Joplin suffers 'direct hit' from tornado; 'major damage'

[Nordic]

consul? awesome.

my response: eat drink and be merry. it is a good day to die.

[alwyn]

"On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving anyplace. If the summer change to winter, yours is no disgrace."
'
Yes.

I think we have about 2 more years of extreme weather, and then another 3-4 years of really squirrely weather. And another 20 years of extreme mental weather...while we squirt out the other side of the cosmic birth canal we are in, vis a vis the central sun and the winter 2012 galactic alignment. We just need to keep from murdering each other or going nuts. We need to help each other out through the extreme weather, and plant more food.

As the indigenous Amerindians say: it is a good day to be above ground.

[82_28]

OK. I know people in real-space who tonight had not heard of this yet. Good for them, that means they're healthily away from the toob and everything else. But I can't believe this wasn't brought up in passing to them during their day at work! My girlfriend would not know about it were it not for me too.

That said, I have never seen such spontaneous atmospheric destruction in my entire life. It looks like both a thousand OKC bombs went off and literally the whole world in a 360 degree circle was sprayed with a billion machine gun rounds. Al Roker on NBC's Today Show this morning looked absolutely shaken and with another storm moving in while live on air it shook him more. I have never been more shocked at a tornado's damage ever. Watching the nightly news tonight was even more mesmerizing than the recent Japan earthquake, because the destruction was just so damned complete, so utterly shocking. I found myself tearing up and getting chills for the whole damned half an hour of "nightly news". Just unbelievable power was this storm. Sometimes I wonder if things like this, the super-volcano of Yellowstone, the proclivity for the west coast to meet with seismic disaster is why the continental USA remained sparsely populated for so many prehistoric years.

[The Consul]

That blank video with sound only above. Horrifying yet inspiring....

The darkness of the storm reaches into the shadows of the mind. The children screaming, quivering hands trying to cover their mouths; glass breaking under backs as bodies pile into the locker, he thinks of Kurt Vonnegut, he thinks this is a counter attack, he feels the earth lifting, oh shit he thinks, this is not a live bass solo by Less Claypool, this is my viscera about to return to the star dust.

We're gonna be alright.

I love you. I love everybody.

Time to give blood. Time to reach down deep and stop wondering if you can, if anyone understands. That aint what I heard they will say. It caint happin here.

Take my hand. Look, the roof is coming off, we are rising up into the furry of night's unstoppable will, as she bows beneath the stars. As we leave this dream for another, as we depart this nothingness for the unknown nothingness as nothing at last, what do they say?

We're gonna be alright.

I love you. I love everybody.

You come to in an old tomb. Your body is gone. There is soft blue light, it is around you, it is you. You see something that is oddly familiar, oddly sweet.



Among the suffering all flames go out, they are taken by the storm that is the universe, their flames are returned to that same darkness where all light bends and flies away away away. Goodbye, my blaze of dancing souls, may we reform again forgetting all of what we were in these ruins of worship.

[Nordic]

Sometimes I wonder if things like this, the super-volcano of Yellowstone, the proclivity for the west coast to meet with seismic disaster is why the continental USA remained sparsely populated for so many prehistoric years.

Well, it wasn't. There were plenty of people in the U.S. before our european diseases wiped them out. Early accounts told of an impressive population.

[23]

http://www.weather.com/newscenter/natio ... index.html
Tornado outbreak begins again

(excerpted)

- Another storm system charges out of the Rocky Mountains and crosses through the central and southern Plains later today and Wednesday

- The storm plows into a very warm and humid air mass in the central and southern Plains causing severe thunderstorms to develop

- Severe thunderstorms should first develop in western or central Oklahoma later this afternoon and develop southward into north-central Texas by early evening

- During the evening the activity moves through eastern Oklahoma, northeast Texas and western Arkansas

- Strong tornadoes, damaging wind gusts and very large hail are possible

- Other severe thunderstorms are possible in Tennessee and western and northern North Carolina this afternoon and evening

- Those storms could produce strong wind gusts, hail and isolated tornadoes

- Hot temperatures continue over the entire region with highs mostly in the upper 80s to upper 90s

- Windy conditions occur in far western Oklahoma and western Texas with sustained winds of 15 to 30 mph and gusts over 50 mph possible

- A few areas of western Texas could have sustained winds of 25 to 50 mph with gusts over 70 mph from the middle afternoon through the early evening hours

Meanwhile, I'll need to be looking out for this in my neck of the woods:

[8bitagent]

1500 accounted for? That's not good. In my memory of major disasters of the last decade plus, "missing and unaccounted" for is usually code for dead. Rarely do I recall a missing count being comprised of people who were found alive...hopefully this is the exception to the rule.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43147795/ns/weather/

But not even half way through 2011, it does seem to be an unusually extreme weather pattern for America...and we're not even to Hurricane season yet

[Jeff]

Now:

Okla. hit by tornado as Joplin braces

A large tornado touched down in western Oklahoma Tuesday as the city of Joplin in southwestern Missouri — already reeling from the deadliest tornado to strike the United States in more than 60 years — braced for a second punch.

A single twister in Joplin on Sunday killed at least 117 people. That's the highest toll from one tornado since accurate record-keeping began, surpassing the 116 people who were killed in a single twister in Flint, Mich., on April 27, 1953.

And the Joplin figure is expected to rise. Preliminary estimates say the twister was an EF4 on the Fujita scale — the second-highest rating assigned to tornadoes based on the damage they cause.

The National Weather Service reported the tornado touched down Tuesday north of Canton, about 110 kilometres northwest of Oklahoma City, and moved east/northeast.

...

[Joe Hillshoist]

Not necessarily 8bit. I can think of a few disasters where the number of missing or unaccounted for has been high for 2 or 3 days and dropped significantly as people began to get the recovery organised. If there is no phone coverage in an area the number always goes up at first.

Still having seen the devastation this storm wrought, there could be lots of people under the rubble and timber.

[Jeff]

Live stream is down for me, but the scrolling chat from OKC is bad enough:

http://www.news9.com/category/184600/se ... ected=true

[eyeno]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=779O5EjZn1o&NR=1

[eyeno]

[barracuda]

K.C., earlier today.

[Joe Hillshoist]

That looks angry

[8bitagent]

For seven miles, nothing but stripped land...so much of it doesn't just look heavily damaged, but like someone took a board with RISK game pieces on it, and shook em' off. Just gone.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 0#43160110

I guess for a lot of these folks, Harold Camping wasn't too far off the mark. "Multi vortex mexi tornaodes" some call these.

If anyone has seen the documentary styled film Gummo, that's the kind of feeling that can descend upon a midwest/southern town long after a major disaster
It's indeed scary to think what will have happened in America and the world by the halfway mark of 2011