Italy Gets A Big Scary Tornado, Kind Of LIke Oklahoma Does

When you think of a very large, very destructive tornado, you think about one of these storms wiping out a town in, say, Oklahoma, Iowa or South Dakota or something.

But tornadoes happen elsewhere in the world, too. Most of those are fairly weak, but every once in a while, there is unfortunately a blockbuster tornado.

Deadly tornado approaches a suburb of Venice,
Italy this week.  n

Such was the case near Venice, Italy this week. This was an EF3 tornado that swept through a heavily populated areas. EF3s pack winds of between 136 and 165 mph,  so such a tornado hitting a town is pretty much a worst case scenario.

In the Italy tornado, which hit suburbs just west of Venice, at least one person was killed, dozens injured and many buildings left in ruins, says the Independent UK

The one aspect of the tornado that has really lit up social media is the video taken from inside a car that was way, way too close to the twister.

Damage from yesterday's tornado near Venice, Italy.  n

I don't know why, in the beginning of the video while the occupants of the car were still out of harm's way, they kept driving toward what was obviously a large, destructive tornado.

As the car gets close to the tornado, it gets pelted with debris, and the people were extremely lucky one of those big pieces of sheet metal didn't shred them to pieces.  

It looks like the tornado changed course as they were trying to get away from it. If they were chasing the tornado, the tornado ended up chasing them.

Here is that video: