"Debris ball"

For anyone who is at least minimally sentient and socially aware, the outbreak of tornadoes is not a "TYWK," but I wanted to blog two items.  From Paul Douglas On Weather blog comes the image above -

Here's a reflectivity view from Birmingham (NWS) Doppler around 6:30 pm Wednesday, showing a 1/2 to 1 mile wide tornado. The energy beam from the Doppler is actually reflecting off debris swept up in the tornado. Absolutely incredible.

And one doesn't want to be a gawker at other people's tragedy, but The Big Picture does have a gallery of 23 photos, from which I've selected these two:

One of many impressive videos is at Vimeo; you can understand why the videographer was hyperventilating.  And a survival story is here.

Photo credit top Marvin Gentry/Reuters, bottom Rogelio V. Solis/AP.