Two Tornadoes In Two Weird Places

Tornado the other day in Taiwan

Videos have emerged of two separate tornadoes in the past couple of days, which in and of itself isn't weird. Tornadoes are fairly common in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere summer.

It's just where these two happened: One was in Taiwan. The other was in Portland, Oregon.

Tornadoes are not unheard of in either location. However, people are also not used to them in either place.

You can tell that by the videos at the bottom of this post. People stayed outside filming the tornadoes when they were right on top of them. They should have been hiding indoors, preferably in a basement.

The amateur videographers all survived, which is great. I present the videos with mixed emotions, because I don't want to encourage people to go out in dangerous conditions and shoot videos. But still, they're pretty cool.

Tornado damage in Portland, Oregon. 

The tornado in southern Taiwan injured two people, cut power to about 7,400 others and caused quite a bit of structural damage.

The Portland, Oregon tornado was fortunately weak. It had peak winds of 80 mph, was only 40 yards wide and had a path length of 1.6 miles. It caused roof damage to a couple houses and knocked down several trees.

It was the fifth tornado in records dating back to 1904 of hit within Portland city limits, says the National Weather Service.

First up: A compilation video of the Taiwan tornado. Still surprised only two people were hurt, given how many people were too close to flying debris:



Next video is the funnel almost directly overhead of the people shooting the video in Portland, Oregon. They can't believe there's actually a tornado in Portland. Then they realize that it has actually touched down. Still, they stay outside. Luckily no harm done to them: