I remember Twister. I've also seen clips of people chasing them and having the weather catch up with them. Not for the faint hearted.

Storm chasing has always fascinated me ... remember that movie Twister?  Mind you, I wouldn't wish the mayhem tornadoes cause on anyone ... very scary.

I must say that's a good link, Mira. I've just had a look at all the ones that are working. I think I'll bookmark it right now.

I think it just means that the media are not allowed to pinch it.

And now he's out of it. I like the way it says "not for broadcast use."  I wonder why.

I'm transfixed by Keith Fronk's cam on the ChaserTV website at the moment ... he seems to be right in the thick of it.

LOL!

Mira Bilis, thank you. Have you ever thought of compiling a book of tips?  Lol. My daughter bought me 2 books of Laptops for Dummies but I still manage to miss the point. The same daughter did me a cross stitch sampler saying "For my mother, who never met a purpose she couldn't cross!" I don't know WHAT she's getting at.  LOL!!!

The tip for finding the names of rivers, streams, creeks and other geographical features in Google Maps, is to set the view to "Maps" and then choose "Terrain" from the drop down menu ... it works for me anyway.  :)

N Q, I just had another read and Willow River is a paradise for fishermen, and women! The area has quite a history but it's the fishing that sells it to me! Lovely.

About Google, I've found the same thing. One day I was having a look at an area I know very well and I went along the RN98 in one year, turned left and found myself in the past by several years. It was odd to see the place minus the buildings that I KNEW were there. Also, I've come across a Google man with skis but never an umbrella!  LOL

MD it is a pretty town along the 2 rivers and the downtown district which is the part of town built in the 1800's but the rest of Hudson looks like an industrial town with way too many housing developements ! and of coarse with 2 rivers comes high prices for housing and high property taxes.

Google man has come through my town twice in the last 6 years, once during the Fall and another time during the summer. You can walk down some streets and see lots of greenery which suddenly turns to leafless trees !

N Q, it was The Hudson that I saw. The Marina looks lovely. On Google maps I couldn't see the name of the river. The area looks beautiful but of course, Google man only goes out in nice weather!

LOL MD I see you've been googling :)

The Willow river is the smaller of the 2 rivers that run through my town, actually the Willow River ends in my town where it flows into the St Croix river which is a larger river.

I went looking for a skyview of the St Croix and came across this picture that shows the Hudson Marina and the width of the river -

http://s30.postimg.org/3wya736hd/overhead753_0_jpg_itok_N69asbl_V_timestamp_139879.jpg

N Q, is it Willow River that flows past Hudson? It looks a big river.

N Q, it's very sad. Our news says that 16 people are confirmed dead. Looking out of my window now I can see clear blue skies and sunshine over the moors. Hard to think what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic.

and it's been a very bad start to the season ! I hope we end out with a quiet spring/summer after this batch of storms go through.

Mira, I didn't realize that. So it goes from horrible snow to tornadoes. That sucks.

Sadly, tornado season is just getting started.  :(

Mira Bilis, thanks for the links, particularly the first one. I looked at cams (on opentopia) in all of the affected states and happily saw no damage. On that first link the weather still looks like it hasn't finished being bad.

I've been following the storm/tornado news on the chasers website ... http://www.chasertv.com/  and on James Spann's Ustream channel ... http://www.ustream.tv/channel/james-spann-24x7-weather

Scary stuff.  :(