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Hello, all. I'm Luke, and I live in Southern Illinois, one of the areas that was hit by what's been called an "inland hurricane" last Friday. Winds went up to speeds of 105 mph, and golfball-sized hail came down in the middle of the night before the hurricane hit. Not only did people lose their homes and their cars, but they've also lost family members. Electricity has been down since the hurricane hit on Friday afternoon, and has only just been restored to my town. I'm one of the lucky ones- only a few of our trees fell down, and we didn't get any damage to our house other than some shingles flying off the roof.

There's not much else I can say on the subject. Was anyone else hit by this? If so, how bad is the damage there?

No, it's definitely more of a hurricane than a tornado. My dad's been through a couple before and he says it was almost exactly like it. There was a tornado that touched down at one point, but it was very small and immediately disappeared back into the clouds... Plus, it was before the hurricane even hit. The cloud mass also looked like that of a hurricane.

I get what you went through. (I have been through Katrina, Rita, and Gustav.) I'm sorry it's like that, we had power out for 17 days before it was returned, and there were others with out power for more tha 30 days. I hope that the buildings and everything are made safer because of the "inland hurricane."

(And we are both lucky. We lost twelve or so trees, and only had slight roof damage from Katrina.)

It was probably a supercell thunderstorm. We've had hurricane-style storms in the UK. The UK never gets hit by hurricanes, just storms resembling them. That doesn't make them any less terrifying, though. While we may get huge storms, the climate we have can't support a true hurricane. I presume the same would go for you. A hurricane needs water and plenty of it (but the water needs to be warm, which it isn't surrounding the UK), in order to become powerful.

It's actually the first I've heard of it, though. I hope everything turns out okay for you.