Spectacular pictures.
I would love to live in OK since it's half way between both of our daughters, but this is a good reason not to live there.
I think the bark is worse than the bite.
I love watching that kind of weather but I usually can't. The great lakes really knocks the steam out of those storms.
I have lived here since January 2nd, 1997 and love it! We had a wall cloud go over our house several weeks ago but no rotation. The warning system in Oklahoma is tremendous not to mention we have the Storms Prediction and National Weather Centers within a few miles of my house right here in Norman.
We were here when the F-5+ tornado struck Moore and other towns just a few miles from us -- we watched our local TV track the storm the whole way so people had plenty of warning just where the tornadoes were on the ground.
There is an old Indian legend that a buffalo wallow was down by the river to the west of Norman where they always went when the storms were bad. Norman, knock on wood, has never been hit by a major tornado. Maybe the Indians are right.
Tornadoes can hit almost anyplace in this Country for the most part that is not in the mountains. I lived in Fairborn, Ohio, when the big tornado hit Xenia. It is a matter of being prepared and getting plenty of warning that a wall cloud is beginning to show rotation and lowering with a hook echo on the screen. Until I moved to OK never heard of a rotating wall cloud or a hook echo.
We have storm chasers everywhere around here and that is where a lot of the pictures come from because they broadcast live from their vehicles.
I love Oklahoma which is my adopted state now and spring of the year may have tornadoes but it is a beautiful time of the year here! Norman is the best place I have ever lived and have lived in quite a few locations thanks to Air Force Materiel Command.
In California we had danger of earthquakes and forest fires including a fire in the Little San Gorgonio Mountains the day the movers packed the truck that had ash falling on the boxes from the wind blowing off the mountain into our yard. Not to mention the storm we went through that took out the Santa Monica pier and red tile off our roof and we were inland about 90 miles.
We went through a hurricane in NH, and two small earthquakes and tornadoes around us in Ohio, and a hurricane, flooding, and small tornadoes in Texas. One of the roads leading to our subdivision was flooded so bad you couldn't use it and at the high school they had a canoe going around the campus as water was so high.
Every place has its weather, fire, or earthquake problems so Oklahoma is not unique. We are fortunate to have to best warning system in America thanks to the Storms Prediction Center being here in Norman (thank you J.C.) and our TV and radio coverage that pinpoints the storms block by block.