# We Had a TORNADO!!!!!!



## antigua (Dec 17, 2007)

OK! I know there are a lot of people that live in area of the US that see tornados every year especially if you live along tornado valley. We rarely ever get a tornado. We had a bunch touch down last night. WOW!!!  I'm really shocked that it happened. Almost everyone you talk to have never seen a tornado in their life and never thought they would ever see one in their life time. Most of them got a front row seat to the event last night.
the link is a news feed that I watched if you're interested.

One dead as tornadoes reported across south Ont. | Sympatico / MSN News


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## ctfortner (Nov 16, 2007)

Yeah I heard they had some in Minnesota also, which is a rare thing. I assume yall didnt get any damage there!


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## antigua (Dec 17, 2007)

Depends on what your view of damage is. When you compare it to the damade the US sees every year, maybe not however, there are lots of homes damaged or or even brought down to the foundation. Vaughan just north of Toronto seems to have been hit the hardest and they have hundreds of home and busnisses damaged. there are about 60,000 people without power still. There's a small town Durham about 2 hours north west of Toronto, just north of me was hit pretty bad where a young boy was killed. Actully my trailer is not far from there. I'll be heading there tomorrow morning to see if everything is ok. Wish me luck!!!!


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## wheeldweller (Aug 17, 2009)

Well, there's not much scarier than being in a lightweight (usually) aluminum trailer when a tornado is nearby: you could lose your home in a mere thunderstorm. Lord knows I've seen enough taken out by slippery hills and such.

"Kinda makes ya feel alive, doesn't it!" 

Glad you weren't a statistic. I'm working on an 'Annunciator' for my trailer that'll pay attention to the weather and keep me posted. I've already got it 'talking' to me, telling me to wake up, and warning me of low battery power, etc.

I don't have anything to report in the way of progress...but it'll make scenese like the one you witnessed a little harder to happen, I hope. And as with everything I do, it's all "public domain" or GPL kinda stuff anyone can do. When I get something I'll try to send it to ya.


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## heruide (Feb 12, 2008)

I do hope your trailer was not damage and more importantly that you were not impacted.

I'm in Houston right now and was just informed by DW that a tornado touched down north of the city.

Take care.

Ruide


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## heruide (Feb 12, 2008)

Wheeldweller,

With regard to weather, what will your 'Annunciator' do that is beyond what a NOAA weather radio with SAME capability does?

Ruide


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## wheeldweller (Aug 17, 2009)

heruide said:


> Wheeldweller,
> 
> With regard to weather, what will your 'Annunciator' do that is beyond what a NOAA weather radio with SAME capability does?
> 
> Ruide


The plan is to have all the weather-related information you need; not just the local area, for which it'll sound an alarm through the radio, but permit you to see the road ahead or behind. 

I'm still waiting on the GPS to get back from the wiring shop (I should really call him...) but the GPS will provide the coords, and produce city, state, county, and timezone as I go. 

But right now I'm having trouble getting the touch screen, etc; it's not that no one makes it, rather that as a caregiver, the budget's light. If you'd like to see the project in general, it's at FAQs


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## heruide (Feb 12, 2008)

Thanks... I'll be on the look out for you in next year's storm chaser program :thumbup1:

Ruide


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## wheeldweller (Aug 17, 2009)

heruide said:


> Thanks... I'll be on the look out for you in next year's storm chaser program :thumbup1:
> 
> Ruide


 Probably won't be next year; I have a string of other projects, and before I suggest it to people I really need to finish writing it!  I think a $30 public radio makes a great initial stop gap, though.


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## l2l (Jan 27, 2008)

There was another tornado in Markham on Saturday Antigua, whats going on in Ontario lately :shrug:

As I type this I am currently in Halifax riding out Hurricane Bill so this year has been a dosey for Canada I must say


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## antigua (Dec 17, 2007)

Well, Everything was fine. I heard that there was another tornado. What the heck is going on???? Talking to a few people around the park, they had a lot more to deal with then we did. None the less, we made out ok and all is fine. 
Steve, I hope everything is ok in Halifax. I heard some weather reports, WOW!!! I heard the waves crashing to shore was as big as 5 stories tall!!! That's got to be near 50 feet!!!! I hope you are ok.

Wheeldweller,

I'm very interested in this 'Annunciator' thing you are working on. I really don't know anything about it but sounds interesting. What elese can you tell me about it?


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## wheeldweller (Aug 17, 2009)

Well, Welcome to Weather Underground : Weather Underground has a bunch of "API"s (programmer speak for 'connections') that will let you get tons of info, right from the net. 

If you have a GPS, and it's getting so easy as to wonder 'why not?', you take the coords from it and plug them into a URL over at WeatherUnderground. What it returns for you is a load of information RV travelers would like to have, generally speaking.

It returns country, state, county, and city, as well as local webcam URLs, forecasts, and weather alerts, and a host of other details. This isn't earth-shattering, but I remember times we wondered which state we were in, exactly, because it would have to be one of two.

Knowing this also allows you to bring up GPSDrive, an free application for mapping your trip. It'll download maps for the whole thing, really helpful for a multi-day journey. And of course, there's also Google.

What the annunciator would do is be made aware of severe conditions (thunderstorms, frost warnings, anything you can measure like low propane levels WITH a frost warning, in the daytime while they're still open at the camp store...) and anything else you can think up.

Again, it's all open source; as it gets created, you can do what I did, or better yet, collaborate with me to make our mutual units better, and help hand off the idea to other people, too. 

Right now I'm missing my old annunciator; I'm inside taking care of Mom, not out in the trailer hearing the passage of hours and half-hours and getting historical notifications every morning with the rise-n-shine alarm. I really should get back in there and _build_, but other things have come up.


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## l2l (Jan 27, 2008)

All is fine my friend and I am glad you guys got through those tornado's as well, I wondered how close you might be to them..

The reports of 50' waves were a stretch, 10-20 at the peak MAYBE..
The storm just brushed us so it was no big deal at all.

Very strange seeing rain coming down sideways though :shocked:



antigua said:


> Well, Everything was fine. I heard that there was another tornado. What the heck is going on???? Talking to a few people around the park, they had a lot more to deal with then we did. None the less, we made out ok and all is fine.
> Steve, I hope everything is ok in Halifax. I heard some weather reports, WOW!!! I heard the waves crashing to shore was as big as 5 stories tall!!! That's got to be near 50 feet!!!! I hope you are ok.
> 
> Wheeldweller,
> ...


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## wheeldweller (Aug 17, 2009)

l2l said:


> All is fine my friend and I am glad you guys got through those tornado's as well, I wondered how close you might be to them..
> 
> The reports of 50' waves were a stretch, 10-20 at the peak MAYBE..
> The storm just brushed us so it was no big deal at all.
> ...



Was this the same one listed on The Drudge Report? I remember a story of TWENTY people getting hit with a random wave of that size, and almost everyone died.


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## l2l (Jan 27, 2008)

wheeldweller said:


> Was this the same one listed on The Drudge Report? I remember a story of TWENTY people getting hit with a random wave of that size, and almost everyone died.


If your refering to Hurricane Bill that just hit Nova Scotia Canada this past weekend it was NOT as bad as the Media said it was..

YES THREE kids went into the surf, and NO it was NOT 50 foot waves although I am sure it felt like it when the idiots got tossed in there!

ALL were rescued by each other BTW NOT by recuse crews so how this story even made the news is beyond me. These dum a$$ kids were in a restricted area and are lucky to be alive. 

What were they thinking standing on rocks on the edge of the ocean with a Huricane on top of them, I mean seriously what did they expect to happen :bang:


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## antigua (Dec 17, 2007)

I'm very glad all is well with you l2l, Strange weather we've been getting lately. Just goes to show you, don't believe what you see on tv. Rest assure, Brampton is still standing. Have you been home sense we last talked? How are things going over there? Things picking up?

Wheeldweller,
I don't have a trail GPS but rather an Auto GPS. I assume that you refer to a hand held unit like a Garmin unit. The only thing I have is a wind up radio that has settings for WX broadcast. Not to sure how it works or what setting I need to set it to to get weather warning reports from Environment Canada or NOAA which I'm not sure if NOAA is available in Canada. I read what you have been working on (Annunciator) and sounds very interesting. What can you tell me about WX settings? On my radio there are settings from 1 to 7 but I can't find anything on the net to guide me to what setting I need to set it to in my area.


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## l2l (Jan 27, 2008)

antigua said:


> I'm very glad all is well with you l2l, Strange weather we've been getting lately. Just goes to show you, don't believe what you see on tv. Rest assure, Brampton is still standing. Have you been home sense we last talked? How are things going over there? Things picking up?


Still slow back home so I travel back & forth for now..

Hopefully not for too much longer


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## wheeldweller (Aug 17, 2009)

l2l said:


> If your refering to Hurricane Bill that just hit Nova Scotia Canada this past weekend it was NOT as bad as the Media said it was..
> 
> YES THREE kids went into the surf, and NO it was NOT 50 foot waves although I am sure it felt like it when the idiots got tossed in there!


See? People think I'm a little off-kilter 'cause I both don't believe in the news, and I prefer communicating with people, directly. I think it began during the filming of "League of their Own". A reporter from CNN was on the small streets of New Harmony, west of my hometown. As he was calling in his report, he called the town Boonville. Boonville's 30-40 miles east of there. Other details revealed that he must not have been paying attention to the same thing we mutually witnessed, 'cause the report was pure fiction!

What I *do* like is living in Chicago: every visit to a diner provides the sound of three different accents every visit. Did you know Turks and Greeks really have no anger (over Cyprus)? Nor did I. The same is largely true of Scotts and Brits. 

It's SO fascinating to talk to people; I met a German Fighter Pilot and we literally talked all night. I had to ask: "Now, what did they teach you about Hitler? I just want to make sure that's a lesson we don't all fotget..." :>

There used to be huge resources of news, but not so much anymore. HAM radio opoerators can scan the 0-2mHz and find lots of English-language feeds from the world over....or at least that used to be there. Now days, we'll only hear about Bolivia, for example, if Madonna was on a plane that crashed there. The media is really, really lazy.


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## happiestcamper (Mar 6, 2008)

See how bad the news is? Nobody has reported that Madonna plane crash yet :rotflmao1:

It ain't just reporters - I was at a concert when the band kept saying we were in Charlotte. Charlotte, Charleston, first 4 letters count.


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## wheeldweller (Aug 17, 2009)

Yeah, as much as I love the sound of Linda Rhonstat (without the liberal politics) she got booed here for that. "I just love it every time I'm in Evanston!" ...she was in Evansville at the time. :>


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## happiestcamper (Mar 6, 2008)

Ours was a reggae band, so they were doing good seeing through the fog to begin with :rotflmao1:


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