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New NASA Satellite Zooms in on Tornado Swath
Sonny writes "A number of severe thunder storms swept through the mid-Atlantic states on April 28, bringing high winds, hailstones, and heavy rains to many areas. The intense storms spawned at least two tornadoes, one of which was classified as an F5 funnel cloud--the most severe category, with winds in excess of 260 miles per hour (425 km per hour). The tornado's path can be seen clearly in this panchromatic image (1445KB) acquired on May 1 by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI), flying aboard NASA's EO-1 satellite. EO-1 is the first Earth observing satellite launched as part of NASA's New Millennium Program. This program is designed to spearhead development and testing of a new generation of satellite remote sensing technologies for future Earth and space science missions. The ALI is designed to improve upon and extend the measurement heritage begun by the Landsat series of satellites well into the 21st Century."
Looks like that tornado even removed much of the grass in the areas it passed over. If the grass in your front yard isn't gonna make it, you house probably won't do so well either.
Seems to be an increasing amount of straight line winds here in the midwest. Last year I was at my brothers standing in the backyard with my nephew. And then, as if someone flipped a switch, the trees across a field all leaned over sideways and a couple seconds later a gust of wind nearly knocked us over and sent various pieces of lawn furniture 50 feet across the yard to a chainlink fence that stopped them.
Lots of powerful lightning as well. I've gotten in the habit of bracing myself when I see lightning flash outside, since we've been getting lightning so close that it sounds like a bomb going off outside of the house.
I wonder if we're about to return to the more varied and extreme sorts of weather that were common in 70's and early 80's.. Seems like the tornado sirens were always going off back then.