As a child in the US I heard about that cyclone. It was called "Terrible Tracy." I had the same first name so it's stuck in my head ever since.

It's rainy here though we've had patches of clear weather. Not very cold either! I can get around in a wool sweater instead of a winter coat even though we're at 47 degree north.

We've had a mild winter here so far, in the northeast of England, which I'm grateful for. I leave here in a week, and hope the rain forecast this week won't be too bad. At least on January 1st and 2nd we don't have to work, and can stay indoors and loll about in front of TV drinking tea! Two weeks later I will be home in New Zealand, enjoying summer.

Tornado questions...

I live in an area where we usually get ef-0 or ef-1s Max and even those may happen 1-2x's a year. Yesterday we had an ef-3 miss our house by a handful of miles. We still got the hail that was a bit larger than pea sized and torrential rain. 

Tornado sirens do not exist in my area.

For someone who is basically a tornado rookie, what kind of changes should I be looking for in the weather to indicate I don't just need to find a downstairs closet or a bathtub, but I need a heavy duty comforter or mattress to go with? Our downstairs is mostly windows.

@starkat, the colour and feel of the sky and atmosphere; the humidity in the air. We have text alerts that come in when a tornado is in our area (they are not infrequent here in Ontario). Then we head for more protection in the basement. Stay away from the windows. Our area had a severe tornado go through in early August, 1979. Our house was one of the few untouched in our hamlet. Many were destroyed; some were badly damaged.

This afternoon a rain/snow mix is forecast, but then changing to snow as the colder temperature moves in for a good long while, hurrah! Snow all of tonight and into tomorrow morning for New Year's Day. We have people coming for a luncheon and games at our place tomorrow, so will be extra careful on the roads as we drive to and from town.

This morning's walk was lovely, with a few stars peeping through the wells of clear in the low-set clouds. Dawn was beautiful. Frost everywhere. It felt like a late October morning. ♥

Here we go; we are excited for more snow!  

Good advice, @jo. Tornado sirens are pretty common everywhere around here, even though we are on the north edge of Tornado Alley. Severe storms and tornado warnings get push notifications to cell phones, much like the Amber Alert ones.

The sky often gets a weird greenish tinge, though that in itself is not indicative of a tornado, but can also happen in a severe storm.

There can be some really cool cloud effects (like wall clouds and swirling vortex effects), so it can be tempting to be outside to see things. Not advised. 😉

It's usually advised to put as many walls as possible between you and the external walls (more protection).

Folklore says tornadoes avoid urban areas (probably due to the heat island effect), but this is definitely not the case. In 1965 two F-4 tornadoes ripped through the inner ring suburb of Fridley (though I did not live in the Twin Cities at the time). F3 tornadoes also happened in 1981 and 1984, both following similar paths from the southwest suburbs to the northeast.

I had a very interesting experience in the early 1990s. I was at Fort Snelling State Park, which is several hundred feet below the rest of the area, in the Mississippi River valley. A minor tornado moved west to east along the beltway highway Interstate 494 (my sister was working in the area at the time and saw it). Down in the park, I saw the wall cloud and funnel receding into the clouds; we were spared since we were lower in elevation and at the east end of the storm path.

But I digress.

The fog and clouds will persist into 2025, followed by much colder (but not bitter) temperatures; perhaps down to -10F/-23C.

We had several tornadoes here in Michigan last spring in the Kalamazoo area. It did a considerable amount of damage, and I remember that there were some minor injuries. It was less than 70 miles from where I live. In the 1950’s a tornado killed eighteen people less than ten miles away from here, but at that time people were not as well prepared for it.  One should take weather alerts very seriously! 

Thanks everyone. It's been a bit of an education. 

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

It is hard to believe that the Boxing Day Earthquake was the 3rd most powerful earthquake ever recorded. In 1960, when I was 12, the most severe earthquake was at Valdivia in Chile, measuring 9.5 magnitude. Earthquakes measuring more than 9.0 are not very frequent, fortunately. I remember watching a particularly violent surf that year. It was like the Earth was convulsed. 

Interesting additional event occurred just before the Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami - there was a massive earthquake only a couple of days before - Christmas Eve.  I was living in Tasmania at the time near Hobart, I recall watching a DVD around midnight and suddenly I heard a door sign fall from my sister's bedroom door down the hallway, I noticed the Christmas tree moving and I felt a bit dizzy.  The following morning my parents were returning from a trip to Western Australia (coming back from the funeral of one of my grandmothers), and they heard on the radio on the way back that there had been a massive earthquake east of Tasmania that coincided with what I experienced.  When I looked it up, I discovered it was I think a magnitude 8.1 earthquake, I also discovered later that the one I felt at the time, reportedly triggered the other massive one that caused the horrible tsunami - although this appears to be debatable.