One of them came thru a few hundred feet of my house that evening. It was so windy and stormy out, with lightning, thunder and rain, I didn’t hear it. I was FReeping about the tornadoes at the exact time. But I knew one was close. You know how? The overpowering smell of pine.
Sure enough, in the morning, went out and drove around. Down the road a little ways, HUNDREDS of downed loblolly and long leaf pine one of my neighbors had.
It’s that fresh pine scent!
Your experience with a close call at home is different from mine. Don’t know what the scale might have been at the time but it touched down again a few miles to the northeast and was an F3, killed several people, pulled firetrucks out of the station house.
You could hear it, creepy silence followed by a strange whistling and buzzing, then a rumbling roar. The only damage I got was a large, four-trunked oak came down and shook the house. The actual path was about a quarter mile away, structural damage, roofs torn off.
I was in the hall bath since it had no windows, with my two dogs. Power went out, then nothing. Sat there long enough to start feeling a little foolish about panicking, then my ears popped and the dogs started whining and trying to climb into my lap. Exhaust fan started whirring, you could feel the air pulling out of the room. Then the boom and the house shook from the tree hitting the ground, then the roar after that.
I think the funnel passed directly overhead before touching down afterwards, myself. Explains a lot.
We had a weak one go over our house and other than the wind ? you know how one is near you ? the sudden drop in pressure.