>Yikes! I've been in 3 tornadoes and one small wind tunnel during my life so far. I'm not sure which is worse - a bad hurricane or a tornado - probably the tornado except it passes much quicker.
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>Everytime I have been near a tornado, it sounds like a train passing right through the house. When I was further away, it was completely silent. Usually it is completely silent right before as well, probably because the tornado sucks up all the wind and everything else around is calm. During the daytime, the air will turn a thick green as though you could cut it with a knife right before one strikes.
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The silence is the really eerie part, and the part that should make you think of shelter - NOW.

A powerful thunderstorm sucks air in and up like a giant vacuum cleaner because of the low pressure. The more powerful, the higher the suction. You can have lightning very close by and not hear it because the sound is going up into the storm.

Usually very close around a tornado there is a LOT of lightning, and you generally won't hear it.

Personally I like watching the storms out here in tornado alley, but when it gets real quiet in the middle of a big one we head for the basement whether we've had a weatheralert or not..