No tornado outbreak? That's a blessing, not a curse

I shake my head at folks who express disappointment that an expected tornado outbreak doesn't materialize.

Whether it's by e-mail, phone, text message, Twitter or Facebook (or even honest-to-goodness face-to-face conversations!), there isn't an event (or non-event, as it were) that goes by without someone griping about the fact that tornadoes didn't touch down. Or that if they did, the twisters were just short-lived wimps.

I celebrate such outcomes.

I guess I've climbed through too much rubble on too many farms and in too many towns, seen the faces of too many people sifting through rubble looking for loved ones or precious keepsakes, and interviewed too many survivors about what they went through to react any other way.

My fascination with thunderstorms and tornadoes has always been interlocked with an acute awareness of what they can do. I guess that comes from those times in my childhood when Dad would load us up in the car and take us to where that tornado we may have seen the day before struck; or simply seen and helped clean up the damage done to our own farmstead or a neighbor's. Our farm has been hit many times over the years, and I consider it a tremendous blessing that our house was spared each time - more than once via remarkable circumstances.

As far as I'm concerned, every "storm chase tour" should take its groups through a town or by a farm that's been hit, and talk to those cleaning up - so they can be reminded of the high price tornadoes can exact. The "tourists" may not like the "downer" that such a stop may produce, but it's a critical piece of perspective that everyone who has any level of interest in tornadoes needs to have.

I don't blame people for finding tornadoes so interesting - they are an incredible display of nature's raw power. One of the indelible qualities of watching a tornado in person is that time seems to stand still. No matter what vantage point you have, a personal encounter with a tornado (even if it's just as a distant witness) can make you feel mighty small. Powerless. Humbled.

But I cringe every time I hear chasers cheer whenever a tornado touches down. It tells me they've lost the proper perspective. That invariably diminishes them, and it's destructive to the important work of learning about tornadoes so we can better protect ourselves, our livelihoods and those we love.