Since I didn't manage to take a photo of the tornadoes that were in Nashville two weeks ago, today I had a very rare "opportunity" here in my own town. And while I am extremely excited about finally witnessing a tornado less than half a mile away, the many families who lost their homes and businesses in Murfreesboro and all over Middle Tennessee, are not. If you have never seen a tornado, or the effects of one, take a look at this post and see what a $1,000,000 home looks like after a tornado came through.

After the tornado warning was issued around noon today, I got in my car and drove to a long, four-lane road (Broad Street), and waited for some sign of tornado activity in the sky. I drove a few blocks away, and I saw something that looked like smoke at the end of a huge, low cloud, except it was flowing downwards. I was sheltering my car under a gas station, and by the time I got in my car and started driving towards the funnel cloud (I hope my wife doesn't read this part), it had become a full size tornado coming straight towards the gas station. Needless to say I immediately changed my course and started racing the opposite way, but I was close enough to where I could tell what color and material the rotating debris was.

If you have never witnessed a tornado up close (relatively speaking), you have probably never prayed seriously for your life :). I did. And somehow, I managed to get out of the path of the tornado and from a safe distance, snapped a few shots, one of which is posted here today. It all had happened so quickly, and the rain was pouring so hard, that I didn't even have the clarity of mind to focus my camera properly.

The craziest thing I saw right before I took this picture, was a propane tank (or something highly flammable) blowing up. The explosion was a deep, bright blue, with an orange top. Very fascinating!

In a matter of minutes, the tornado was gone, and I turned around, driving towards the same gas station I was before it all started. The gas station across the street was in pieces, but fortunately everyone was safe and uninjured. Later I found out that the tornado had done some serious damage to a neighborhood not too far from where I was, and that in the south part of town there was another tornado, which did some serious damage as well.

I hope that this will be the last photo of crazy sky I will post. And if you are wondering if this really is what I saw, take a look at the original photo here and judge for yourself. As I do with all cloud photos I take, I set my camera to a relatively low contrast so that I can get more dynamic range, and adjust the contrast as I see fit when I do the post processing.

Anyway, it's late and I have to get back to editing more wedding photos for our photography studio (Made in Murfreesboro Photography). I may actually post a few of those on The Obvious... hope you won't mind a little glamour and romance ;)

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you haven't done so, you can subscribe here to receive an email whenever a new photo is posted on The Obvious.

Titus

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4-16-09 UPDATE. If you live anywhere in the Murfreesboro-Nashville area, you will probably have seen this photo featured in your newspaper or local TV station. Some of those posts were authorized by me, some weren't. In any case, if you are interested in purchasing this image for personal or commercial use (digital file), please send us an email to info@madeinmurfreesboro.com for a quote. Thanks to all of you who posted links to my website when displaying the photo online!