Sorcha -

If the news reports were accurate, the velocity was there but the volume of air involved was smaller than we see in the wide open spaces.

In some places we see itty-bitty ones that we call "dust devils," that might tip a cow - but not a pickemup truck even if they hit dead on. They hardly ever do much damage.

One particular place along the west side of S. Washington state that we drove through quite a few times had pretty good sized ones nearly every time we went past, 100 feet across at the ground and about 150+ feet tall, that would give anything in the path a real wallop; but they never seemed to go anywhere. And in that particular place they'd have had to go a long ways to find anything to blow away. They were really big for dusters, but didn't appear to have any moisture in them, and moisture is usually a characteristic of a tornado.

If they were big enough (and tall enough) to hold the hail up, long enough for it to grow some, they could rightly be called tornados, but they do come in a broad range of sizes. (And sometimes they travel in bunches of small ones that add up to a big'un.)

The guy should'a known though that it's hard to get one to stop and pose for ya' up close. Usually, if you can hear it you're too close to get much of a snapshot.

John