Yes, scary. We got caught last year in Arkansas going from Tx to St Louis last year. Weather maps had with real tornado risks forecast for 5 hours+ in any direction we chose, it wasn’t ideal, so no great choices other than backtracking nearly completely the miles of the day (7hrs?).
We chose to stay at a Cracker Barrel near a truck stop in case we needed to seek shelter. Phones went off about 10pm telling us to seek shelter, again, not great. Thankfully just got a bit of rain.
Pretty crazy to drive through the damage caused the next morning. I learned that metal roofs can really fly and telephone poles don’t stand a chance in 125mph winds.
Anyways, yes scary. Vehicles are better for me than backcountry trips (on foot, bike or canoe) but just barely.
If the scenario was much different, like clearer weather forecast a couple hours away we would have moved but the forecast from Memphis to OKC and St. Louis to where we were made for some difficult choices. All was well, but some scary moments and difficult decisions on prudent steps to keep ourselves safe. Good luck out there.
We were in the exact same situation two years ago. We slept on a Cracker Barrel parking lot in Bentonville AR and about halfway through the night we got up and put everything away and sat in the front seats watching the radar for about an hour thinking we were about to need to go take shelter inside the Flying J across the street. Fortunately it missed us but the next morning driving out we saw that the tornado had passed less than a mile away and giant trees were tossed around like they were nothing. It was way too much of a close call for my taste.
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u/WesternTrain 6d ago
Yes, scary. We got caught last year in Arkansas going from Tx to St Louis last year. Weather maps had with real tornado risks forecast for 5 hours+ in any direction we chose, it wasn’t ideal, so no great choices other than backtracking nearly completely the miles of the day (7hrs?).
We chose to stay at a Cracker Barrel near a truck stop in case we needed to seek shelter. Phones went off about 10pm telling us to seek shelter, again, not great. Thankfully just got a bit of rain.
The next morning on our primary route and our path for the day if we hadn’t stopped early: https://www.kark.com/severe-weather-coverage/national-weather-service-confirms-ef-2-tornado-touched-down-in-pocahontas/
Pretty crazy to drive through the damage caused the next morning. I learned that metal roofs can really fly and telephone poles don’t stand a chance in 125mph winds.
Anyways, yes scary. Vehicles are better for me than backcountry trips (on foot, bike or canoe) but just barely.
If the scenario was much different, like clearer weather forecast a couple hours away we would have moved but the forecast from Memphis to OKC and St. Louis to where we were made for some difficult choices. All was well, but some scary moments and difficult decisions on prudent steps to keep ourselves safe. Good luck out there.