Why You Need To Heed Warnings: Mild Storm Escalates To Tornado In Seconds

An enormous tornado nears a man's house as he films the twister
in 2015. The tornado ended up hitting his house, severely
injuring him and killing his wife. The outcome was less
tragic, but nearly as scary in the video at the bottom of this post.

I'm not sure where the video at the bottom of this post was shot, but it was somewhere in the South recently.

As it starts, you see what looks like a fairly benign thunderstorm. It doesn't even look all that dark or ominous.

At about 20 seconds in, you hear tornado sirens in the distance start to moan. The woman keeps filming. The weather doesn't seem to be getting any worse. Until it does.

With shocking swiftness, what is apparently a tornado turns everything upside down in just a few seconds. Somehow, the woman manages to retreat inside as the tornado rips her house apart.  Spoiler: She survives.

And just as suddenly, the tornado is gone, and everything has calmed down again. Except now everything is in ruins.

The woman was extremely lucky. There surely was a tornado warning in her area, which a weather radio or local media would have mentioned if she was listening for it. And while you shouldn't rely on tornado sirens, they do give you an alert.

As incredible as the video is, she should have taken shelter at the first notice of a tornado warning.

These kinds of tornado films have ended in tragedy. In 2015, a man filmed a large tornado from an upstairs bedroom in his Fairdale, Illinois home. He thought the tornado would go by a little ways fto his west, but it swerved right into it, severely injuring him, killing his wife and destroying his house.

The only bright side to the tragedy is tornado scientists regarded the film as an excellent twister research tool.

So don't film.

I'm saying this because it still looks like the middle of the nation is in for quite a tornado outbreak over several days, starting Friday. Heed those warnings!

Here's the video: