Tornado Crossing I-55 North of Litchfield, Illinois April 19th 2011

A large tornado suddenly developed and crossed the highway infront of us. Incredible. Crappy camerawork due to me trying to do 4 different things at once [film, take pics, report tornado and position live web stream camera] plus my stupid auto focus defaulted itself on again. UGH!!!! Regardless, its an amazing tornado.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Tornado
• illinois
• litchfield
• chicago
• storm chasing
• lightning
• damage
• destruction
• wind
• scary
• awesome
• amazing
• strong

[GeorgeW6]

Now 2012 tornado season had arrived with a roar. What can average driver do if they are driving along and suddenly see a tornado? How do you tell which way to run in a car, if your able to move at all? There is another video on here where a woman drove right into a tornado (or maybe did not retreat) while taking a video of the twister. She was not a storm chaser, just going to work.

[AeroStorm911]

@GeorgeW6 - the best advice I can give is to stay calm for a moment and watch the tornado, usually you can tell which direction it is heading and drive away from it. Tornadoes rarely make dramatic U-turns, most of them follow a relatively straight path. If its not moving left or right, but instead appears to be getting larger thats one sign it is coming at you.

[dickie3227]

great video man! i live in west suburbs in dupage county. im dying to see a live tornado like that up close. i think anyway. i might crap my pants if it was in my neighborhood. but in the field like that might be cool to see. thanks for posting it.

[AeroStorm911]

@dickie3227 - thanks! Dupage county just had a tornado near Downers Grove last week! Though it was wrapped in rain and noone saw it anyways.

[dickie3227]

@AeroStorm911 yea i work in downers grove and i saw some of the damage from it. i live in lombard and we were in the basement at the time of the storm.my kids are freaked out by the sirens and i had to try to keep them relaxed. lots of trees down and downers grove south high school had damage to the tennis courts. but to see it in an open field like that is cool.

[AeroStorm911]

@dickie3227 - I agree, its always better to see them away from structures. I have a good buddy who lives in Lombard, I am in that area quite often! Stay safe out there!

[Torn80cj]

Oh the dreaded auto-focus, a stormchaser's worst enemy. I know how you feel Adam, I have had that happen to me when recording some storms. I wished they would have an auto-focus button on the camcorder instead of being a setting on the touch screen. That way when it's focused, we can just punch manual focus really quick then aim it at the tornado. I usually use the horizon to get my focus, then I touch the manual focus on the screen. It really helped when I recorded the Garr Corner OK tornado.

[icecubedynasty]

thats nuts

[vestel777]

I live in Girard which is next to Litchfield and when it hit Girard it was an EF4.

[DeadlyTy51]

i would be a 10000 miles away going like 100 mph

[shadowingyou]

"Don't worry, it's just gonna go in front of us guys." *Tornado redirects from in front of you and heads toward you* "Okay guys, I didn't see that coming, in the car, let's go!!" That didn't happen but would be amusing for a cartoon style or something XD Also, were there cars just driving "through" it? In the beginning? =/

[mlssoccer56]

in chicago there iz only 1.5 percent for a tornado