jaybird3rd

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see very much while it was happening.  The land around our house is heavily forested and very hilly, so you can't see very far anyway, and there was so much rain and spray and debris flying around that nothing was visible out the windows except a swirling, grayish-green cloud.  Even if a tree was flying directly toward the house, I wouldn't have seen it until just before it hit me.

Good point.  We're definitely in the flatlands here, so generally get at least some advance visuals.

And yeah, re: the tree: a couple of years ago I was driving down to Texas and could see a tornado off in the distance.  It seemed to be moving in the same direction as I was, so wasn't too terribly concerned.  Then it veered 90°, moving right towards the stretch of interstate that I was on.  Managed to get pulled over beneath an overpass just in time to see what looked like a telephone pole go airborne across the roadway about 20 yards in front of me.

At that time, we lived in the sticks - so no tornado siren. Dad was the one who noticed it off in the distance. I jut recall being all of the sudden calm to Gail force like winds. Had the prototypical funnel shape. Probably was like a EF2 tornado.