Be aware of the weather when RVing

[TravelTiger]

Sadly, an RV Park took a direct hit from a tornado in Oklahoma City yesterday:

http://www.okcfox.com/story/28999929/over-20-injured-after-okc-rv-park-takes-direct-hit-from-storm

Please be aware of your local weather, and know where you can shelter quickly if the need arises.


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[kowAlski631]

Our prayers are with them.

 

[Seren]

Why I will never travel in tornado alley during the spring, especially Ok. Sorry to hear about it.


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[MCTalley]

We've stayed at that park, visiting a friend in Norman a couple years ago. When we were there, it was shortly after the F5 tornado hit Moore, OK.

Being in an RV during major weather always makes me nervous.

Edited to add: We won a programmable weather radio at a rally and I set it up any time we are somewhere that any kind of severe weather is possible or forecast. On at least one occasion, it rousted us out of bed for a tornado warning. We were the first ones to show up in the storm shelter.

 

[danemayer]

We've had several nights of severe weather in Austin and Abilene. And some more driving north of Lubbock today. Now set up in Amarillo. Here it comes again.

 

[kowAlski631]

We've had several nights of severe weather in Austin and Abilene. And some more driving north of Lubbock today. Now set up in Amarillo. Here it comes again.
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Stay safe! We're heading west in a couple of weeks and hope to miss the unsettled weather.

 

[8amps]

We left Dallas today and just dodged two big weather cells that passed through Fort Worth. Got a little rain, but really not concerning. Was watching the radar as we were driving and were prepared to pull over. Passed a motorhome towing a car going in the opposite direction towards the storm and wondered if they knew what they were headed into...
We passed through Cisco, TX on our way to Lamesa, TX. Hours after we went through Cisco, a tornado touched down, killed one and injured more. They closed Interstate 20 (which we were traveling on) due to golf ball sized hail.
We were watching closely yet feel very lucky we didn't encounter anything except another smaller highway 87 closed/detoured due to flooding. Lots of flooded fields and we saw a small car submerged about half way up the windows (toward the roof) in the center drainage canal.
Gulp...
Going to Carlsbad, NM tomorrow. We are headed toward Colorado, where they are expecting 5-12 inches of snow tonight.

 

[danemayer]

We traveled from Santa Fe, NM to Pagosa Springs, CO today. We thought the snow was going to be further north, but we ended up driving the 2nd half in snow. Also had a thunderstorm during setup. Winter thunder is strange because you can't see the lightning. You just get a very loud noise that's much too close for comfort.

Still, this was a lot better than the severe weather we've had in Austin, Abilene, Lubbock, and Amarillo over the past few days.

 

[TravelTiger]

Well, I had to heed my own advice yesterday. We are in a rv park not far from Cisco, TX as 8amps mentioned. We were very aware of the "enhanced Risk"for tornados that day, watched the developing severe storm, and decided to leave the park to a safer location south of there until the storm passed. 15 minutes after we left, the storm was tornado warned for Cisco. The same storm was headed for our park. We drove further south to the next town to be out of any path. We stayed put about 3 hours as this storm and others immediately followed producing large hail, damaging winds and more funnels. When we felt it was safe to return, we passed some of the damage. This was not as devastating as the tornado that hit near Cisco, but definitely scary to see how close it was (about 3 miles from our park)

Why didn't we just seek shelter at the park, you ask? Well, our park has a small office, a two story house where a resident lives upstairs. There is no "interior room away from windows and doors" as would be needed for adequate shelter from a tornado. Plus. There are 30+ rigs here, I don't think it would hold us all, with pets, anyway.

So for us, our best defense is a good informed offense.

The storm system produced 7-10 inches in 18 hours, and the lake which was 6+ft low is now less than 2!


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[d_fergie]

We've had several nights of severe weather in Austin and Abilene. And some more driving north of Lubbock today. Now set up in Amarillo. Here it comes again.
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I made that trip Friday, was wet from outside of Lubbock, to between Happy & Canyon, there were some ugly looking clouds for a ways. It cleared up in Canyon in time for the softball game I was traveling for at 4pm though... I did make the 278 mile trip back home after the game to get back out of the ally.

 

[d_fergie]

Going to Carlsbad, NM tomorrow. We are headed toward Colorado, where they are expecting 5-12 inches of snow tonight.

My nearest city... watch for water trucks.

 

[JanAndBill]

Couple weeks ago we were in South Alabama with friends. The weather service was predicting spring storms but no tornadoes, so everyone pretty much stayed in their trailers. When the front passed through their was a small cell that passed over our park that produced straight line winds of 60 MPH. fortunately we were nose into the wind and it only rocked us around. One of our friends caught it broadside. He said at one point it lifted them up on one side only to slam back down. Fortunately there was no damage and it only lasted a few mins.

 

[kowAlski631]

Glad y'all are safe, Erika. We've grabbed our fur kids and run for cover before and will do it again. There are too few shelters allow pets even in crates.

Martha