Just as we were wrapping up Severe Weather Awareness Week on ThorntonWeather.com, disaster struck the nation’s south.  Dozens of tornadoes brought death and destruction and at the same time Mother Nature allowed us to learn valuable lessons.

Extreme weather events have gotten more and more attention thanks to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other forms of social media.  Television shows like Discovery’s Storm Chasers and shows on the Weather Channel feed a seemingly insatiable desire to see these events.  They give the impression that anyone can stare down major storms with few repercussions but that is far from the truth.

Professional weather watchers, meteorologists and storm chasers cringe at some of what we see when these events happen.  People with seemingly no clue of the destructive and unpredictable nature of what they are looking at put themselves in harm’s way for 60 seconds of fame.

The severe weather outbreak of recent days highlights the folly of those uninitiated and untrained in these phenomena.  One particularly striking video has emerged of a man in Wilson, North Carolina watching as a tornado approaches, talking on the phone and shooting video.

The video (below) is scary to watch as the man is oblivious to what is coming toward him at 50mph.  We implore all ThorntonWeather.com readers to do the smart thing – seek shelter when severe weather.  Don’t become a statistic for a photo or a video.

For more on social media and the lessons that can be learned, check out this story from the Natural Disasters Examiner.