InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[F6]

OT: bulldzr --

The pic was taken just north of mile marker 197 on I35 in Oklahoma (north of OKC) -- we're in the median, having come up from the south and then pulled around in the median to be pointed south (in case we needed to run). At that very moment I was trying to convince my compatriots that we should swing back around onto the northbound lane and get closer; they were chicken and wanted to run to the south; so we split the difference and stayed there until the F6 had crossed I35 (flattening mile marker 200, and various other things, in the process) before we finally headed north.

The effect where the tornado crossed I35 was genuinely mind-boggling. In particular, a large horse that had been picked up more than half a mile west of I35 had been slammed into one of those super-heavy guardrails, the type that barely gets scratched if an 18-wheeler hits it, on the east side of the northbound lane, so hard that an entire c. 15' length of the guardrail was bent to the east by up to a good 3'+ -- the horse, jammed into and under the guardrail at the point of maximum distortion, had no tail or ears left, just ripped off, with other pieces of its hide missing, including bones exposed, here and there as well; its mouth and nostrils were absolutely stuffed full of thick mud; each of its legs had at least one compound fracture; etc. (I don't think it suffered; sure looked like death had come very quickly, anyway . . .) As the tornado then moved on to cross U.S. 77, a few miles east of I35 (and still well in our view), it not only completely stripped the (very solid, very good condition) asphalt right off of the underlying concrete base, but it also actually gouged grooves in that underlying concrete base, and even ripped some pieces right out of that underlying concrete base (. . . -- !!). Fortunately, this tornado remained in rural areas; no human fatalities, and just a few injuries [it was SO visible, from miles away]; something like 2,000 head of cattle, along with some other animals, did however buy it -- later that evening, as I ate dinner at a cafe in a nearby town, I heard people saying that they'd found (what was left of) some head of cattle more than 20 miles from where they were suppposed to have been (again, . . . -- !!) (the locals were hurriedly trying to get organized to get the carcasses to the area slaughterhouse).

And it really was an F6 (the 'experts' just don't want to admit they exist, after having said for so long that F5s are as strong as they can get) -- by definition, 318 mph winds at ground level are the upper limit of an F5; doppler radar observations plus the several excellent videos of this event make it very clear, IMO, that the max ground-level winds in this event were at least somewhere in the 330-350 mph range. (The Moore tornado that tore through the south side of OKC on May 3, 1999 was also definitely an F6 -- in fact, a virtual twin of this one that I saw.)

(I only found this picture about 24 hours ago, when I went searching the web for a pic to add to my signature -- I'd never seen it before, didn't even know it existed.) (I do remember the van that pulled over on the right shoulder of the northbound lane, just to our south, and then after a minute or two crossed over the median and took off southbound . . .)

(Re the car, thanks -- it served me well until its retirement in 1994; I hope to get a similar pic, of a "good" monster tornado that is not hitting any populated areas, with my current ride; maybe this spring.)

F6