Man mows his lawn in Canada as huge tornado looms in the background

[jnelsoninjax]

A man mowed his lawn in front of the dramatic backdrop of a swirling tornado in Alberta, Canada, on Friday evening (2 June).

Cecilia Wessels took a striking picture of her husband, Theunis, cutting the grass as the whirlwind passed their home in Three Hills.

When Theunis spotted the tornado, he refused to come inside, reassuring his wife and daughter that the storm was moving away from them.

"It looks much closer if you look in the photo, but it was really far away. Well, not really far, far away, but it was far away from us," Theunis told Canadian newspaper the Times Colonist.

"I was keeping an eye on it," he added.

"I literally took the picture to show my mum and dad in South Africa, 'Look there's a tornado,' and now everyone is like, 'Why is your husband mowing the lawn?'" his wife said. "Our whole street, everyone was on their back patios taking pictures."

The twister touched down shortly after 5pm local time (12am BST), a few kilometres northeast of Three Hills. The tornado tore up several trees and ripped the roof of a barn, but no people were injured.

Local resident Clare Stankievech told CBC News that she had never seen anything like Friday's tornado before.

"We have vicious thunderstorms that go through, but when I looked up from my yard and saw that, it put a new scare into a person. It's different than anything I'd ever seen."

She said the storm passed quickly. "We can see sunshine and blue sky."

Source

[Nashy]

Surprised he didn't trip over his own balls.  I'd be on the first train to Nopeville.

[DocM]

When Dr. Fujita did his study of 17,000+ tornadoes he found their directions of travel followed the track of their source storm - with the splits being from the,

 

SW: 59%

W: 19%

NW: 11%

S: 6%

SE: 2%

N, E and NE: 1% each

 

Generally locals know their local/seasonal storm tracks quite well, but tornadoes are very finicky beasts and well worth keeping several eyes on

 

I'll never forget seeing our neighbors barn quite literally  turned into toothpicks while we didn't even lose an apple off our side-yard trees.

 

[Rippleman]

Looked bigger from my place. I am about 11 miles away. I too was cutting the grass and had to go get my phone to record.  I don't know the guy in the pic but sisters friends husband. Where the guy was, was just to the right of that at the end of the video.

 

 

[DocM]

Yup, I remember seeing similar views and closer throughout my childhood. You just learn to live with them, and keep your eyes and ears open.

 

Q for Rippleman: you have an underground root cellar/storm shelter? We had two, one near the house and another smaller one closer to the barn - just in case.

[Rippleman]

3 minutes ago, DocM said:

Yup, I remember seeing similar views and closer throughout my childhood. You just learn to live with them, and keep your eyes and ears open.

 

Q for Rippleman: you have an underground root cellar/storm shelter? We had two, one near the house and another smaller one closer to the barn - just in case.

never has really been an need to worry about them. They seem to only come around about once every 15-20 years. Last one in the year 2000 was about 20 miles to the north. Sadly formed right on a lake sight campground and 2 people died (1 adult and 1 one small child). Before that, can't recall any, but was pretty young to take notice/remember.

[DocM]

Ahhh....

 

Being at the NE end of Tornado Alley we had them every spring/summer, and some in the early winter (it's the air mass temp differential.)  The 1974 outbreak (148) and 2011 super-outbreak (362) were sights to see here in the central US.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

9 hours ago, jnelsoninjax said:

 

The True North strong and free.

[FloatingFatMan]

Where's the wheelbarrow he carts his massive cajones around in?

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

anyone know why people keep building their homes out of wooden planks in tornado alley? you always see the aftermath and everything is usuaully flattend.

[DocM]

5 hours ago, Slarlac249 said:

anyone know why people keep building their homes out of wooden planks in tornado alley? you always see the aftermath and everything is usuaully flattend.

Inexpensive, customary and tornado damage isn't that common relative to how many structures there are.

 

Properly built "stick" construction is also more earthquake and wind resistant because it can flex, and we do get derechos (straight-line winds of 50 to 150+ mph across a broad front) and earthquakes. OTOH, tornadoes will totally shred whatever construction you put up.

 

Re: wood structures in earthquake zones....

 

http://csengineermag.com/article/wood-frame-construction-advantageous-in-areas-prone-to-seismic-activity/

 

We were hit by a derecho in 1980 known locally as "the green storm." It had winds from 60 mph in the northern end of the county to 75-80 mph at the airport and 150 mph at the south end. Moved our 24 foot above ground pool almost 2 feet, and ripped 100 foot trees out of the ground. Lost power for 2 weeks, validating my purchase of a generator , but the house only needed a new roof and TV antenna. 

 

Shelf cloud from a 2008 derecho.

 

Edited June 8, 2017 by DocM

[FloatingFatMan]

Maybe someone's trying to tell you not to live there?

 

[DocM]

Nowhere on this continent is "safe."

 

Even though MI is considered 'low risk' for quakes we get them, and if the Midwestern New Madrid (MO) fault goes off it'll be nasty for hundreds of miles. In the 1800's New Madrid quake storm church bells rang from the shaking all the way to Boston.

 

Tornadoes

 

Earthquake zones

 

Derechos

[FloatingFatMan]

I repeat, maybe someone is trying to tell you not to live there?

 

[Steven P. Administrators]