Last night, a destructive tornado tore through a community near Charleston, S.C., destroying homes and lofting debris tens of thousands of feet into the air. Tornadoes were not in the forecast last night—this happened largely by surprise. Owning a weather radio is your best defense against unexpected natural disasters like this.

The tornado that struck communities west of Venice, Italy, on Wednesday was given an estimated EF-4 rating, with winds between 168 and 199 MPH. This places it among the strongest tornadoes ever recorded in Europe. The tornado killed one person and resulted in dozens of injuries.

Two videos posted to Facebook this afternoon appear to show an Italian’s intense run-in with a large tornado that tore through the northeastern town of Mira, a community near the coast of the Adriatic Sea just a couple of miles west of Venice. The tornado tore apart buildings and pelted the car with debris as one occupant inside dutifully recorded the dangerous encounter.

Today is the two-year anniversary of the largest tornado ever recorded. The tornado, a multiple-vortex EF-3 (by damage, EF-5 by radar measurements) grew to an astonishing width of 2.6 miles at its widest. The storm killed eight people, including three highly experienced storm chasers caught by the tornado’s explosive growth and erratic movement of the smaller vortices within the larger circulation.

A large tornado tore through communities southeast of Rockford, Illinois, on Thursday evening, part of a larger outbreak of severe thunderstorms gripping the eastern half of the United States. Numerous videos show the strong tornado scraping across the landscape, and several buildings in the area were heavily damaged or destroyed.

An outbreak of severe weather across the southeastern United States last week produced six tornadoes, one of which produced major damage in the small Mississippi town of Columbia. Within one of the many buildings destroyed by this tornado's 165 MPH winds was a man who caught the whole ordeal on video.

Two years ago today, a large EF-2 tornado tore through the center of Mobile, Alabama, causing significant damage and injuring several people. Aside from helping put to rest the myth that tornadoes can't hit cities, the storm came perilously close to being a disaster.

A group of scientists have created an absolutely spectacular 3-D computer simulation of an EF-5 tornado that tore through central Oklahoma on May 24, 2011. The animations show the mesmerizing mechanics of how nature's most violent storms form and operate.

One of the great side effects of millions of Russians using dashcams is that it provides us with insane videos pretty regularly. Most of the videos of the Chelyabinsk meteor were caught by dashcams, and now we have this incredible video of a tornado destroying a neighborhood.

A man in Gray, Tennessee stood on his porch yesterday afternoon and filmed a small tornado no more than 20 feet away from his house. The tornado swept across the street and passed between his and his neighbor's homes, pelting the man with debris as he rushed to go back inside.

A tornado in northeastern Tennessee near La Follette produced a strong debris signature on Doppler radar imagery around 600PM EDT on Sunday. The tornadic storm occurred as part of an unusually strong severe weather outbreak taking place across the easternmost third of the country this afternoon.

A tornado struck a campground in Cheriton, Virginia around 9:00 this morning, killing two campers and injuring 26 more as the storm swept through the area. A news helicopter flying over the Cherrystone Campground for WAVY shows dozens of trees torn down along with many tents destroyed and strewn about.

Deadspin covered the fallout from a television station in New York breaking into the last few minutes of the final game of the World Cup for a tornado warning in the station's viewing area. When it comes to severe weather, news stations put viewer safety over programming every time, and people who complain about it deserve to miss their shows.

After touring damage in central New York left behind by yesterday's strong tornado that killed four people, Governor Andrew Cuomo said "We don't get tornadoes in New York, right? Anyone will tell you that. Well, we do now." Except he's wrong. Really wrong. Really, really wrong.

A couple in Saskatchewan, Canada got a better backdrop than they bargained for when a tornado touched down a couple miles down the road from the wedding. The photographer took full advantage of nature's fury and took the most badass wedding photos ever taken.

While the National Weather Service is often on top of their game when it comes to severe weather, sometimes they miss the mark and make a major error. In this case, they failed to issue a tornado warning on a confirmed tornado until 18 minutes after it first showed up on radar.

A gas station in Colfax, Wisconsin took a direct hit from an EF-1 tornado last Friday, and the dramatic event was caught on video by a surveillance camera directly in the path of the twister.

Today is the 17th anniversary of the Jarrell, Texas tornado, and Kinja user and weather enthusiast Stephen Uzick has a good write-up about the incredible dynamics that went into producing this deadly F5 tornado back in 1997.

A group of oil workers in North Dakota had to flee by car on Monday as a large tornado came straight for their camp. As they were leaving, they took incredible video of the tornado from almost directly underneath it.

A "large and extremely dangerous" tornado touched down near Albany, New York today, and the National Weather Service couldn't issue a warning in time thanks to a nationwide communications issue within the agency.