[Fr. Frank]

I live in Dunnellon (just east of Yankeetown and Inglis), and as I'm also a private pilot, I often moniter the radar telemetry out of Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville.

First of all, there were lots of F0 and F1 tornados across the state on Thursday night into Friday. Before midnight, radar picked up an F3 rotation that formed in the clouds over Red Level, FL (4 miles S of Inglis) that tracked ENE going right up the Lake Rousseau/Withlacoochee River basin and then for more than 30 miles without ever touching down. The F3 dissipated west of Bellview, where several F0 tornados did touch down, although doing minor damage.

As I looked at the track of the F3, I remember being thankful that it was going to pass at least a mile north of me, and praying it brought no harm. That was the tornado that changed the Watch to a Warning across the state.

A couple of pieces of trivia from "the tornado project".
1. In Florida, 90% of all tornados are F1 or F0 in strength, "compared to about 75% nationwide".
2. Florida gets more tornados per square mile every year than any other state (although Texas get the most tornados overall).
3. Most tornados in FL have a lifespan of under 20 minutes.
4. You're 80 times more likely to be struck by lightning than by a tornado.

And yet I've been personally struck by lightning twice (in the same day!), and had my home brushed or damaged by tornados three times (also all 3 tornados in the same day in Lake Worth FL during hurricane Betsey in 1965) While our house had relatively minor damage, every single house across the street had major damage or was destroyed. All in all, FIVE tornados hit our neighborhood in rural Lake Worth during Betsey over a 3 hour period.


So much for Statistic #4 [img]/forum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]