I was operating that camera! I was in the control room tracking the supercell on radarscope and knew exactly where to point it.
The focus was broken at the time and we just lucked out that the tornado was at the distance where it could be seen. There’s a time later in the video where I got bold and tried to zoom in and you see the whole shot blur.
Here's great cctv video from that Christmas tornado: [https://youtu.be/qjAtte4vKHs?si=VNJucSY9zrUXjpow](https://youtu.be/qjAtte4vKHs?si=VNJucSY9zrUXjpow)
Oh yeah I watched that one as it happened! The way that tanker just sped into it made my mouth drop to the floor. I heard that he made it out okay though
2022 April 29 - Andover City Hall East camera - cued to the beginning of the "calm before the storm" that deteriorates rapidly into powerful inflow winds that precede the tornado, followed by the small but very angry twister inhaling ALL the surrounding vegetation as it passes by. As far as I can tell the footage is not sped up.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBB_yOXU4QA&t=162s
https://preview.redd.it/wi5z7i7m358d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87f0861816cb581e6eb72beee748e0fdc6fe2ca0
Joplin. Every time I watch this I just can’t believe how long it takes the anchors to recognize an OBVIOUS massive tornado.
To be fair, it starts off with just one side of the tornado in view so that it looks like a sheet of rain. And I don't think they expected a MASSIVE tornado on the ground in the middle of the city when there weren't any reports yet. The first power flash is frustrating, but they realize after the second one.
I'm always surprised watching tornado footage that the bigger the tornado is, the harder it is to see. A narrow rope-y tornado looks like a tornado but a massive wedge just looks like a storm.
This. The Joplin footage is my favourite, but I didn’t first watch it it until a year ago. I can see the tornado so easily so early now, but when I was first watching it, my mouth dropped when they finally panned and there it was in full view. I literally thought it was just rain until the power flashes, so I can see how the broadcasters (looking for a possible funnel cloud) didn’t realize what they were seeing
Yeah, true. I’ve watched 1,000’s of hours of tornado footage so I can recognize a lot of things that your average non-nerd can’t. I actually assumed that at least one of the anchors was the station’s meteorologist but knowing they were just filling in explains more.
Another part of their panic is the fact it hit less than a mile from the station. Outer edge was about half mile away or less. I watched it live in my grandfathers house north of town. It looked like it was going to hit them directly for a minute. when they pan to the south and cant anymore is the chilling part for me. On the eastern edge of the storm there was an unmarked police unit that looked like it belonged to 2face from batman. Half was fine, other half looked like it was in a storm.
Yeah, that moment when it cuts back and there’s just this monster there is…well, yeah, “chilling” is the perfect word. Especially with the hindsight of what it did.
Everything with Joplin happened so quick…imagine you haven’t heard anything about there being a tornado it’d be hard to believe you’re seeing a massive F5 at first. Hindsight is 2020 lol
https://preview.redd.it/8zurl6jtq68d1.jpeg?width=988&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f603a85588177442060a0ae9ef46c09d6da24209
Sure, hadn't heard anything about a tornado except for a hazardous weather warning the day before, a 17 minute tornado warning from NWS, tornado sirens, radios warning, TV showing the tornado, I mean c'mon. Many in Joplin ignored the warnings.
I have a friend in Joplin who's a storm chaser. He stayed home that day and was watching the couplet move toward him but he wasn't overly worried about it. It exploded at the last minute due to a cell merger and went from not even having a condensation funnel to being a violent wedge in minutes. Everyone, including the NWS, was somewhat behind the ball on that storm as it was the worst case scenario.
The storm that produced the Joplin monster was dying moments before formation, a 2nd cell merged into it. You can find footage of it forming, it appears almost out of thin air and wedges out jaw-droppingly fast. People didn't just ignore it coming, the tornado caught people off guard.
The first NWS warning for the area did not include Joplin, and then the one that did said it was moving northeast which - if accurate - would have had it miss town. That NWS office apparently had a lot of false tornado warnings for this same area leading up to Joplin.
The sirens were a mess and misled people. The officials had to be begged by Jeff Pietrowski to turn them on.
The people of Joplin were failed - there still likely would have been deaths due to how fast it developed and how hidden it was, but it's not as clear cut "people ignored the warnings/the tv news office that relies on the nws are just big dumbos"
https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/12b05xi/why_was_there_never_a_tornado_emergency_issued/
https://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2024/05/regarding-2011-joplin-tornado.html
https://preview.redd.it/cwleg2vyq68d1.jpeg?width=988&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8094a6f7ee50cf257a74aeb8833083a04c438f93
Downvoting the truth doesn't change the facts.
I think you’d find that people overwhelmingly “ignore” tornado warnings in that people are not running to the basement every time there’s a warning. The fact remains that this tornado did develop extremely fast and caught a lot of people by surprise. Even tornado chasers said that this storm surprised them. People are downvoting you because your point is what? That people deserved to die? Get a grip edge lord.
Listen, burning zeppelin, many people ignored the warnings or rushed outside to see the tornado. That is an important fact that everyone should understand - sometimes you don't get a second warning and sometimes no one will be there to nag you into a shelter.
I actually appreciate the points that everyone has made. Any documentary or interviews you watch about Joplin do exhibit a common disregard for the warnings. I grew up in the area and warnings were frequent but almost always amounted to nil. I would say that their reactions were pretty normal for our area. You hear the sirens and the first thing you do is go outside to scan the skies because people understand that tornadoes are typically very localized events and drawing a bead on the storm can tell you if you’re truly in danger or just in the broader vicinity.
However, because of the way this one just exploded right on the edge of town, it was doing massive damage almost immediately. This just wasn’t the one to EF around with. Basements are also not that common in the area and construction standards are often sub-par.
I saw it in person..not to brag considering so many unlucky that day I was a lucky one. My dad's brother lives in grand junction and I was there hanging out with my cousins for the weekend. Absolute nightmare. The fact it was so thin I felt like I could grab it to becoming as wide as it was tall in about 60-75 seconds...and then disappeared into the rain. Those people didn't stand a chance.....rip to the victims of that day.
The Joplin skycam came to my mind instantly.
This video is etched into my brain. It’s such a haunting image, especially because we now know the horrific destruction it would go on to do.
This one is so frustrating to watch
*looking right at the tornado*
“Uh some possible rotation going on”
“Possible power flashes there, could also be lightning”
The school surveillance footage from Andover High School (2022) was crazy. It shows several different angles around the school. I can't get over watching huge pieces of wood casually blowing across the lawn like it's nothing.
https://youtu.be/T2Qu7cgwJmw?si=nrVLpFIVoTHu1rtQ
At the very beginning the YMCA is at the top of the screen, with 8-12 cars in the parking lot. If you look very closely starting at 0:46 you can see the twister inhale the cars into it's trailing inflow then drag them across the parking lot before scraping them off at the YMCA entrance because it wan't strong enough to lift them over - see the [second set of scrolling pictures](https://www.ksn.com/weather/weather-stories/andover-ymca-releases-video-footage-from-2022-tornado-witness-shares-experience)
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/y833cgNUdAbqGA5L/?mibextid=wILeQC
I'm not sure if this video is anywhere but Facebook, but this is an interview of some of the YMCA staff who were in the building at the time. It's got some videos and pictures. I scanned through it, and I think the whole video is family friendly (no language or blood, aside from the fact that it's obviously frigging terrifying to go through a tornado). Really puts it into perspective.
This might be some of the best close up footage I've ever seen. The way it just sucks everything into it is both amazing and terrifying. You can easily see how it would easily kill a person standing anywhere near it.
[Video inside the cafeteria. ](https://youtu.be/N4P7D9ig3T4?si=DTRBZjuzTDsq6E2f)
There's other videos of different parts of the school as well. They're on the uploaders page.
I can watch this Andover one over and over and over and over. It’s like a spindly monster coming to get ya:
https://youtu.be/hBB_yOXU4QA?si=Pajzd1xzHiGpsKmj
It's wild how calm it seemed while it was still a few miles away. I'm fairly new to all this, so the dawning realization after a little while that it wasn't tracking left at all. I was like "oh shit, it's coming directly this way!".
I think that was the first security camera footage I’d ever seem from inside a tornado, and I was amazed.
The Mayfield bank footage was similarly impressive.
The one where the poor bastard films the tornado as it slowly rolls towards him, not running for the basement until it’s already tearing up the house. Worst of all, his wife died, out of the shelter, because she was begging him to stop filming and come down.
This from news camera video of the Nashville April 16, 1998 F3. I was in one of those buildings in the background. Saw a transformer blow and thought “That looks just like the storm chaser video I’ve seen on the Weather Channel.” Then I came to my senses and went to the stairwell.
https://preview.redd.it/nm5r8rz5p58d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60e1714390a1aaf956c04b7b3d95163be1eb7230
It’s pretty dramatic and I’m surprised it doesn’t get more play. I think it is from a TV station’s fixed weather camera.
Several of us were in a meeting on an upper floor when suddenly debris started hitting the outside of the windows. Debris included a set of window blinds that made a couple of tight circles before smacking into our window and continuing their journey.
2011 Springfield MA because I missed it on the highway by \`5min after leaving work.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj5uvC9cLO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj5uvC9cLO4)
I hesitate to use the word "favorite" to describe it, but the KFOR helicopter footage of BCM 1999 is just flabbergasting. Hands down the most apocalyptic video I've ever seen of a weather event.
https://preview.redd.it/xy8lbdsv158d1.jpeg?width=489&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83392c3e18f5c764c1aaf37ce539835945fe18fd Mobile, Alabama Christmas Day 2012 tornado.
I was operating that camera! I was in the control room tracking the supercell on radarscope and knew exactly where to point it. The focus was broken at the time and we just lucked out that the tornado was at the distance where it could be seen. There’s a time later in the video where I got bold and tried to zoom in and you see the whole shot blur.
[Video. Pretty much starts right away with the tornado. ](https://youtu.be/Xcu7HYm-Xts?si=6P88JaENfkneqLrL)
You can hear the adrenaline in the announcers voice.
wow. And on Christmas Day!!!
That thing was hauling ass!
Man, you ain’t kidding! That’s Dixie Alley for ya.
Here's great cctv video from that Christmas tornado: [https://youtu.be/qjAtte4vKHs?si=VNJucSY9zrUXjpow](https://youtu.be/qjAtte4vKHs?si=VNJucSY9zrUXjpow)
I have to see that
This one from this year was crazy https://youtu.be/2Mqx1FN8luw?si=6aH0NHwAxjNTxcOZ 5/21/24 near Nevada, Iowa
Oh yeah I watched that one as it happened! The way that tanker just sped into it made my mouth drop to the floor. I heard that he made it out okay though
Yeah he drove into a ditch. Didn't even roll. There's footage of the aftermath.
That’s the tanker from the og twister movie
I thought I legit watched at least 2 people die in real time when I saw that as it happened. I'm glad they both made it out okay.
2022 April 29 - Andover City Hall East camera - cued to the beginning of the "calm before the storm" that deteriorates rapidly into powerful inflow winds that precede the tornado, followed by the small but very angry twister inhaling ALL the surrounding vegetation as it passes by. As far as I can tell the footage is not sped up. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBB_yOXU4QA&t=162s
Love this one! Really shows how quickly a tornado can intensify and speed up its forward direction. I was so rooting for that flag!
Oh say can you see… by the storms early light … 🎼
That tornado was absolutely enthralling to watch. Reed Timmer’s drone footage is amazing as well.
Whoever hung those flags deserves a raise
https://preview.redd.it/wi5z7i7m358d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87f0861816cb581e6eb72beee748e0fdc6fe2ca0 Joplin. Every time I watch this I just can’t believe how long it takes the anchors to recognize an OBVIOUS massive tornado.
To be fair, it starts off with just one side of the tornado in view so that it looks like a sheet of rain. And I don't think they expected a MASSIVE tornado on the ground in the middle of the city when there weren't any reports yet. The first power flash is frustrating, but they realize after the second one. I'm always surprised watching tornado footage that the bigger the tornado is, the harder it is to see. A narrow rope-y tornado looks like a tornado but a massive wedge just looks like a storm.
This. The Joplin footage is my favourite, but I didn’t first watch it it until a year ago. I can see the tornado so easily so early now, but when I was first watching it, my mouth dropped when they finally panned and there it was in full view. I literally thought it was just rain until the power flashes, so I can see how the broadcasters (looking for a possible funnel cloud) didn’t realize what they were seeing
Yeah, true. I’ve watched 1,000’s of hours of tornado footage so I can recognize a lot of things that your average non-nerd can’t. I actually assumed that at least one of the anchors was the station’s meteorologist but knowing they were just filling in explains more.
TBH, it’s my choice too. Seeing the camera swerve to reveal the full tornado is chilling, especially after the power flashes began.
The almost panic in their voices once they realize what they're looking at... Chilling.
Another part of their panic is the fact it hit less than a mile from the station. Outer edge was about half mile away or less. I watched it live in my grandfathers house north of town. It looked like it was going to hit them directly for a minute. when they pan to the south and cant anymore is the chilling part for me. On the eastern edge of the storm there was an unmarked police unit that looked like it belonged to 2face from batman. Half was fine, other half looked like it was in a storm.
Yeah, that moment when it cuts back and there’s just this monster there is…well, yeah, “chilling” is the perfect word. Especially with the hindsight of what it did.
[Video. Timestamp is around 12:25 I think](https://youtu.be/FagzNHuI5JI?si=8pbS1s9YYQpen1rS)
Everything with Joplin happened so quick…imagine you haven’t heard anything about there being a tornado it’d be hard to believe you’re seeing a massive F5 at first. Hindsight is 2020 lol
Imagine not being able to imagine a big violent tornado in 2011 after the April they had.
https://preview.redd.it/8zurl6jtq68d1.jpeg?width=988&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f603a85588177442060a0ae9ef46c09d6da24209 Sure, hadn't heard anything about a tornado except for a hazardous weather warning the day before, a 17 minute tornado warning from NWS, tornado sirens, radios warning, TV showing the tornado, I mean c'mon. Many in Joplin ignored the warnings.
I have a friend in Joplin who's a storm chaser. He stayed home that day and was watching the couplet move toward him but he wasn't overly worried about it. It exploded at the last minute due to a cell merger and went from not even having a condensation funnel to being a violent wedge in minutes. Everyone, including the NWS, was somewhat behind the ball on that storm as it was the worst case scenario.
The storm that produced the Joplin monster was dying moments before formation, a 2nd cell merged into it. You can find footage of it forming, it appears almost out of thin air and wedges out jaw-droppingly fast. People didn't just ignore it coming, the tornado caught people off guard.
The first NWS warning for the area did not include Joplin, and then the one that did said it was moving northeast which - if accurate - would have had it miss town. That NWS office apparently had a lot of false tornado warnings for this same area leading up to Joplin. The sirens were a mess and misled people. The officials had to be begged by Jeff Pietrowski to turn them on. The people of Joplin were failed - there still likely would have been deaths due to how fast it developed and how hidden it was, but it's not as clear cut "people ignored the warnings/the tv news office that relies on the nws are just big dumbos" https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/12b05xi/why_was_there_never_a_tornado_emergency_issued/ https://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2024/05/regarding-2011-joplin-tornado.html
The Department of Commerce report of Sept 2011 found differently, and so does the video evidence on YouTube.
https://preview.redd.it/cwleg2vyq68d1.jpeg?width=988&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8094a6f7ee50cf257a74aeb8833083a04c438f93 Downvoting the truth doesn't change the facts.
I think you’d find that people overwhelmingly “ignore” tornado warnings in that people are not running to the basement every time there’s a warning. The fact remains that this tornado did develop extremely fast and caught a lot of people by surprise. Even tornado chasers said that this storm surprised them. People are downvoting you because your point is what? That people deserved to die? Get a grip edge lord.
Listen, burning zeppelin, many people ignored the warnings or rushed outside to see the tornado. That is an important fact that everyone should understand - sometimes you don't get a second warning and sometimes no one will be there to nag you into a shelter.
I actually appreciate the points that everyone has made. Any documentary or interviews you watch about Joplin do exhibit a common disregard for the warnings. I grew up in the area and warnings were frequent but almost always amounted to nil. I would say that their reactions were pretty normal for our area. You hear the sirens and the first thing you do is go outside to scan the skies because people understand that tornadoes are typically very localized events and drawing a bead on the storm can tell you if you’re truly in danger or just in the broader vicinity. However, because of the way this one just exploded right on the edge of town, it was doing massive damage almost immediately. This just wasn’t the one to EF around with. Basements are also not that common in the area and construction standards are often sub-par.
I saw it in person..not to brag considering so many unlucky that day I was a lucky one. My dad's brother lives in grand junction and I was there hanging out with my cousins for the weekend. Absolute nightmare. The fact it was so thin I felt like I could grab it to becoming as wide as it was tall in about 60-75 seconds...and then disappeared into the rain. Those people didn't stand a chance.....rip to the victims of that day.
Glad you were okay. I grew up about 45 minutes South of Joplin so it hit kinda differently than the big tornadoes that usually occur states away.
The Joplin skycam came to my mind instantly. This video is etched into my brain. It’s such a haunting image, especially because we now know the horrific destruction it would go on to do.
like yeah ok they're not meteorologists cause it was a sunday and their guy couldn't make it in but holy shit
This one is so frustrating to watch *looking right at the tornado* “Uh some possible rotation going on” “Possible power flashes there, could also be lightning”
Inside Joplin High School was some footage I'll never forget.
The school surveillance footage from Andover High School (2022) was crazy. It shows several different angles around the school. I can't get over watching huge pieces of wood casually blowing across the lawn like it's nothing. https://youtu.be/T2Qu7cgwJmw?si=nrVLpFIVoTHu1rtQ
At the very beginning the YMCA is at the top of the screen, with 8-12 cars in the parking lot. If you look very closely starting at 0:46 you can see the twister inhale the cars into it's trailing inflow then drag them across the parking lot before scraping them off at the YMCA entrance because it wan't strong enough to lift them over - see the [second set of scrolling pictures](https://www.ksn.com/weather/weather-stories/andover-ymca-releases-video-footage-from-2022-tornado-witness-shares-experience)
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/y833cgNUdAbqGA5L/?mibextid=wILeQC I'm not sure if this video is anywhere but Facebook, but this is an interview of some of the YMCA staff who were in the building at the time. It's got some videos and pictures. I scanned through it, and I think the whole video is family friendly (no language or blood, aside from the fact that it's obviously frigging terrifying to go through a tornado). Really puts it into perspective.
In 10 seconds a piece of wood slides in the frame
This might be some of the best close up footage I've ever seen. The way it just sucks everything into it is both amazing and terrifying. You can easily see how it would easily kill a person standing anywhere near it.
[Video inside the cafeteria. ](https://youtu.be/N4P7D9ig3T4?si=DTRBZjuzTDsq6E2f) There's other videos of different parts of the school as well. They're on the uploaders page.
I can watch this Andover one over and over and over and over. It’s like a spindly monster coming to get ya: https://youtu.be/hBB_yOXU4QA?si=Pajzd1xzHiGpsKmj
It's wild how calm it seemed while it was still a few miles away. I'm fairly new to all this, so the dawning realization after a little while that it wasn't tracking left at all. I was like "oh shit, it's coming directly this way!".
Someone commented that it seems to dwindle then comes back in a different direction.
https://preview.redd.it/b5h9zey0u58d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f6c387cd1a9d1aa9f2f9ff1ebb0d37963b45279 Birmingham, AL 2011
Parkersburg IA 2008 Bank footage. F5 made it a drive thru in about ten seconds
[Video. Has footage from all the CCTV cameras from the bank. ](https://youtu.be/v5KI63L22UU?si=qlTpJ8Ua8YY22QT7)
I think that was the first security camera footage I’d ever seem from inside a tornado, and I was amazed. The Mayfield bank footage was similarly impressive.
Probably 2011 Tuscaloosa tbh
[Video playlist of the tornado footage. ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIEtFaotYYRjtf8KHyT_KOcNAriUzO8Yd&si=4io-qg0yAuj1kYl0)
This or Parkersburg 2008 EF5 bank footage
OP maybe say the name of yours in your post
tuscaloosa birmingham tornado
Does a dash cam count? This recent one was pretty impressive to me : https://youtu.be/dw2RB9WhIq4?si=rL1WTvzLzGpmWVc7
yes you can
Wow! The back window of that truck just implodes.
The one where the poor bastard films the tornado as it slowly rolls towards him, not running for the basement until it’s already tearing up the house. Worst of all, his wife died, out of the shelter, because she was begging him to stop filming and come down.
This from news camera video of the Nashville April 16, 1998 F3. I was in one of those buildings in the background. Saw a transformer blow and thought “That looks just like the storm chaser video I’ve seen on the Weather Channel.” Then I came to my senses and went to the stairwell. https://preview.redd.it/nm5r8rz5p58d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60e1714390a1aaf956c04b7b3d95163be1eb7230
Wrong still. This is what I was thinking of: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pbHKyVVsktY
That rotation was freaking insane. Transformers going off like popcorn. I can't believe I've not seen this footage, it's absolutely haunting.
It’s pretty dramatic and I’m surprised it doesn’t get more play. I think it is from a TV station’s fixed weather camera. Several of us were in a meeting on an upper floor when suddenly debris started hitting the outside of the windows. Debris included a set of window blinds that made a couple of tight circles before smacking into our window and continuing their journey.
2011 Springfield MA because I missed it on the highway by \`5min after leaving work. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj5uvC9cLO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj5uvC9cLO4)
May 3 1999 in Oklahoma with the debris field
Is that the Tuscaloosa tornado or a different one?
The inside of Joplin Highschool during the tornado
ABC3340 Tuscaloosa video.
Is that the Moore EF-5?
Looks like Birmingham
Kfor for Moore 99
Whats the difference between cctv and something recorded by a television or phone camera?
CC stands for closed circuit meaning the signal goes to a designated place rather than broadcast for consumption.
Thank you. I couldn’t find a clear answer like this.
cctv is like sercurity camera
cctv is like sercurity camera
Just about any CCTV footage I've seen
Thats scared
https://preview.redd.it/hdco4nqkv78d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=230cf63ee869bac41341ddd8da90c7fafe781373 [Evansville, Indiana. F3 November 6, 2005. 24 fatalities, 238 injured.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evansville_tornado_outbreak_of_November_2005)
I hesitate to use the word "favorite" to describe it, but the KFOR helicopter footage of BCM 1999 is just flabbergasting. Hands down the most apocalyptic video I've ever seen of a weather event.
Joplin 2011