Re: tornados

[Stephen Puckett <spuckett@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Unfortunately they came through after dark...

Glad the tornado missed you.  Sad you missed the tornado - it would 
have made a nice stereoview to see a cow floating up front, 
Dorothy's farmhouse in the back, the tornado in the middle, and 
various tanker trucks, vans, barns, etc., providing additional 
stereo planes.  I spent most of my life in Texas so know about 
tornadoes, hail, etc.  I once had to hurriedly change a tire so I 
could outrun a coming small funnel in Austin.  I didn't finish in 
time (kept getting blown around too much) but luckily it missed me 
by a few blocks.  

We've been in Portland OR 10 years and are getting ready to move 
East FROM the Pacific NW because my wife and I are getting edgy 
about earthquakes and volcanoes!  Wifey suggested the Northeast 
rather than the Southeast because 'there aren't those darn 
hurricanes and tornadoes'.  I got a job offer in Albany NY and 
while we were there checking out the locale Hurricane Beulah 
(Bertha?) came through - which dampened our enthusiasm.  During 
our last visit to some of her relatives in Massachusetts, a 
tornado touched down 5 miles away with much thrashing of trees 
and loss of power.  

I might take hailstone pictures like I take those for snow and 
rain: get under an overhang far enough away (say, 8') from the 
nearest subject (which may be the 'wall' of precipitation) for easy 
viewing.   The overhang also protects the camera and me.  I like a 
little bit of blur to give a sense of motion and to help make the 
stones/flakes/drops more pronounced.  Heavy precipitation makes for 
a lot of stereo planes.  It might be fun also to freeze a bunch of 
stones in mid-air with a few splashing in water and/or pummeling a 
hapless pedestrian trying to fend them off.  It may be difficult, 
of course, to find the right compensation for the model  ;-)