Hi Sky Mom,

I was told a long time ago that tornadoes always miss cities, and especially always miss the really big ones, something about how the pressure is different near large buildings which is why the tornadoes always hit trailer parks or suburbs or open farmland instead. This year this obviously hasn't held true. There were horrible tornadoes in Joplin and Birmingham already and it's still only May! Is there something different about these big tornadoes or is the pressure near big cities explanation I think I remember wrong? If it is right, would you please explain it, because I really wish I could remember why this was.

Blown Away By What I Thought I Knew,

Wind Blown Sally From Tornado Ally

Hello, my wind blown buddy,

As long as we're tackling the subject of downtown twisters, don't forget the St Louis tornado that literally raised the roof back on April 22 of this year. The tornado blew right through the city's airport, taking the roof right off Concourse C and blowing out hundreds of windows at Lambert Field, flinging vehicles about willy nilly, and damaging huge numbers of homes over it's 22 mile path of destruction. St Louis, in fact, is a great case study to point out the inaccuracy of the line you were fed about tornadoes skipping over heavily populated areas. In 1896, St Louis had the dubious distinction of the world's 3rd deadliest tornado (and up until this year's record breakers, the most costly). 255 lives were lost and more than a thousand people were injured when a tornado tore right through the city St Louis and East St Louis. In fact, the hitherto second most costly, 24th most deadly tornado blew through downtown in 1927, injuring 55 and killing 79. And that's not all- as long as we're talking about the aviation link, please don't forget the Ozark Airlines Fairchild Hiller FH-227B that crashed into the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus during a storm that produced tornadoes on July 23, 1973. 37 on board were killed, though 6 survived-including the captain. It had been on approach to Lambert. If you look back, the City of St Louis proper has recorded at least 12 twisters, and when you count the St Louis metro area as well, the beleagered city has logged a whopping 91 tornadic events.

Right. So even though it aint so, what makes it seem that tornadoes are more likely to strike the trailer park set than the high rise types? The answer is simple statistics. Cities (of which there only about 12 large ones in tornado alley, anyhow) tend to be concentrated places. While population density is high, a city's actual square footage is a small proportion of the surrounding countryside. Add to that the fact that in any city, the skyscraper zone ony occupies a very, very small percentage of the municipality's space, and it makes sense that we don't often hear about weather knocking down the biggest buildings we've got. While man made structures can cause mechanical turbulance as the wind swirls and eddies around them, they can't withstand or even deflect a heavy duty force of nature.

Despite ever improving weather forecasting methods and alerts, the 2011 severe weather season is on track to be one of the deadliest yet. The mile wide Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornado struck on April 27, 201l, plowing through multiple communities. 327 people died (mostly in Alabama) due not only the big one, but to the 305+ reported tornadoes in that outbreak. The casualty count due to the Joplin, Missouri twister on May 22, 2011 continues to climb. Search and recovery operations are still underway, with the current confirmed death toll at 116. That offical number will rise as more of the missing are located.

So what can you do? Help the stricken and save yourselves, for goodness sake! Donations to the Red Cross can be made here. Good tornado safety information (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) can be found here. Be alert to weather alerts, be warned about watches, watch for warnings, and use your common sense.

Is putting that video on YouTube really worth risking your life? No. Drop that camera now, Bubba, and get to the safest place you can!

Mom