad you're all okay and hope everyone continues to be!
posted by rtha at 5:18 PM on April 3, 2012

Thanks for posting this, item. I've heard from most of my close friends down there and have been thinking about the DFW MeFi Contingent much of the afternoon.

Glad y'all and the kittens are safe.
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:25 PM on April 3, 2012

I spent 45 minutes huddling in a closet with two kids, a cat, and a number of terrified spiders. Luckily the tornadoes went the other way and we have no damage here in Garland other than maybe a few new hail-holes in the roof that we have not yet replaced since the last hail storm.

Seriously amazing that there are no fatalities being reported from these storms. It was nasty out there.
posted by Dojie at 6:35 PM on April 3, 2012

I've got family in Rowlett and was following CNN and my aunt's Facebook updates all afternoon. Everyone is safe and sound. The footage was crazy to watch, and I too am shocked that there's been no news of injuries. Glad the DFW Mefites are safe as well!
posted by booksherpa at 7:03 PM on April 3, 2012

I was on the phone today taking a flower order from a lady in Dallas. Toward the end she mentioned the tornado sirens were going off.

I tried calling her before I left work but just got voicemail. Hopefully she's okay....
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:06 PM on April 3, 2012

I'm in Dallas and I'm okay. We can close the thread now. I know this thread was just a pretext to check in on ME, the most well-known and popular MeFite.
posted by mreleganza at 7:27 PM on April 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

I've been thinking about you folks. Thanks for checking in.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:00 PM on April 3, 2012

I'm fine. Nothing happened in Richardson other than some pretty heavy rain for a few minutes.
posted by bookman117 at 8:58 PM on April 3, 2012

Spending most of the day in a stairwell hearing sirens and being unable to work kinda sucked, but at least it was over within business hours.

Here's a really good look: 25 incredible photos of today's tornadoes (12) in the Dallas area.

Thanks for posting this, Item. Glad you and yours are safe and well - and all the rest of our fellow North Texan MeFites.

If anybody's yet to see the trailer-tossing footage, here it is. (Some of the photos in the montage are stills from this video, FYI.)
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:35 PM on April 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I haven't looked at the national weather map, but here (Albuquerque) it went from the 80s over the weekend to dramatically falling temperatures on Monday, with drizzle and rain all day...and then, overnight, it fell below freezing and during the early morning and to about mid-morning, here at my apartment there was a couple inches of snow on the ground. In April.

So when I saw this evening that there'd been tornadoes in DFW, I assumed that a serious cold front had moved west to east and collided with warmer and humid air in north Texas, causing extreme weather. Is that so?

I was surprised that there's not more news about the tornadoes. I use My Yahoo! as my portal (an old, old habit I can't break) and it aggregates on that page (which I use for everything, with my favorite links on the left) numerous news sources. And there was only one mention in the NYT feed. And, going to it, it was only in the "lede blog" that it appeared. None of the other sources mention it. But what I read, and looked at the local TV news site, indicates that this was a national-news level set of tornadoes that went through one of the largest metro areas in the US. Why not more news? It's weird.

The semi-trailers a hundred feet in the air is pretty amazing footage. Frightening.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:40 PM on April 3, 2012

Ivan, it was about 85 degrees F today during the storms (it was 68 when I got out of bed), so that could be... looking here, you can see the wide swath of the storm from Texas to the top of Arkansas still spreading out a bit.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:51 PM on April 3, 2012

Today's wind map.
posted by rtha at 9:56 PM on April 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Glad you are all OK. Was thinking of our Dalas based friends when I heard the news, but they seem to all be OK too.

Dojie: "I spent 45 minutes huddling in a closet with two kids, a cat, and a number of terrified spiders."
It's nice that you're on such familiar terms with your spiders :)
posted by arcticseal at 10:19 PM on April 3, 2012

That was kind of crazy. I was out teaching music lessons near Allen and got locked down for an hour or so with middle schoolers. That was "fun."

Otherwise, it was just a panicky bit up in the northern parts. I heard Denton was put under warning for a bit, but nothing came through in that direction.

I hope everyone who was in the worst hit areas is ok, though.
posted by SNWidget at 6:22 AM on April 4, 2012

Metafilter: holy cowshit.
posted by RolandOfEld at 2:22 PM on April 4, 2012

Dios?
posted by horsemuth at 10:29 PM on April 4, 2012

Hmm. Nevermind. I looked him up and he's commenting on one of today's posts, so I suppose that answers that.
posted by horsemuth at 10:34 PM on April 4, 2012

I tried calling her before I left work but just got voicemail. Hopefully she's okay....

Call another flower shop and send the first florist flowers, just in case.
posted by terrapin at 7:29 AM on April 5, 2012

Late to the party, but may as well throw in - spent an hour or so in a stairwell with 7 or so of my closest(seriously) co-workers, and that was about the worst of it. No damage at my employed in Plano or my home in Frisco. I feel horribly for those further south who actually had tornados and crazy-huge hailstones, though. A friend of mine will be replacing two cars and a roof in the very near future.
posted by owtytrof at 8:13 AM on April 5, 2012

Sorry, just saw this. I was at my office for most of the day and actually drove to the courthouse for a hearing at 4 because, amazingly, the county still wanted to do business.

The tornadoes did not come my way in the park cities area, and I don't think we got crazy hail. Just a lot of rain some branches fell off.

Glad to hear no members in DFW got the bad end of the stick, although there were some nasty stuff hither and yon in our fair burg by the looks of it.
posted by dios at 1:30 PM on April 6, 2012