Tornadoes in Jacksonville, Florida

I have been in two tornadoes in South West Michigan when I was a young boy. I watched our chicken coup explode in front of my eyes looking out the front door of our farm house (which was about 200 yards away) in one of them. After the other one there was a 10 -20 foot path cut threw our vineyard (which was 80 acres square). The posts and vines were intact (with scattered grapes) outside of this path. However, in the path was nothing except a few shattered posts. Needless to say it was quite an education in the power of these freaks of nature.

Channel 4 WJXT is doing a great job in tracking these current events and explaining things to its’ viewers. Thank you so much for the coverage and information. Your technology, mapping and video is fascinating and really awesome.

Three things to look for in these sudden and deadly weather events; it will get dead calm before you hear the sound like a train (which is the swirling wind) as you explained. So, if it is raining or windy, that’s a good thing. However, if it is calm keep your ears open for thundering wispy type wind gusts. Sometimes they are barely audible in the distance. Obviously as they get closer the sound intensifies and the calm quickly turns to chaos.

Also, as far as the sky what you look for is bright sky to dark sky with the clouds perhaps moving from south to north to your east and north to south in the west. That is for this particular set of storms we are having this afternoon. What you are seeing is the edge.

There was a clear path from Bayard thru Sawgrass, Baymeadows, UNF, St. Nicolas & Glynlea, Downtown, then on to, the Airport and Hilliard skirting the Arlington Express Way and Ft. Caroline. This is classic movement as it formed first in North East St Johns county thru Duval and on to Hilliard and South Georgia before dissipating (thank God).

It was dead calm in my area for well over a 30 minute period from about 2:30 PM to 3:00 PM. It was bright towards downtown and dark towards UNF. At one point at about 2:45 PM the winds swirled as I previously described and I faintly heard the wind rumble. Needless to say I was ready to hit the bathroom area (my dog was already in there), and I thought I saw the beginning of a funnel cloud to my north (it only dipped for about 10 seconds). Fortunately this passed, but I expect this watch to continue thru tonight.

I once again thank you for your coverage, I hope you find this information helpful and worthy of your consideration. My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been in the path of this latest storm, especially Sunny Brook Nursing Home.

Please be safe and continue to keep us informed.

Sincerely:

Bryan A. Stross
St. Nicolas area of Jacksonville, Florida 32207
3:30 PM EST August 22, 2008

P.S. I’m thankful to have electricity thru this. I hope those without are properly prepared.
I’ve had 12 inches of rain in my backyard collector in the last 24 hours …