close call

[Karen64]

Yesterday, I was driving back home from a family reunion near Salina Oklahoma. (I live in Kansas). The sky got dark all of a sudden; this was about 5:30pm. I noticed some really black clouds close to the ground right above my car. The clouds started rotating around each other--they looked like 3 black ribbons in a whirlwind.

I was on a bridge at the time, so my immediate reaction was to gun it (and get to the end of the bridge & get to dry land) so I could get out of my car and get into the ditch if I had to, in case this was a tornado. All of a sudden it got as black as night, the rain & hail were coming down in torrents, and the wind picked up... I thought the car was going to flip over. I couldn't even tell if I was on the road or not; I couldn't see anything. I stopped the car and waited for the horrendous wind to die down (it was rocking the car back and forth; the wheels on the passenger's side were lifting a little bit off the ground!).

I remember thinking, "well, so this is how I'm going to die.........? I was thinking about all the news stories I've heard about people being killed in their cars during a tornado.
It finally eased off a few minutes later so I could actually see to drive away.

I didn't see anything on Salina's news on the internet today about a tornado touchdown..could've been possibly a small twister, or a maybe a tornado that was trying to form but never did, or just straight-line winds... would love to talk to a weather expert about it, but I don't know one.

I've never actually seen a tornado "in person". I've been through some big ones, but was always in the basement when they were happening!

Anyway, glad to still be here among the living!

[dawsongirl]

Wow...but it sounds like you kept you head on straight and remembered what they tell you to do in a tornado in a car. And you didn't try to drive through it!

Glad you're okay!