Quote:
Originally Posted by El Rhino
There's an old folk tale that tornadoes never touch down in Des Moines because of the rivers. This isn't true, but people swear by it.
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I'll let you in on a little secret... in its entirety, the "folk tale" includes guarantees from an Indian Chief whose tribe had long flourished in the area in question. And I have heard the same story applied to every town that is anywhere near a river in Iowa. (I grew up hearing it about Woodward, of course, and we know how THAT turned out!) So either it is complete fabrication or the Chief was on his way out for less populated areas, and, as he turned out the lights, he assured the interlopers, "sure. Very safe here. Kick back and relax, and don't fret at all about the extreme weather. Did I say extreme? I meant lovely. Have a nice day."
Quote:
Originally Posted by El Rhino
During the spring get some abnormally strong windstorms here and there, but odds are you will not encounter a tornado or even have any close calls with them. I've seen them way off in the distance, but never too close. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
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Oh, the dreaded Straight-line winds! Life was much better back before we had this definition, imo. Someone's barn gets blown down but "at least it was only straight-line winds and not a tornado." I bet the Indian Chief didn't differentiate!
And, metro, yes, Twister (which is a really great movie. "Cow!") was filmed in Iowa but [spoiler here] the tornado was just special effects.
I love tornadic storms, too. Are there two kinds of people who watch that movie -- people who vow never to go anywhere near the central plains again, and people who wish they could throw it all away and go chase storms? I confessed my love of storms to my mother, and told her I thought it was because grandma loved storms so. "What do you mean!?" she said. I told her I remembered grandma up in the middle of the night, with a candle, watching the stormy skies avidly. "She was terrified of storms," Mom told me. "She was totally convinced that the minute she took her eyes off the weather, it would 'come and get us.'" Score a big zero for childhood sensitivity. And the smell of elm sawdust and sound of chain saws from all over town as the towering elms that had been killed by Dutch Elm disease were felled by strong winds. Trunks as big around as my dining room table, laying across the roads like gangplanks, magic bridges, tightropes... Yep, you can bring home big cardboard boxes for your kids to play in, but you can't recreate wholesale elm tree devastation for them -- those days are gone for good.
Oh, but there is one thing we forgot to warn the newcomers about...
TV coverage. One rule: when there is a reported or suspected tornado in the viewing area, it will be during an episode, probably either the finale or the cliff-hanger resolution, of your favorite TV show and said show will either be completely pre-empted by the weather reporting (seriously -- the "weather team" will stay on the air for 2 hours or more during primetime on "busy" evenings) or will be so fragmented by interruptions by said weather team that it will be rendered unviewable. Not that extreme weather reporting isn't riveting in its own right, of course.
Also, when you TIVO shows, keep in mind that the reports you see when you play them back are for "back then," not for now. I am embarrassed to admit that, more than once, I have caught myself watching the warnings at the bottom of the screen and thinking "but it seems so nice out!" Doh!
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04-06-2008, 07:52 AM
People also said this when I lived in Keokuk - but it actually might be true there.. Keokuk is small and set at the intersection of the Des Moines and the Mississippi. Now I'm just sounding like one of those crazy locals. 
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