Videos Show Severity, Destructive Power And Incredible Snows From Recent Winter Storm

The wild images kept coming out of the South today.
This is Interstate 55 in Mississippi about 40 miles
south of Memphis this morning. Freezing fog,
and the highway turned horribly rutted along with
frozen over tied up people trying to drive and
return to a sense of normalcy Trees are still sagging'
under the ice, too. Photo by Mark Shadlow/Facebook

Everybody has a camera in their pocket nowadays, and there's also a ton of professional videographers out now.  Technology has made the process easier and faster.  

In the past decade or so, we've really seen incredible amount of wild images and video of weather disasters. The widespread winter storm this week brought us a lot of impressive scenes.

One big problem that has cropped up in the past couple years is AI. Many videos are fake, generated by AI.  A lot of it is garbage and you can tell right away it's manufactured slop. But some of it fools even the most skeptical eye. 

That said, I've collected some of the more impressive videos of the ice and snow that have no AI in them. 

So enjoy the real videos below. 

Here's Live Storms Media patrolling Alcom County, Mississippi. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on the arrow with the red background. 

Live Storms Media found even more destruction around Burnsville, Mississippi, with collapsed buildings, trees ahah utilities. As a repeat, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below click on that. 

Another look at Oxford Mississippi. This stretch of road proved too much for some people who tried to venture out despite the fact their community was entirely encased in ice. Hat tip to Storm Chaser Aaron Rigby. The broken record strikes again. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below click on that. 

Further north, it was of course a ridiculous amount of snow. StormChasingVideo brought us the scenes from in and around Dayton, Ohio. As always, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on the arrow.

It looked even rougher in New York City.  The following video by Scott McPartland shows strong winds funneling between the buildings during the height of the storm. Slippery underfoot, too, judging by how many people fell. You can also hear in the video sleet mixing with the snow. My critique: Many people in the video had dodgy footwear for such a storm, and how are umbrellas going to help in that weather?

In any event, click on this link to watch McPartland's wild Manhattan video, or if you see the image below click on the arrow. 

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration got generally high marks for snow removal in the city, but they had to put the snow somewhere. The snowbanks have really walled in cars and snowbanks. CBS New York has the scoop if you click on this link, or if you see the image below, click on the arrow

Don't want to brave the cold to clear the snow? Well, a brave new world is coming in the world of driveway snow removal. Check out this guy's robot who did all the work for him. Note that the robot owner says it does take an incredible amount of patience to set up the snow blowing robot. Once again click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on the arrow

 

Dude Who Flew Drone Into California Firefighting Plane Found And Punished

Damage to the wing of a  "Super Scooper"
firefighting plane after a drone collided with
the plane as it was fighting last month
s big wildfires in California. 

 The person whose drone collided with a firefighting aircraft during the devastating January California wildfires has been caught.  

It's hard enough to fight basically uncontrollable wildfires in the age of climate change, and looky loos flying tones make it worse.

In this case, a man flying a drone ended up crashing it into a firefighting plane. The incident grounded the plane for days due to damage to its wing. 

According to the Associated Press: 

"Peter Tripp Akemann faces up to one year in prison, and a judge will determine his sentence, acting U.S. attorney Joseph McNally said. As part of the plea agreement, he will have to complete 150 hours of wildfire-related community service and pay $65,000 in restitution for the damage to the plane, McNally said."

He can probably afford the fine, which allowed Akemann to avoid jail time. He is a co-founder of Call of Duty studios.

 Akemann launched the drone from a Santa Monica parking structure on January 9.  It flew about 1.5 miles  toward the fire in Palisades, California, but then he lost sight of it. Which is a no-no. The drone crashed into what is known as a Super Scooper that was carrying two firefighters

The airspace were Akemann's drone was flying was under FAA flight restrictions at the time, theregister.com reported.

These Super Scooper planes, from Quebec are piloted so they skim the surface of a lake or ocean, where they scoop up about 1,500 gallons of water. Then the planes fly over the wildfire to dump the water on the flames.  It's pretty fascinating to watch. 

After the collision, the Super Scooper pilot was able to land the plane safely, but it was grounded for several days to repair a hole in the left wing caused by the drone. 

Prosecutors said Akemann did not intend to cause the collision. But, as Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI Los Angeles Field office said, "Lack of common sense and ignorance of your duty does not shield you from criminal charges." 

In a statement to media. Akemann's defense attorney, Glen Jonas said Akemann is "deeply sorry for the mistake he made" and "accepts responsibility for his grave error in judgement.

Even so, as theregister.com reported, "Akemann's attorneys tried to lay some of the blame at the feet of drone maker DJI for not properly geofencing the area to prevent the flight.

The fateful flight occurred days before DJI announced it was scaling back geofencing restrictions in favor of simply notifying drone pilots that they were operating in restricted airspace."  

It's unclear whether DJI had begun doing that scaling back process when Akemann launched his drown. 

 

 

 

 

Wild Kansas Tornado Destroyed Part Of Neighborhood; Drone View Is Incredible

In a still from Reed Timmer's fascinating drone video
of a tornado in Andover, Kansas last Friday, the roofs
of three adjacent houses get sucked up into the 
twister almost simultaneously, center of frame. 
Click on the image to make it bigger and
easier to see.

 Parts of it have been on the news for a couple days now, but you should really check out famed storm chaser Reed Timmer's drone view of a powerful tornado that struck suburbs of Wichita, Kansas on Friday. 

This tornado was different from many you see in the media. Often, tornadoes are partially or fully wrapped up in rain, making them a little difficult or just impossible to see. 

This one, like some you see in the Plains was in clear air. It even looks like the sun was shining on it. 

We also think of major tornadoes as these big, black, wedge-shaped things that roar across the landscape. This was a tall, skinny one that one make an untrained eye think it wouldn't be capable of much damage.

Narrow tornadoes can be incredibly dangerous, though.  The one in Timmer's video shows how powerful they can be.

As horrible as this tornado was, it's fascinating to watch.  I'm making you click on the links to watch it so the clicks go to Timmer's YouTube channel. I don't want to steal his thunder, so to speak. 

Like many strong tornadoes, this one had what are known as suction vortices, which are essentially tornadoes circulating within the main tornado.  Suction vortices are very often what cause the most damage in a tornado.

At the start of the video, you can't really see these suction vortices until they hit a house or building as it mows through Andover, Kansas.

Then the debris and dust makes these vortices obvious.  You can also see the powerful lift this tornado has, lifting roof after roof straight up into the air. At one point, the roofs of three adjacent houses take off almost simultaneously. 

At about 40 to 50 seconds into the video, you see the funnel up above and those suction vortices wrecking the neighborhood. One of those vortices coils up, looking a bit like a curly fry. 

 The first couple of minutes of the video were a wise choice by Timmer, who gives us the same shot three times, one close up, one at mid range and one at further away. This gives you the full perspective on how the tornado behaved in and around Andover. 

This video is going to be studied by meteorologists and structural engineers for years to come. Suction vortices come and go quickly, and I'm sure scientists will be examining this video to learn more about them. 

Those suction vortices are sneaky, too, and should give pause to any storm chasers who want to get too close.  At about 2:47 in, you see the tornado doing its thing, and suddenly, a building and electrical equipment to the left get sucked into the maelstrom. That was a suction vortex that was invisible until building debris got entrained into it. 

Late in Timmer's drone video, you have distant shots of the tornado. You can see how tall, thin, and yes, graceful it was, in a weird sort of way. 

The National Weather Service office in Wichita, Kansas says the tornado was an EF-3 with maximum winds of 165 mph. But you can see from the video how the suction adds to the destruction.  Miraculously, the tornado caused only three injuries and no deaths. Well-timed warnings by the National Weather Service kept the casualty count low. 

The maximum width of the tornado was 440 yards, which isn't huge. And that damage swath encompasses the outer edges of the tornado, where damage wasn't as bad. Judging from videos of the damage, the intense winds that destroyed homes were encompassed an area only about 300 yards wide. 

If Andover, Kansas makes you think of another tornado disaster, you're right. Friday's tornado hit on just two days after the anniversary of an even worse twister that hit Andover and nearby McConnell Air Force Base. 

That tornado, on April 26, 1991 was an F5 that killed 17 people. That 1991 tornado was a much more "traditional" looking one that appeared as a dark wedge that swept through the town.