Wouldn’t a better approach be to try and escape it? Hopefully traveling at a 90 degree angle.
Now that everybody has a smartphone it shouldn’t be difficult to discern which direction to go.
drive away from a tornado?
Yes, if you can see it (often it is raining or hailing and you can’t figure out where it is).
And, of course, if there is only one tornado around. They often come in clusters.
You guys are in my prayers. When I lived in OK we had two or three nearby tornadoes every year, but luckily the neighbors had an underground shelter which we used if a larger one was near...
Here in the Philippines, we only have typhoons, earthquakes, and volcanoes that are easy to run away from...(most of the deaths from these are from flash floods or from landslides, which are harder to run away from)
but our “tornadoes” are rare and tiny....
That would be optimal. If you happen to be on a roadway, looking West or South and see a tornado - and it does not seem to be moving, chances are it's moving right at you. If there's a road that runs perpendicular and you can try to outrun it at that angle - then that's a risk you can take. A cell phone showing the movement of the storm cell would be helpful to make such a decision. Most Spotters use doppler to determine where it is safe to make an escape if we get too close. Tornadoes generally move from the Southwest to the Northeast, or from the South or West generally to the East - so putting petal to the metal on a North/West or South road with the tornado to your SW might put you out of the path.