Inside a Friggin' Tornado!!

[InChiefsHeaven]

This is awesome:

[DaFace]

Kind of surprised it didn't even damage the utility poles and wires.

[TLO]

Would be a bad time for your automatic windows to fail

[Fish]

That was a bit underwhelming...

[Megatron96]

Pretty amazing. Good thing there was nothing large in there, like a car or a cow.

[arrowheadnation]

To answer a few of the questions that popped up in this thread:

As others said, Dominator 3 has hydraulics that lower it to the ground, but on top of that it has spikes that shoot into the ground to further anchor it.

Someone mentioned that it was underwhelming. Yes it was and that was by design. Direct hit intercepts are ideally only underwhelming (I mean...it's still taking a direct hit from a tornado). When he makes the choice to go for the direct impact or not, he takes into account estimated wind speeds and the amount of debris in the area that could damage, impale, or flip the vehicle. So basically, if the tornado is too violent, he won't chance it. I forget the exact numbers but the Dominator can only withstand like 200mph winds before it flips. This particular tornado had estimated 160mph winds and was in open pastures which made it perfect (hence the power poles not even getting knocked down).

There was mention of the two "impatient" people behind the Dominator. This wasn't a case of impatience. It was a case of stupidity. They were following Reed thinking "this guy knows what he's doing. We'll follow him and stay out of harms way." When he came to that abrupt stop, they had no clue it was to intercept the tornado so they had to hightail it out of there. They got extremely lucky that this was not a super violent tornado or it probably would have sucked them in and killed them.

[TLO]

Need to upgrade the dominator mobile to withstand an EF5

[Kman34]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Kind of surprised it didn't even damage the utility poles and wires.

I was just going to say that....

Quick Tornado story...
In May 2003 a Tornado went though Liberty MO and right though our family business. I live just south of town and watched it from my house in the front yard drinking a beer with my neighbors like an idiot.

I said that I thought it went toward our business and Mom and Dads house so we jumped in a truck and headed that way. Trees and limbs everywhere.
Made the corner on H highway right before B Highway where our shop and business is and whoa! Everything flattened.

When we pulled up I could see my Mom waving out the window of her Cadillac in the rubble of the shop/garage. Police and fire were already there and had to hold me back because of power lines down between me and Mom / Dad and not sure if the lines were still live.

THEY RODE OUT THE TORNADO IN A 1978 CADILLAC!

The shop was destroyed and so was the office. They had just beat the storm to Liberty and instead of going up the hill to home Dad put the car in the shop to keep hail off it.

They were thinking of going next door to the office but it was raining. Dad sees the roof come off the building across the creek and pushed Mom in the car right before it hit.

If they had went to the office they would have died, nothing left of that block building. Somehow that car was basically untouched. No windows broken some damage but Mom drove it till it was totaled by the insurance company. Amazing...

[Vladimir_Kyrilytch]

Pretty wild that Hammock Parties' Murano gets more average damage on his daily commute from flying projectiles than the Dominator did here!

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by arrowheadnation

To answer a few of the questions that popped up in this thread:

As others said, Dominator 3 has hydraulics that lower it to the ground, but on top of that it has spikes that shoot into the ground to further anchor it.

Someone mentioned that it was underwhelming. Yes it was and that was by design. Direct hit intercepts are ideally only underwhelming (I mean...it's still taking a direct hit from a tornado). When he makes the choice to go for the direct impact or not, he takes into account estimated wind speeds and the amount of debris in the area that could damage, impale, or flip the vehicle. So basically, if the tornado is too violent, he won't chance it. I forget the exact numbers but the Dominator can only withstand like 200mph winds before it flips. This particular tornado had estimated 160mph winds and was in open pastures which made it perfect (hence the power poles not even getting knocked down).

There was mention of the two "impatient" people behind the Dominator. This wasn't a case of impatience. It was a case of stupidity. They were following Reed thinking "this guy knows what he's doing. We'll follow him and stay out of harms way." When he came to that abrupt stop, they had no clue it was to intercept the tornado so they had to hightail it out of there. They got extremely lucky that this was not a super violent tornado or it probably would have sucked them in and killed them.

So this was like a weak F3 'nado?

[LagunaSWana]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

it has hydraulics. so it can drop on the ground so wind cannot get underneath it and flip it.

Not to say that it cant.

Tornados peel asphalt off the ground. Seems like puny hydraulics wouldn't stand a chance under the right conditions.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by BWillie

So this was like a weak F3 'nado?

An EF-3 tornado is not weak by any means

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by LagunaSWana

Tornados peel asphalt off the ground. Seems like puny hydraulics wouldn't stand a chance under the right conditions.

I don't think it's necessarily "peeling" the asphalt off as much as it's sand blasting it off, so to speak, with debris from the surrounding area.