I received this from a friend who lives in the tornado corridor near Oklahoma City.
A little taste of Oklahoma Living
For those of you who aren't familiar with tornadoes and are hearing
news coverage of this, I put together a short glossary to help you
understand.
Fujita Scale: Scale used to measure wind speeds of a tornado and
their severity.
F1: Laughable little string of wind unless it comes through
your house, then enough to make your insurance company drop you like a
brick. People enjoy standing on their porches to watch this kind.
F2: Strong enough to blow your car into your house, unless of
course you drive an Expedition and live in a mobile home, then strong
enough to blow your house into your car.
F3: Will pick your house and your Expedition up and move you to
the other side of town.
F4: Usually ranging from 1/2 to a full mile wide, this tornado
can turn an Expedition into a Pinto, then gift wrap it in a semi truck.
F5: The Mother of all Tornadoes, you might as well stand on your front porch and watch it, because it's probably going to be quite a last sight.
Meteorologist: A rather soft-spoken, mild-mannered type person
until severe weather strikes, and they start yelling at you through the
TV: "GET TO YOUR BATHROOM OR YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"
Storm Chaser: Meteorologist-rejects who are pretty much insane but
get us really cool pictures of tornadoes. We release them from the
mental institution every time it starts thundering, just to see what
they'll do.
Tranquilizer: What you have to give any dog or cat who lived
through the May 3rd, 1999 tornado every time it storms or they tear your whole house up freaking out of their minds.
Moore, Oklahoma: A favorite gathering place for tornadoes. They
like to meet here and do a little partying before stretching out across
the rest of the Midwest.
Bathtub: Best place to seek shelter in the middle of a tornado, mostly because after you're covered with debris, you can quickly wash off and come out looking great.
Severe Weather Radio: A handy device that sends out messages from
The National Weather Service during a storm, though quite disconcerting because the high pitched, shrill noise just as an alarm sounds suspiciously just like a tornado. Plus the guy reading the report just sounds creepy.
Tornado Siren: A system the city spent millions to install, which is
really useful, unless there's a storm or a tornado, because then
of course you can't hear them.
Storm Cellar: A great place to go during a tornado, as it is almost 100% safe though weigh your options carefully, as most are not cared for and are homes to rats and snakes.
May-June: Tourist season in Oklahoma, when people who are tired of
bungee jumping and diving out of airplanes decide it might be fun to chase a tornado. These people usually end up on Fear Factor.
Barometric Pressure: Nobody really knows what this is, but when it
drops a lot of pregnant women go into labor, which makes for exciting
moments as their husbands are trying to drive them to the hospital and dodge tornadoes at the same time.
Cars: The worst place to be during a tornado (next to a mobile
home). Yes, you can out run a tornado in your car...unless everybody on
the road decides to do the same thing, and then you're in grid lock.
A Ditch: Supposedly where you're supposed to go if you find yourself
without shelter or in your car during a tornado. Theoretically the tornado is supposed to pass right over you, but since it can lift a 20 ton truck and up root a three hundred year old tree, I'd bet my life on out-running it in a car.
Mobile Home: Most people are convinced mobile homes send off some
strange signal that triggers tornadoes, because if there's one mobile home park in a hundred mile radius, the tornado will find it.
Earthquake: What any Californian would rather go through on any
scale of severity than face a tornado.
Tornado: What any Oklahoman would rather go through on any scale
of severity than face an earthquake.
Twister: Slang for 'tornado' and also the title to a movie starring Helen Hunt, which incidentally everyone thought was corny andunrealistic until May 3rd, 1999.
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