Some years ago I dated a lass who lived in Norman, Oklahoma, which is about a three to four hour drive from where I lived in the Dallas area. Every other weekend I boogied to her place, and on those other weekends she came to see me.
The National Weather Center is located in Norman. There is a simple reason for this: Norman is located in the Tornado Belt of the U.S., and is well situated to observe violent weather throughout a region of the country cursed by such weather. Norman, which is next door to Oklahoma City, has witnessed much really ugly weather.
There were times when I would be driving back to Dallas and see enormous thunderstorms building off to the side of the road. These things would have the classic anvil shape to their tops, and while they were beautiful to observe I always knew that whoever was underneath them was likely getting the crap pounded out of them by torrential rain, large hail, and possibly worse... like a tornado.
I was once on a Lear Jet (a company aircraft) headed to Tampa, Florida from Texas. The plane passed over the Houston area at an altitude of around 42,000 feet. The pilots managed to skirt around a massive thunderstorm over Houston, and we could look out the windows of the plane and see that the tops of this monster were well above us. Clearly the folks underneath that thing were getting pounded. Lately I learned the tops of that beast reached about 50,000 feet.
Beautiful? Yes. Monstrous? Also yes.
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