They are talking abut a tornado hitting the St. Louis airport. I got a feeling it might have been a microburst and not a tornado. The weather department will come out with a report soon.
“(CNN) -- Heavy winds from a severe storm caused significant damage, shattered windows and sent debris raining down on passengers at an airport in St. Louis Friday night.
The Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is closed indefinitely while officials investigate the damage, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told reporters.
"There was a reported sighting of a tornado. Although that has not been confirmed, that storm caused significant damage to the airport," he said.
The reported tornado twisted metal and blew out plate-glass windows in the airport's main terminal, CNN affiliate KSDK reported.
Four people were transported to nearby hospitals with injuries, Slay said…”
The weather people can look at the radar and their data and they can tell by looking at the damage if it was a tornado or not. I have never seen a tornado but I have been on the edge or in a microburst.
It seems like we are having a lot of bad weather around the world. Is it just that the news reporting is better now? Or is mother nature trying to teach us a lesson?
Update 04/23/2011 Here is a comment from Dick in Kansas City, MO
"Did you see the chopper footage from STL - the homes near the airport? That might tilt more toward tonadic damage - some homes destroyed - none of the slabs wiped clean but walls down - not much remaining. Amazing no deaths - timely warnings and people heeded them apparently. Would be incredible to be in an airplace as some were when that hit.
I don't know of any cases where loaded aircraft on the ground has been hit by a tornado. The crew would feel helpless - they would be helpless. Nothing they could do other than maybe turn into the wind if they had time. It'd be a nightmare for a full scale hit by a tornado on a loaded aircraft on the ground or in the air. Terrible dilemma to see it coming - they probably did not since it's still not certain it was a tornado or if so if there was a visible funnel. In fact the lack of footage of a funnel is surprising at this point - thousands of cell phone cameras out there so if there was a visible funnel somebody has it on some device - or airport security cameras will have it."

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