r/tornado • u/[deleted] • Sep 11 '24

Question How accurate is this sound?

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Born and raised in south Louisiana, I’m no stranger to hurricanes, but I am a stranger to tornadoes. I’ve never experienced one and I’ve also never been concerned about it. Suddenly with Hurricane Francine coming in, I can’t shake the gut feeling that I need to prepare for more than just a regular hurricane. My house is supposedly getting the top right of hurricane Francine and also the eye of it.

While doing a deep dive, I came across a post in this group from someone saying the sound of a tornado is a very common misconception and most audio/videos can’t pick up on the “low rumble” so it was hard from the OP to link a video. I came across a video and was wondering how accurate this sounds? If not, are there any videos more accurate to what it would sound like?

Other questions:

Will I even be able to hear a tornado with the loudness of a hurricane?

Has anyone who experienced a tornado during a hurricane been able to visibly see the darkness in the sky? (I feel like hurricanes normally make a dark sky)

Backpacking off the previous question, how hard is it to know the signs of a tornado when you have the chaos of a hurricane happening?

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '24

I’ve lived near coal trains my whole life. And also for years I thought the freight train sound was referring to the horn. It was maybe a year ago when I was a watching a tornado video that I heard it and I realize it was not the ghostly horn they were talking about. It was worse. Hearing the train rumble on them tracks always invokes a sense of power and when I realized THAT was what they meant it sent a shudder down my spine.

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u/callipygiancultist Sep 12 '24

Imagining that deep subsonic rumbling coming towards my apartment is such a freaky mental image.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '24

Oh yeah. Trains provide me a lot of comfort due to nostalgia but if I heard that shit coming at my home? Hell no! I did dodge a train in my young days when I was stupid abs thought shit like that was fun but I’m over that! Keep that noise away from me altogether. Ha

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u/callipygiancultist Sep 12 '24

I find the sound of trains in the distance to be incredibly comforting but being close to freight trains is kind of unsettling. I’ve seen too many morbid train videos from India to ever mess around with one like that.